Kesdjan body Gist

Kesdjan Body: The Real Gist

It is our Kesdjanian nature that gives us a presence and form of existence in the ‘Eternal’ realm. Without this side of our Being, we would not be able to experience the ‘flow of time’, as we would be ‘submerged’ within such a ‘stream’, stuck in the ‘linearity’ of ‘causality’.

It is due to our very Kesdjanian nature that we can ‘incarnate’, that we can experience the ‘three dimensional’ world of space and time. Our Kesdjanian nature, as related to our Essence, provides the ‘Being’ which enables us to enter and experience the world of linear causality without becoming lost in it. It is our Kesdjanian nature that makes us ‘Beings’, and to ‘have’ Being means to have an ‘Eternal’ presence, a ‘Wholeness’ and coherence, that persists outside of the line of time and causality. It is only due to this wholeness and coherence that we can experience the ‘course of events’ that constitutes a ‘lifetime’.

Our Essence and Kesdjanian nature provides the very ‘structure’ that enables and supports our existence in time. Without this, there could be no coherent ‘flow of time’ in terms of subjective experience. It is through our Kesdjanian nature that ‘one moment’ may appear to give way to another such that a sense of ‘consistency’ persists. ‘Events’, which appear to be ‘separated’ in time and space, can be held together and related to each other in a meaningful way only by virtue of our Kesdjanian nature.

Our Essence holds an ‘eternal pattern’ that is ‘projected’ and unfolded into the line of time, and again, it is only due to this that we can experience ‘persistance’ and coherence in time, such that we can ‘remain ourselves’ throughout the flow of time and causality. In this sense, it is our kesdjanian nature that ‘goes ahead in order to prepare a place for us’. This is to say that our Essence and kesdjanian nature is always active outside of the line of time, in the dimension of ‘eternity’, and works so as to produce a coherent and meaningful experience of time;- a ‘lifetime’.

As man in general has become so identified with his physical nature and the appearances of the senses, he fails to recognise the most obvious fact of his very Being. This is to say he fails to recognise his ‘eternal’ nature by virture of which he can have any coherent experience of the ‘flow of time’. He fails to recognise his own form of Being and presence in the ‘eternal’ dimension outside the line of time and causality. This also means that he fails to grasp the significance of the ongoing action which enables his presence and experience in the line of time. He fails to recognise the nature of his own ‘eternal pattern’ that is expressing and unfolding itself in the linear line of time, the ‘finer’ or ‘subtler’ ‘structure’ that enables and supports the ‘coarser’ structure of temporality. Hence man in general remains in a more limited ‘world’ than is possible and natural to him, he remains in the limited experience of causality where every ‘moment’ of his life is separated from every other.

The ‘now’ or ‘present moment’ of the general man is one of extreme poverty as compared to the form of ‘now’ or ‘present moment’ of his essence and kesdjanian nature. The ‘present moment’ of his essence embraces and contains all the moments of his linear lifetime as one simultaneous whole, and hence the mode of ‘existence’ and consciousness of his essence and kesdjanian nature is radically different to that of his physical nature and his general form of consciousness. The development of the kesdjan body and maturation of the essence consists in gaining more consciousness and presence in/of his eternal nature and developng the form of relationship between this and his temporal nature. This work is to bring about the ‘flowering’ of his eternal pattern, such that its nature is fully grasped in the eternal realm and is truly fulfilled in the line of time.

The general man appears to live isolated and divided in time, such that for him ‘past’ and ‘future’ have no substantial basis or presence other than as a mental ‘image’. He only tends to connect with his past and future by way of a limited form of memory and anticipation. Hence a man may say that there is no such thing as past or future, only ‘now’, but such a man tends to fail to recognise the nature of the limited form of ‘present moment’ or ‘now’ that enables him to make such a statement. The ‘now’ of the general man is merely the limited ‘sphere’ of awareness provided by his senses, it is the ‘now’ of the physical body. The ‘horizon’ of bodily awareness is what keeps the past and future in their present form of experience or conception for the general man. What falls beyond this ‘horizon’ may then be regarded as ‘non existent’ or as merely the result of fantasy etc. The general man fails to recognise that different kinds of present moment or now may be experienced depending on the kind or form of consciousness that is present.

A man may develop both his temporal and eternal natures, he may develop the form of consciousness in each. The development of consciousness in the eternal dimension is different to the development of consciousness in the temporal dimension. Unfortunately, it appears that this is rarely appreciated even by those who are engaged in some form of ‘work on themselves’, and hence people can think that development or ‘extension’ of consciousness along the line of time can produce results in the eternal dimension. For example, real ‘self remembering’ concerns our eternal nature and is not something that is ‘prolonged’ in time. Hence we find the ‘tragi-comic’ ‘worker’ who believes that he can permanently ‘extend’ his consciousness in or through time, who considers that ‘being awake’ concerns ‘being awake in/through time’, when it really concerns waking up in/to the eternal side of our nature.

