Welcome back to this tour through G. I. Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson.
The last three instalments saw how Beelzebub, a higher three-brained being, had pretty much accomplished his mission on Earth to vastly reduce the amount of animal sacrifice taking place – a practice that had become so prevalent that its psychic repercussions were beginning to leak out into the planet’s surrounding space-time and warp the finely balanced cosmic balance.
Beelzebub’s journey had taken him through the areas known in modern times as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the Gobi Desert, and India, and now he was ready to return to his spaceship which had been moored in what we know as the Caspian Sea. Instead of returning by the same route, however, Beelzebub decided to detour via the area that encompasses modern Tibet, and that trip is the subject of this chapter. Gurdjieff, it would appear, has decided to give his readers a bit of a break at this point because, unlike the previous few chapters, this one doesn’t really turn up anything terrifically new. Instead, Gurdjieff, through Beelzebub, homes in on some especially absurd human traits that are the result, he says, of humankind’s almost wilful misinterpretation of certain ‘truths’ imparted by successive ambassadors periodically despatched by the Supreme Source to help the benighted inhabitants of Earth get back on a path proper to their three-brained nature in the pursuit to realise their true psycho-spiritual destiny. Man’s persistent twisting out of context of those objective ‘truths’ is, says Beelzebub, itself a legacy of the lingering effects of the organ kundabuffer, which had been deliberately implanted in humans to prevent them perceiving Objective Reality while the Cosmic Overseers were sorting out the cock-ups caused by what sounds like their own incompetence and lack of foresight during Earth’s formative years. So, let’s begin . . .
Because the route through Tibet that Beelzebub had decided upon was highly unusual and considered very dangerous, he was forced to organise his own caravan and hire the necessary beasts of burden along with their keepers. Travelling with his aged servant, Ahoon, Beelzebub’s path took him way out into the wilds, where dangerous one- and two-brained creatures (lions, tigers, hyenas and such like) stalked the caravan. Travel by day was relatively peril-free for the three-brained humans because the animals that hunted them transubstantiate energy through the mechanism of sleep during daylight hours, whereas the opposite is true for humans who reenergise through sleep during the night – and for that reason, Beelzebub and his entourage had to set careful watch whenever they made camp.
The one- and two-brained carnivorous predators obtained their ‘first-being’ food – that is, food for their planetary, or physical, bodies – from the planetary bodies of their prey, and had developed their cunning in obtaining that food to such a very high degree that Beelzebub and his team had to exercise extreme care not to lose anybody or anything to the stalking packs.
Although the emphasis on the behaviour of predatory animals seems a little overdone in this early part of the chapter, my feeling is that Gurdjieff is deliberately highlighting the ‘lower’ or even ‘physical’ level functions of an organism, so that they will lodge in the reader’s mind as a contrast to what comes later, when he reports the fantastical absurdities that humans dream up as behavioural norms when they should be exercising ‘higher’ level reasoning functions as befits three-brained creatures.
The awful journey took, says Beelzebub, longer than a month, but the caravan eventually turned up at a settlement called Sincratorza, which was populated by settlers from Pearl Land (India) and which eventually became the main centre for the area we know today as Tibet. Beelzebub’s party requested and were granted, shelter for the night, safe from the ravaging nocturnal beasts. And now the main thrust of this chapter begins . . .
Beelzebub discovered that these settlers from Pearl Land called themselves the ‘Self-Tamers’ and they claimed to be followers of the teachings of the ‘Saint Buddha’ we encountered in the last chapter, the religion supposedly formed from which, Beelzebub had already studied.
At this point, Beelzebub explains in an aside to his grandson, Hassein, that one of humanity’s major problems where it concerns religions – of any type or era – is that it seems helpless to prevent schisms from forming and, thereby, spawning sects. The problem is further exacerbated because every single newly formed off-shoot of the religion would never dream of calling itself a sect, because each one considers itself to be the only true version or interpretation of the original teaching, and it is all the other breakaway groups that have got it wrong and deserve to be called sects. This constant bickering only stops, says Beelzebub, when one of the ‘sects’ manages to acquire a sufficient number of guns and ships; whereupon it becomes the ‘dominant’ religion. And isn’t that the truth?
