Some years back I was involved in a car accident. A man in a truck slammed into the back of my small car on the highway and totaled it. The man who caused the accident seemed very decent. He admitted fault at the scene and did what he could to help me deal with the police. He even called a tow truck for me. The car was not drivable as the trunk and the back bumper were pressing up against the back wheels in such a way that they could no longer turn.
My shoulder was injured in the accident and for a time I needed to see a chiropractor and a masseuse. This meant dealing with the insurance company of the man who hit me in order to be compensated. The agent that I dealt with was not sympathetic and did what he could to keep me from collecting any money. After two or three calls I was so confused by his attitude that I questioned him about it. I guess the attitude that I expected was that he personally would have no problem with me being compensated for my injuries, but that he had to uphold the restrictions and regulations set up by his company. But in fact, I was wrong. His attitude was that the accident was my fault simply because I was the victim, that I had attracted it. That his client had admitted that he was at fault was a detail that didn’t matter to him. Just the fact of attracting bad luck meant to him that I deserved whatever suffering I had to endure, and he felt no responsibility in his role as his client’s agent to assist me in any way.
I didn’t talk to him after this—I hired a lawyer—so I don’t really know what was behind his opinion of me. I can imagine that his job in dealing with people injured in accidents was not easy, and maybe his attitude was simply the way he buffered not being able to actually assist people. But there was something about his manner that made me suspect that he actually believed that his good luck was the result of his actions, and that my bad luck, in this case, was punishment for my actions. He told me that I was not blessed. I think he really believed that he had a right to judge me because he felt that he was favored by fortune and I was not.
Of course he knew nothing about me, and I found out little about him, but I wondered if his confidence that his actions determined his good fortune would be shaken later in his life when he was injured or became sick. Would he accept that his bad fortune was also the result of not being blessed?
Certainly his attitude showed an inability to observe the world with any objectivity. To believe that God or providence punishes the bad and protects the good is the kind of attitude you expect from a five-year-old, not from a grown man who is out and about in the world. Besides if good fortune means not to suffer, then we are forced to admit that almost all great and really good men throughout history were not blessed. Even if we, for the moment, remove the ideas of conscious evolution from the discussion, we still have to account for the universally accepted maxim that difficulties build character.
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men. ~ Seneca
The greater the difficulty, the greater the glory. ~ Cicero
Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky
It seems that we could just as well say that suffering is good fortune and that an easy life leaves us unchanged and childish. But this isn’t quite right either because even though suffering can make a man, it can also destroy him. Men who succumb to self-pity and envy when they suffer are changed, but not for the better. So suffering itself can hardly be used as the measure of good fortune. If my shoulder hurts, it does me no good if I sit in my room and sulk about it or if I envy everybody I pass in the street because they are able to move about with ease and lift heavy objects without pain.
I think we must say instead that good fortune is to possess the knowledge of how to transform difficulties into strength or goodness or wisdom; or at least say, along with the Stoics, that when difficulties come as an inevitable part of our lives, they are indifferent, and that it is only our judgment that makes them seem evil.
What disturbs men’s minds is not events, but their judgment of events. ~ Epictetus
Of course most people will think that to possess knowledge, or a discerning judgment of events, is not good fortune; they will say that it is better to have houses and cars and money in the bank than knowledge. Because surely knowledge is a pitiful thing compared to wealth and possessions. In fact they will say that good, practical knowledge is acquired only so that we can come by security and possessions later on; and that the evidence of this is that so many doctors and lawyers and stockbrokers were willing to spend eight or ten years studying so that they could have a comfortable life. But do not doctors sometimes get sick? And do not lawyers sometimes get disbarred or injured? And is not the stock market so volatile that every so often stock brokers lose all their money and their reputation and become so wretched that they stand on window ledges of high buildings ready to jump? So really to study the law or medicine or economics, despite being practical, is certainly no guarantee of a secure or happy life.
The only way we can have a guarantee of good fortune is to find a way of thinking and living that transforms events that we now think of as bad fortune into events that we can consider good fortune. Because if history and life have taught us anything, it is that even though some men suffer less than others, no man is entirely spared.
