Excertos de THUS SPAKE BEELZEBUB

A primeira aproximação às ideias de Gurdjieff, como expressas em sua inicial (e monumental) série de escritos: uma visão apocalíptica, terrível, da destinação do homem em relação ao Universo, das persistentes e profundas ilusões do homem, da crescente perda de controle do homem, da propensão delirante do homem para o autoextermínio. Seu fado é desordem, novamente desordem, mais e mais desordem.

A perspectiva assustadora se há alguma: todas as nossas crenças na capacidade humana de progresso sem fim, toda nossa antecipação de um mundo melhor encontra aqui uma direta negação.

Mas não fomos avisados? Gurdjieff não designou seu “Relatos de Belzebu” como “um criticismo objetivamente imparcial da vida do homem”, no qual seu propósito ostensivo era “destruir, impiedosamente, na mentação e sentimentos do leitor, as crenças e as visões, nele enraizadas por séculos, sobre tudo existindo no mundo”?

Assim de agora em diante, cabe a nós. Podemos recusar ir adiante — virar as costas a esta assombrosa visão e tentar esquecê-la. Além do mais, não é a primeira vez que, na iminência de desencobrir a verdade da situação real do homem, profetas avisam seus ouvintes contra a mera curiosidade: “Cuidado! Isto não é bebida leve! — se não estais sedento, melhor deixar passar…”

Agora, estamos sedentos? Realmente somos capazes de engolir esta verdade? Somos então avisados de um novo perigo: “Não seja crédulo. Olhe cuidadosamente. Não tomes qualquer coisa como dado: espere até que tenhas experienciado por ti mesmo. E isto pode levar tempo, muito tempo — uma vida talvez”.

Somos pacientes? Hoje em dia tudo nos faz ter pressa. A aceleração rege todas as nossas funções, se queremos acompanhar os tempos atuais. De fato tentar e ser paciente definitivamente vai contra a marcha atual.

Estamos prontos? Estamos completamente cientes de nossa situação, e suficientemente corajosos para tentar?

The following is a transcript of Gurdjieff’s words from a meeting of his French group, held in 1943. Gurdjieff said:

“For example, in Beelzebub, I know, there is everything one must know. It is a very interesting book. Everything is there. All that exists, all that has existed, all that can exist. The beginning, the end, all the secrets of the creation of the world; all is there. But one must understand, and to understand depends on ones individuality. The more man can be instructed in a certain way, the more he can see. Subjectively, everyone is able to understand according to the level he occupies, for it is an objective book, and everyone should understand something in it. One person understands one part, another a thousand times more.”

“Now, find a way to put your attention on understanding all of Beelzebub. This will be your task, and it is a good way to fix a real attention. If you can put real attention on Beelzebub, you can have a real attention in life. You didn’t know this secret. In Beelzebub there is everything, I have said it, even how to make an omelette. Among other things, it is explained; and at the same time there isn’t a word in Beelzebub about cooking. So, you put your attention on Beelzebub, another attention than that to which you are accustomed, and you will he able to have the same attention in life.”

Gurdjieff indicates here that The Tales is an objective work of art. It is vitally important to understand this when reading it. In In Search of The Miraculous, Ouspensky quotes Gurdjieff as saying:

“In real art there is nothing accidental. It is mathematics. Everything in it can be calculated, everything can be known beforehand. The artist knows and understands what he wants to convey and his work cannot produce one impression on one man and another impression on another, presuming, of course, people on one level. It will always, and with mathematical certainty, produce one and the same impression.

“At the same time the same work of art will produce different impressions on people of different levels. And people of lower levels will never receive from it what people of higher levels receive. This is real, objective art. Imagine some scientific work—a book on astronomy or chemistry. It is impossible that one person should understand it in one way and another in another way. Everyone who is sufficiently prepared and who is able to read this book will understand what the author means, and precisely as the author means it. An objective work of art is just such a book, except that it affects the emotional and not only the intellectual side of man.”

“Do such works of objective art exist at the present day?” I asked. “Of course they exist,” answered G. “The great Sphinx in Egypt is such a work of art, as well as some historically known works of architecture, certain statues of gods, and many other things. There are figures of gods and of various mythological beings that can be read like books, only not with the mind but with the emotions, provided they are sufficiently developed.

It will help to ponder the meaning of this. The Work seeks to raise the “level of being” of the practitioner. Gurdjieff suggests that even a person who has never met the Work will get something from The Tales, but those whose level of being is higher will be able to understand more.

View The Tales as a sacred book, as an objective work of art.

Gurdjieff s writings are sacred writings. In an age and within a culture where little if anything at all is treated as sacred, we need to act exceptionally. We need to accept The Tales as scripture at a similar level to other sacred writings.

[Robin Bloor, To fathom de gist III]