Anyway, true to this particular trait of dysfunctional three-brained humanity, the ‘Self-Tamers’ of Sincratorza had split from the mainstream of the religion in Pearl Land that was eventually to become Buddhism, to follow its aspect known as ‘suffering-in-solitude’. If we recall from the previous chapter, that concept was originally preached by the messenger from the Supreme Source as taking the opportunity to work on the development of our individual Objective Reason by not getting annoyed and knee-jerk reacting when upset by our fellow humans. Many of Saint Buddha’s adherents, though, misinterpreted the message and took it to mean that we humans are supposed to self-isolate and work through things on our own, away from our fellow creatures; and for that reason, the so-called ‘Self-Tamers’ had upped and left the populous Pearl Land and come to the isolation of Tibet. And it is at this point that Beelzebub drills down and illustrates to Hassein – using the religious practices of the ‘Self-Tamers’ as an example – just to what utterly ridiculous lengths humans are prepared to go to satisfy what their own interpretation of a religious ‘truth’ is, no matter how much pain, misery, and suffering that interpretation will cause not only themselves but also everyone around them.
Beelzebub learnt from the Sincratorzans that one of the main reasons for relocating to such a remote area was that, while still in Pearl Land, they’d evolved their own special brand of ‘suffering-in-solitude’ which appears to have been so extreme that their fellow humans tried to prevent them from practising it. So they’d upped and left, and, by now understanding their own extreme behaviour was a bit hard to swallow for ‘normal’ humanity, had cloaked the practice in arcana, available only to initiates.
Upon arrival in Sincratorza, however, the ‘Self-Tamers’ wives and families got wind of what was going on and exactly what kind of ‘suffering’ their menfolk were planning to undergo, so there was mass dissent which, of course, resulted in yet another religious schism, and the remaining ‘Self-Tamers’ wandering off to ever more remote places in order to be free to practise their own peculiar form of ‘suffering’. And it was around this time that Beelzebub turned up.
Beelzebub explains that the faction who were persuaded by their wives not to go ahead with the peculiar ‘self-suffering’ were known as Kathoshkihydooraki while those that chose to find even more remote spots at which to practise their beliefs were called Orthodoxhydooraki. Now Gurdjieff, here, is simply playing on the meaningless terms taken upon themselves by the various parties in the aftermath of any religious schism, but I wonder if George R. R. Martin has read this episode, especially as his fictional Dothraki in A Game of Thrones were inspired by, amongst others, the Mongols, who originated in more-or-less the same part of the world in which this chapter of Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson is set (just a thought, ha ha).
Beelzebub also learnt that the Orthodoxhydooraki had set up a monastery in a region not too distant from where he then was, so he set out to discover just what, exactly, that faction had taken it into their heads to do to help rid themselves of the effects of the organ Kundabuffer as they had interpreted the teachings of Saint Buddha back in Pearl Land.
So, when, on their onwards journey, Beelzebub’s caravan stopped for a rest before the gates of that monastery, he requested permission to enter and see what they were up to. At first he was surprised because the monks, unlike those of other religions and orders who jealously guard their so-called ‘arcana’ because it makes them feel elite and exclusive (their ‘swagger’ Gurdjieff calls it), these monks actually welcomed him into their inner sanctum. As an aside, Gurdjieff, through Beelzebub, also takes a sideswipe against all ‘secretive’ religions and societies at this point, saying that they have become so adept at veiling their meaningless ‘secrets’ and rituals behind a screen of ’wiseacring’ that it was often difficult for even those who were capable of Objective Reason to see through all the smoke and mist. And I’d like to add that that observation is not just true of so-called secret societies and religious factions, but can be seen alive and well in many so-called ‘academic’ publications and political ‘manifestoes’. It’s Spin, you see . . . and even Gurdjieff was willing to concede that Spin, if well enough executed, is able to confound even the most objective mind.
But anyway, back to the narrative. Beelzebub describes the monastery as consisting of a stoutly built outer wall surrounding a spacious square with a large, main building erected in its centre. That main building was equally divided between an area for the normal day-to-day life of the monastery, and another in which the monks practised ‘manipulation’ techniques in preparation for the period of ‘self-suffering’ that would constitute the remainder of their lives.
Now, around the inside of the monastery’s outer wall, a row of small, strongly built cells were constructed. Each cell was completely walled in except for a small opening near ground level just wide and deep enough that a hand could be passed through it.
When a monk was deemed ‘ready’ he would be walled into one of these cells for the rest of his life, during which time he attempted to ‘tame’ his emotions and control his thoughts, and he had to sustain himself on a single piece of bread and a small jug of water passed through the small opening every 24 hours. The ‘care’ of the monks locked up in such a way was carried out with great reverence by those who would eventually replace them in the tiny spaces. Beelzebub, understandably shocked to his core that a very simple directive from Saint Buddha had been twisted into such a cruel and barbaric practice, says that when the immured monks, deprived of any meaningful sustenance and sunlight, eventually passed away, they were half-starved and incapable of movement. And yet, so warped was the mentality of that particular sect (or so brilliant were its spin-doctors) that candidates for being incarcerated behind the tiny walls were literally queuing up for the opportunity to have it done to themselves; in fact the place was so popular that large population centres even had agents who could help the committed get to the monastery, even from as far away as Pearl Land.