There is a saying, attributed to Solon, that no man can be considered happy until after his death. I never really thought much of this saying because it seemed to me that if a man led a happy and productive life and then died badly, you could still call his life happy simply because the amount of time he was happy far exceeded the month or week of suffering that brought about his death. I also thought that in comparing men’s lives, you cannot really hold death against a man too much because it is a fate that is waiting for us all. But Montaigne had a different take on this axiom. He saw death as a test of our beliefs and philosophy.
I leave it to death to test the fruits of my studies. ~ Montaigne
This made sense to me. How many times have we read or watched biographies of famous actors or athletes or novelists who lived what is generally considered a blessed life, and who in the last years or months of their lives became bitter or depressed or angry because the public that had once admired them had moved on. According to what Montaigne thought, we can view their anger or depression as an indictment of their way of living. Put plainly we cannot call their estimate of wealth and fame good fortune because it failed to be meaningful and supportive at the hour of their deaths. In fact, in the end their values failed them.
In the fourth way it is a little different because we are taught from the beginning to account for death in everything we do. Self-remembering and divided attention and transforming negative emotions are all attempts to connect to the higher emotional center and the higher intellectual center, which are the parts of us that survive death. In this work good fortune means to have a connection to higher powers, also called higher school or C Influence.
If this contact [with higher powers] is possible, it is possible only through higher centers. Our problem is how to approach higher centers. ~ P. D. Ouspensky
If we are going to imagine that we can create an astral body and have an existence outside the physical body, then we must also imagine that there are those who have gone before us and have realized what we want to achieve. In other words, we must imagine that some of those who have sought what we are striving to realize, have survived the death of their physical bodies and continue in an existence outside of what we ordinarily perceive. We must also imagine that it is possible that they would take an interest in helping us.
There are many theories in religion about why some people are favored by God and others are not. Unfortunately the idea that only a few are chosen has given birth to many misconceptions, and these misconceptions have had some pretty horrific consequences. Of course there are different esoteric theories about being chosen as well, but I will only give you one theory here. It is this: if you make consistent efforts to self-remember and to connect to higher centers, you will attract help from higher school.
One of the consequences of changing our state is that we also change the influences we are under. If we learn to live in essence, and not from false personality, we will see many things about nature and about other people that are normally hidden from us because of the veil of personality. In the same way if we can begin to have extended periods—I’m talking about an hour or two here—where higher centers function, we can see things about the invisible world that are normally masked by essence and personality.
The gods, willfully banished from the modern drawing room, have in fact always been with us, and only man asleep has failed to see them. ~ Alex Horn
What we want is to become a pure instrument of C Influence, to have our focus on our inner work, and to not think too much about our own desires and needs, or too much about what we think we can or can’t do.
Anyone who has really felt the idea that one can do nothing in the same realization must see that very great things are required by higher powers to be done through whatever instruments are available. ~ Rodney Collin
This much is certain: we cannot wait for C influence to come to us and prove that they exist, to some extent we need to pull ourselves up to their level. Again everything depends on connecting to higher centers. Sometimes the knowledge of higher school is presented as a cipher, but the real key to understanding this knowledge is not a secret interpretation; it’s higher centers, or illumination, or inspiration, or whatever you want to call it. Really what is missing in being able to connect to C Influence is that we are asleep to their presence. If we begin to awaken we have a chance, but without consistent work on self-remembering, C influence will be, at best, a belief. And a belief will not have the power to transform our bad fortune into the self-remembering we need to connect to higher powers. What we are striving for is to be able to perceive when they are in the room with us; we want to be able to feel when they are near and when they are helping us. And to know this, to really know it, is our good fortune.
Hello William page,
Very Good morning to you,
I read your artical slowly, because my English language not good, but i understand it,
If possible translation in Hindi language, any artical related to Identification, self observation, other spiritual world related,
I hope you understand my meaning.
-ANIRUDDHASINH ZALA
Aniruddahasinh,
None of the articles on Be Present First are translated into Hindi. But you might like this site: http://beperiod.com/hi/
Adversity is not the test of a man.
The test of his character is how he handles having power over other people.
Laurel, yes, and there’s that wonderful quote from Lincoln: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
Still one does not negate the other. The problem in talking about having power over other people is that most of the power we, as ordinary people, have over others is imaginary, just as most of the power others have over us is imaginary.
Also there is a big difference between ‘standing’ adversity and transforming it . Enduring suffering is one thing; changing it into good fortune or presence is another.
The popular B influence expression ‘your being attracts your life’ could be a favorite of that insurance agent.