What many conceive as ‘being awake’ is simply a geater coherence of the temporal form of consicousness, and hence such people still remain essentially blind to their own eternal nature. Such people fail to truly awaken in their essence and kesdjanian nature, and hence they remain separated or divorced from their own ‘subconsciousness’ as described by Gurdjieff. The ‘subconsciousness’ is the form of consciousness of the essence and kesdjan nature, and Gurdjieff regards this as our real consciousness. This is the consciousness upon which the true transformation of the Work depends. The ‘waking consciousness’, which is the temporal form of consciousness of the physical nature, has little significance in the transformation or maturation of the essence and the realization of the individual eternal pattern, and yet this is what most people ‘in the work’ are engaged with. This is of course understandable given the position of the general man, where he is separated from his own eternal nature and generally only knows his waking consciousness, only knows his form of existence and presence in time.

The general man can have moments of heightened experience, where he feels a sense of ‘the eternal now’, but this experience remains mediated by his physical and temporal consciousness. The man still remains essentially screened from his eternal nature, and hence his access to it in these moments is of a limited and distorted form. A development of Being and the subconsciousness is needed in order to develop the form of presence and existence that one has in the eternal and kesdjanian realm. Again, it is the ‘Being-body’ of the Kesdjanian nature that supports coherent and meaningful experience in the lime of time, and hence we need to become conscious in this side of our nature in order to realize our own individual potential, the flowering of our own essence. It is only via an awakening of the consciousness of our eternal nature that we can realise the individual significance of our own life. It is only this that enables us to ‘live our own life’ and engage in the unique work of realizing our own individual essence pattern. It is this full flowering of this eternal pattern that can give rise to true individuality and ‘Real I’.

All the notions of practical methods and receiving instruction from others are seen to be ‘childish’ in the light of a direct understanding of one’s own eternal pattern. This is why it is ‘Sacred Conscience’ that is regarded as the only true ‘teacher’ of man, and his only ‘hope’ for his own ‘re-demption’, as this very conscience concerns the consciousness of our eternal nature;- our subconsciousness. Connecting with conscience, receiving direction from our own conscience, concerns gaining contact with our eternal nature, such that the consciousness that contains the whole of our temporal life can inform us as to the realization and flowering of our own unique essence pattern. Such conscience is calling to man, reaching out to him, in each of his temporal moments. It is a hand reaching out to man, his own hand, from his eternal nature to his limited temporal consciousness. Of course, man in general fails to recognise this form of self-communication that is underlying each moment of his temporal experience, he fails to see the signs and testament that permeate his temporal experience. Hence it is said that the wings of man’s higher natures beat in vain in their attempts to realize their potentials, as they fail to stimulate the ordinary consciousness of man.

It is man’s inner ‘discombobulation’ that prevents him from recognising his own conscience that is reaching out to him each moment from his eternal nature. Hence the general man lives in a kind of twighlight world where neither his eternal nor temporal nature is fully embraced. In general, man lives in a distorted apperance of temporality, he remains mainly centred in the nature of his senses combined with a kind of ‘miscarriaged’ experience of his inner world. The consciousness of his eternal nature remains ‘collapsed’ or ‘submerged’ in that of his physical and temporal nature, and hence everything in his experience is ‘topsy turvy’. This is really what it means to say that ‘man is asleep’ and that he is subject to the ‘malficient effects of the Organ Kundabuffer’. The various acquired experiences, notions, and tendencies come to form a screen and ‘circus mirror’ which prohibit him from realizing his true nature and/or cause him to misperceive and misundertand his true nature. Hence the general man is a ‘strange creature’, neither being ‘man’ nor ‘not man’, neither one nor the other, and this is also what is meant by the term ‘the third sex’ as used by Gurdjieff in Beelzebub’s Tales. This is ‘man the misconception’, not yet truly born into either the world of time or the world of eternity.

Until the essence and kesdjan body is sufficiantly developed, it can be quite accurate to say that man merely remains as an ‘image’ of a man, a potential man, a ghost man who may yet be ‘made flesh’ in the way of substantive eternal Being. Again, unfortunately, it appears to be rarely appreciated what this development of the kesdjan body actually consists of. Many mistake subjective experiences of the ‘etheric’ body- the ‘subtle’ side of the physical nature and potential medium between the physical and kesdjan bodies- for the kesdjan body itself. Many also become caught up in the lower capacities of this side of our nature as are related to such things as ‘astral travel’ etc. While these can be important and necessary developments and experiences, they are not the heart of the matter when it comes to the realization of our individual essence pattern;- which is the unique work that each indivdual is required to engage in themselves in order to possibly fulfil the potential that has been given to them, and which constitutes their own real work of ‘self-creation’.