'People are machines.' Gurdjieff 🤖 👾

This is the central part of the fourth way teaching. It must be fully realized if one wishes to develop and evolve. A full total realization that YOU are a machine. If one can realize this fully , the whole picture changes , and one can begin genuine work , for oneself and for the work. until this is fully realized (the horror of it ) no work on oneself is possible. None at all.
Man IS a machine. And that includes YOU. And ME.
Like I say , most things are not realized in the work , only talked about.

[hermesnoelthefourthway]

The central aspect of the work is the full and complete realization that YOU are a machine. Buttons are pressed and levers moved and one responds exactly like a machine would.
Until this is REALIZED FOR ONESELF, no work upon oneself, and the work is possible.
A certain degree of horror comes with the realization.
That one IS a machine in a sleeping world surrounded by other machines.
Noel

[hermesnoelthefourthway]

"THE REALISATION THAT ONE IS A MACHINE is underlined in this teaching as the first step towards inner freedom and individual evolution."
Maurice Nicoll . The commentaries, vol 3. Section : inner separation, page 918

[knightlight]

Yes! A man who has not worked on himself is an automaton, a sleeping machine, and ultimately food for the moon.

[Agapismene]

Yes, painfully so .
Struggle of The Magicians.
Break Pattern any way
you can!

[gregoryblaska]

For a long time -- particularly, in relationship to this statement -- I confused the terms MACHINE and AUTOMATON. An Automaton is a mechanism which is worked by itself. A Machine is a mechanism worked through as a result of the efforts of an outside entity or force. As they are both, the Automaton and the Machine MECHANISMS they appear to be the same but their definitions reveal an important difference. When I realize I am a Machine I can begin to put myself under a better operative, if need be. That can then be the beginning of Maurice Nicoll's "first step towards inner freedom and individual evolution"
Because an Automaton is self-operated by its very name it has no choice but to be moved around forever in non-evolving circles. An Automaton will never be able to be other than it already is.

[BrenR]

I’m so frustrated because the realization that I am a machine (I take issue with the idea that I can stop being one by the way, seems like an unnecessary “wishful thinking” type claim that doesn’t make any sense but this is just a side thought) profoundly awoke me in 2012. It was incredible (back to my side note again, I don’t think that means I magically ceased being a machine). Then I fell back asleep after maybe a day or whatever it was… The frustration is that, whenever I remind myself of being a machine and try to internalize it… It just doesn’t awaken me like it did then. Presumably because the shock factor is gone…

Edit: My gripe with the “ceasing to be a machine” thing isn’t really important, though. It’s probably just semantics anyway. I just think of it as becoming a different, self aware, more present machine. Awakening is just being equated with going from machine to human and I guess that’s fine.

[Suburbangeek]

A serious thought: While "Man is a machine" was a powerful statement a century ago, does it resonate in an increasingly digital world?
[NOTE: A topic I shall write on, later]

[DoctorBast]

Funny I was thinking earlier how my art has shown me what a jupiter aspect is and how many people there are in the world understand that level of conversation. Where the jupiter aspect of our consciousness breaks the neverending circularity in a rising pattern, just like a hero quest really..Its trippy and very abstract metaphoric stuff I suppose..hope alls well