Beelzebub was totally gobsmacked by the goings on at that (to him) terrible place and left very heavy of heart. The onwards journey back to the Caspian Sea area obviously took the caravan through the high Himalaya as Beelzebub comments at length on the great height of the terrestrial ‘projections’. The next part of the chapter sounds rather strange as Beelzebub links the abnormally fast growth of these ranges with the cause of earthquakes. It’s all quite odd because he seems to be saying that excessive peaks somehow disturb Earth’s atmosphere so that it periodically ‘hooks’ onto the atmosphere of both other planets in the solar system and any comets that happen to be passing by, and the areas under which the ‘hooking’ takes place experience earthquakes as a result. Hmmm . . . not sure about that one; but maybe we can wring some kind of allegorical sense out of it at the end of this post, especially as Beelzebub adds that if the growth of the Tibetan mountains continues at the same accelerated rate, a rather major, cosmic-sized catastrophe is on the cards.
At this point in the narrative, Ahoon, Beelzebub’s aged manservant, interjects with a piece of news he’d recently picked up; namely, that the abnormal growth of the Himalayas was already causing enough general cosmic concern that the Archangel Looisos was going to be despatched back to the planet to check it all out – a snippet that appears to calm Beelzebub’s anxiety.
And so, the third flight of Beelzebub to the planet Earth drew to a close. The caravan eventually came to a river that flowed into the Caspian Sea and from there, Beelzebub and his entourage (minus the humans along to help, we are to suppose) made the return flight to Mars.
Beelzebub says that, although he kept tabs on the events on Earth by viewing events through his marvellous Teskooano which we read about in a previous chapter, he didn’t have occasion to return there for a very long time. The interim time on Mars was spent studying a massive civic work, which is meant to explain how Mars’ so-called canals were formed. It’s all very far-fetched (for instance he claims that the face of Mars visible from Earth is dry land whereas the hidden half is covered in water) and so, in my opinion, because it drops in a quick mention of the ‘sacred Heptaparaparshinokh’ or the Law of Sevens, we ought to, again, look for a deeper meaning here – and I’ll give that a go in a minute.
The chapter ends with Beelzebub saying how all his time was taken up in the massive scheme to channel water from one side of Mars to the other using canals, and how he occasionally flew to Saturn to visit his friend, the raven-like Gornahoor Harharkh (the inventor of the wonderful Teskooano) and king of that planet.
So, what are we to make of this episode? Well, Gurdjieff has built up a picture over the preceding three chapters, the main purpose of which – in my opinion – is to illustrate how humanity almost wilfully neglects to employ true Reason (with a capital R) when it comes to assuming cosmic responsibility and taking its right and proper place in the All and Everything. It is guilty of operating using only the two ‘lower’ centres, those of physicality and emotion (=passion), hence its ‘knee-jerk’ reaction to many situations. When a being ‘reacts’ using only the two lower centres, then the result is passion let loose, which results in violence, greed, lust for power – it results in anything, in fact, that is designed to ‘feed’ the physical and material needs of the being, rather than further its psycho-spiritual aspirations. So entrenched is humanity in its absorption with itself – you can call it selfishness, solipsism, self-interest, whatever you want – that even when a genuine outside attempt is made to help the two lower centres unite and work in concert with the higher Intellectual centre (as Gurdjieff allegorically uses the ‘holy messengers from the source’ to do), the message (or advice or guidance or wisdom – again, call it what you like) is totally misinterpreted into something that applies back to the physical needs and aggrandisement of the individual. The way I see it, Reason is a tool that should complete us. It should aid us, as individuals, to look outward – not inward – and help us identify and discover our true place in this huge, wonderful, cosmic machine with its eternal and kaleidoscopic dance of energies. Put really simply, Gurdjieff is saying that, while we insist on putting our physical and material needs first, we stand no chance of advancing spiritually.
