"In Tiflis Gurdjieff was staying with a few of his disciples. He was inside a camp and outside was a canal, dry, and people were collecting wood inside it. The winter was coming and more wood would be needed; they were thinking to stay there for three months to meditate. Suddenly somebody opened the canal, not knowing that these people were carrying wood through the canal. Gurdjieff was inside the tent, and from there he suddenly shouted, "Stop!" Those who were cunning, they thought, "He is inside the tent, he does not know what the situation is. If we stop we will be drowned. And he is not looking, so just jump out and stop there!" Except one single disciple, everybody jumped out. They waited, but when they found that the water was coming up to their noses, then they thought, "It is too much. Now this spiritual search is going to finish me." They jumped out. Just one disciple remained as he was. Water was flowing over his head and Gurdjieff came running out, jumped into the canal, and pulled out the disciple. He was almost unconscious, but he was transformed. Just that moment of decisiveness created an integration in him: Whatever happens, if he has agreed to the master to stop then he will stop; if it brings death then death is welcome. In that welcome of death do you think you can remain the same as you were before? You become steel. This is what Gurdjieff calls crystallization; you for the first time become an individual. He brought the disciple to the tent, forced the water out of his body, warmed the body, wrapped it with blankets. And to the remaining disciples who had jumped out and were still standing outside, he said, "Just get lost! You are not the people to be with me. I am too dangerous for you. And you are too cunning, you are not sincere." In New York he was giving a demonstration of the stop exercise. He had a group of thirty disciples, trained for years - dancers, musicians - and he was giving a demonstration. There came a point when the dancers were coming to the edge of the stage, and even the people who had gathered to see became afraid that the dancers were going to fall from the stage. And exactly at that moment, Gurdjieff, who was standing by the side smoking his cigar, said, "Stop!" Everything stopped. People started falling over each other, but nobody moved, everything was silent. Many had fallen off the stage, many had fallen over them; the people who were in the hall were standing in awe! They could not believe what was happening. That silence and that total agreement, that contract with the master and the fulfillment of it was so beautiful, so dignified that even the people in the theater became silent. They had never seen such a thing. Now, who is going to join such a man? He had his own ways. It was an ancient exercise of the Sufis. And an ordinary man seeing him smoking a cigar will say, "What kind of enlightenment is this? This man is smoking a cigar and he goes on smoking his cigar and everybody has fallen. Somebody may have got a fracture; the musicians have fallen, their instruments are broken - what kind of man is this? And he is smoking a cigar and standing there enjoying the whole scene!" But the reason needs tremendous understanding. He never wanted, in the West, to call himself enlightened, because that would create a distance and people would not be able to understand. Already what he had brought was so far away that to call himself enlightened would make it more difficult."
"In Tiflis Gurdjieff was staying with a few of his disciples. He was inside a camp and outside was a canal, dry, and people were collecting wood inside it. The winter was coming and more wood would be needed; they were thinking to stay there for three months to meditate. Suddenly somebody opened the canal, not knowing that these people were carrying wood through the canal. Gurdjieff was inside the tent, and from there he suddenly shouted, "Stop!"
Those who were cunning, they thought, "He is inside the tent, he does not know what the situation is. If we stop we will be drowned. And he is not looking, so just jump out and stop there!"
Except one single disciple, everybody jumped out. They waited, but when they found that the water was coming up to their noses, then they thought, "It is too much. Now this spiritual search is going to finish me." They jumped out. Just one disciple remained as he was. Water was flowing over his head and Gurdjieff came running out, jumped into the canal, and pulled out the disciple. He was almost unconscious, but he was transformed.
Just that moment of decisiveness created an integration in him: Whatever happens, if he has agreed to the master to stop then he will stop; if it brings death then death is welcome. In that welcome of death do you think you can remain the same as you were before? You become steel. This is what Gurdjieff calls crystallization; you for the first time become an individual.
He brought the disciple to the tent, forced the water out of his body, warmed the body, wrapped it with blankets. And to the remaining disciples who had jumped out and were still standing outside, he said, "Just get lost! You are not the people to be with me. I am too dangerous for you. And you are too cunning, you are not sincere."
In New York he was giving a demonstration of the stop exercise. He had a group of thirty disciples, trained for years - dancers, musicians - and he was giving a demonstration. There came a point when the dancers were coming to the edge of the stage, and even the people who had gathered to see became afraid that the dancers were going to fall from the stage. And exactly at that moment, Gurdjieff, who was standing by the side smoking his cigar, said, "Stop!"
Everything stopped. People started falling over each other, but nobody moved, everything was silent. Many had fallen off the stage, many had fallen over them; the people who were in the hall were standing in awe! They could not believe what was happening. That silence and that total agreement, that contract with the master and the fulfillment of it was so beautiful, so dignified that even the people in the theater became silent. They had never seen such a thing.
Now, who is going to join such a man? He had his own ways. It was an ancient exercise of the Sufis.
And an ordinary man seeing him smoking a cigar will say, "What kind of enlightenment is this? This man is smoking a cigar and he goes on smoking his cigar and everybody has fallen. Somebody may have got a fracture; the musicians have fallen, their instruments are broken - what kind of man is this? And he is smoking a cigar and standing there enjoying the whole scene!"
But the reason needs tremendous understanding. He never wanted, in the West, to call himself enlightened, because that would create a distance and people would not be able to understand.
Already what he had brought was so far away that to call himself enlightened would make it more difficult."
@deraltepfaddeutschland my pleasure. Of course, it is from a talk by Osho
Love and hugs ❤️
❤
Osho call gurdjieff rascal saint
Rascal? Why ?