How to split the personality from essence

Marko Says: December 30th, 2006 at 7:02 am Alan said: "the Fourth Way material can be better read as metaphor rather than as literal fact”

Most of it has to do with the way the development of essence works and, like alchemy, can be understood in a very literal way if you decipher the code. I don’t claim to have deciphered the code, but because I know the dimension of essence I can understand what he is refering to, f.i. with the hydrogeen stuff or how to split the personality from essence. Essence is a personal spiritual dimension instead of the impersonal of the Indian traditions almost everybody in the Integral movement seem to solely incorporate. In a former thread about Sufism I already explained that I miss this dimension of essence in the Integral theories so far.

Almaas integrated a lot of Gurdjieff’s work. He worked together with E.J Gold, but translated it into more psychological language, which for me made it simpler to understand and (more importantly) to apply. Although I don’t know E.J. Gold very well, of what I know he would fit into my view of the integral person: fourth way/ sufi teacher, architect, philospher, scriptwriter for Hollywood, jazz musician, painter and writer. I wonder how much sleep that man gets though.

Andy, I would like to see you starting a thread on Gurdjieff’s ideas and how to place them in an integral context, just like you did with these view examples in this thread. I wouldn’t have the feeling like you were 'selling’ Gurdjieff (I myself do not want to do that with Almaas either b.t.w.). But I think there would be specific interest from the people on this forum, including myself.