I would imagine that the reason Gurdjieff (in the last few chapters) chose religion as his vehicle to get that message across, is because it is (a) something we can all immediately recognise, and (b) it is probably the single most self-serving institution yet dreamt up by mankind. By that, I mean that religion has been – indeed, is – used to control society, foment wars, institute hierarchies (priesthoods etc.) and amass wealth and power. Religion, when you really sit down and think about it, is, as Gurdjieff points out, a totally and utterly ludicrous concept. Even prayers, Gurdjieff points out, are generally rather selfish attempts to get ‘higher powers’ to intercede on our behalf. Religion is the ultimate tool by which mankind can abrogate responsibility for its own development by passing the buck to a being or beings for whose existence there is absolutely no evidence.
But does religion have any beneficial uses? Well yes, in my opinion it does have some. It can provide comfort in times of distress and loneliness – but it is still, even then, a tool that mankind uses to shirk having to work things out for itself. I rather suspect that Gurdjieff, being very practical in outlook, would have viewed religion used in that respect as a tool, a kind of ‘safe house’, to be used because it provides a temporary reprieve while we sort our lives out – but he would still expect us to inject the personal energy and move on from that low point in our lives.
Gurdjieff also very graphically illustrates that, because religion rests on such an absurd foundation, it is open to extreme manipulation by self-interested parties. He demonstrates this perfectly when he has even Beelzebub take advantage of humanity’s gullibility by spreading false rumours to the people of Maralpleicie that the invisible spiritual ‘police force’ was actually the disembodied spirits of sacrificed animals.
So the rampant lunacy caused by the (often deliberate) misreading of religion is the perfect analogical vehicle for Gurdjieff to demonstrate what happens when only two of the three centres (or brains) are engaged. Using religion to get his point across also allows Gurdjieff to introduce his ‘messengers from The Source’ (such as Saint Buddha) who, in my opinion, represent the force of True Reason, or the attempt by the higher intellectual centre to pervade the other two centres so that a being can operate in three-brained harmony. In this chapter, as in the previous ones, that Force of True Reason (the words of Saint Buddha) are bent and twisted out of all recognition by the humans who hear them, but, this time, the effects are even worse. The constant schisms into which the religion is constantly splitting must, I’d say, be illustrative of the constant separation of the various centres or brains within a human being, with each new sect/centre developing its own interpretation of which direction the being should be taking and considering itself superior to the others. This inability to unite the centres is extremely deleterious to the individual being because, as Gurdjieff has already warned us, if we complete our planetary existence without coating ourselves with the higher being ‘bodies’, then that’s it for us as that particular individual and the three strands of the Okidanokh unravel and zip off back out to the universal energy pool in search of a less lazy ‘formation’. That, I think, is what Gurdjieff is getting at with his description of the practices of the Orthodoxhydooraki who, of their own volition, lock themselves up behind a wall which, tellingly, is already within a walled enclosure. They exist, as it were, locked inside themselves. Gurdjieff, through Beelzebub, describes the pathetic end of these sad individuals: their existence, so full of deprivations, half-starved and motionless, came quite to an end. And Gurdjieff warns us that we are all in danger of ending up like that unless we pull our psycho-spiritual finger out. For every pitiful existence that came to an end in that locked material (=physical) box, there were queues of others from all over the place waiting to take their turn. Those queues, my friends, I am afraid to say, refer to us lot.
I’ve gone on a bit there, so I’ll wind up this episode with another couple of quick observations. Interestingly, at one point, Gurdjieff extends his religious schism analogy to talking about one sect gaining mastery over the others after it acquires a sufficiently powerful arsenal – and that, I take as another warning. Our centres/brains MUST learn to act in harmony. If one gains mastery (in the sense of dominance) over the other two, the being becomes imbalanced. If the physical centre gains dominance, it opens the door to gluttony and disease; if the emotional centre gains too much dominance, psychological and emotional issues will ensue; and too much intellectual dominance can result in both neglect of the other two centres and an overbearing arrogance.
And, as far as the strange comments about the Himalaya and the canals of Mars are concerned, they, too, can be interpreted as representative of the interaction of the centres. The rapid and colossal growth of the Himalaya range which was supposedly heralding another planet-wide catastrophe, is likely a comment on the dangers if the purely physical is allowed to run out of control – probably a comment by Gurdjieff on the increasingly materialistically bent of members of his own contemporary society. The canals of Mars, on the other hand – an environment that is tellingly not part of Earth – could be illustrative of what can happen when a ‘project’ begets a fruitful outcome. In the case of Mars it is the creation of a productive environment when water (emotion) is channelled in a controlled way (intellectual) onto a rocky plain (physical). In other words, Gurdjieff is offering the allegorical scenario of the positive outcome that is the result of our uniting the three centres. Balance, you see; it’s all about balance.
OK, that’s all for now. I hope to see you in the next episode in which Beelzebub journeys to Earth for the fourth time.