It’s a nice sounding substitute for ‘he deserved it!’.
I found this very interesting in many ways.
“So really to study the law or medicine or economics, despite being practical, is certainly no guarantee of a secure or happy life.”
I have studied all of them for the very opposite reason, and it has been the study of these subjects along with religion and other subjects like history, that has helped me immensely in not only understanding the system of the fourth way and other esoteric teachings, but in understanding why society believes it needs economics, law, religion to begin with, and what the meaning of death is through these various perspectives.
Although it is often stated that we do ‘nothing’ and things just happen, my studies into economics, law, and religion have verified for me that our system of economics, and the law which is created by it, are part of the source which causes the very negative’s we are attempting to struggle against in the fourth way. I believe Ouspensky had a better knowledge of economics than Gurdjieff, but that is just my opinion.
Someone who renounces worldly possessions and material wealth does not need to live in a cave or a hole, or be secluded from society. What they are renouncing is a perception that we can secure our existence through proprietary property ownership. However, it takes one to study all these subjects to realize that private property ownership is the greatest burden on mankind and therefore obviously a major source of negative emotions, identification and so on.
I am unable to reconcile the possibility that Jesus, Buddha or any other great spiritual teacher did not have a thorough understanding of the principles behind money, economics, and the law thereof. But what I do find interesting is that considering everyone is effected by money, property, and economics, one way or another, and considering that all major religions and philosophies of the world were born at times when money use, economics, and property ownership were at their peaks, it is the least talked about, or liked, subject on earth.
Dean: I would only add this: perhaps the theories of recurrence and reincarnation can explain why certain spiritual figures do not have to go through the process of verifying that the excessive acquisition of money and property is a dead end. Perhaps they have verified this in another life, and can therefore depend on that understanding from an early age.
Hi William,
It is interesting that you referred to the word ‘excessive’ and attached it to the acquisition of money and property, whereas in my post I was labeling the event itself, irrespective of how small or excessive it is, as being the crux of the issue.
I witnessed my parents become very rich very sudden by winning the lottery only to end up bankrupt, and then discovered this occurs to 95% of lottery winners, but that the same statistic holds true for businesses that will fail and for people who will retire with insufficient funds. Obviously, money itself is the issue for people, not excess money. But its really the principles behind it, because as the Bank of England said in a recent publication, lack of trust is the condition necessary for money to exist. Before money we had credit systems, and always after money systems collapse we have barter systems. But in between we have lack of trust.
I feel I may be taking this away from the point of your post and so I apologize, but it does bring out a burning question I have has since reading some of Gurdjieff’s accounts of his father, wherein he said that his father was a poor businessman because he was too honest.
This has always caused immense struggle in me because it does not allow any clear conviction of whether Gurdjieff believed it was OK or not to take advantage of another in any bargain, even if in reality, to earn a living (as they say) requires one to compete or the business they work for to compete.
It is said in the fourth way we must be a good householder, but I much rather the term good trustee, and not in the sense of trustees today who work for money, but trustees in the older sense where they were called usufructuaries and not proprietors.
But then again, who am I to argue with Gurdjieff?
Dean: you clearly have have unique perspective on money because of your parents’ experience. I had my first job at sixteen, and then had maybe ten more jobs by the time I was twenty-two. My attitude toward money is that when I have it, it buys me the freedom to fund the projects that interest me. Simply to use money to buy five cars and summer homes and servants seems to me to demonstrate a lack of creativity and intelligence on the part of the wealthy who live that way. That’s my biggest complaint about the rich in America: that they seldom do anything interesting with their money. You can only be so comfortable; after a point it’s just greed and power.
Good householder is very important in the work, and it refers to values. A good householder is opposed to lunatic, which has wrong values, and tramp, which has no values. To spend all your time earning as money as you can and dying very rich is lunatic. To fail to see the usefulness of having some money is tramp. The trick is balance.
You make some great points about the rich..I was only telling a friend of mine a very similar thing – they lack creativity, and to add to this, they know they can have anything they want they become so bored, that there’s only one thing they know that will excite them – make more money!
hummmmmmm
interesting how the work sorts out our life. money manipulates our life or we manipulate money, it has value.
there is nothing good or bad about money. it can improve or even save our lives.
the real story is value motivates the will. your example exhibits attaching to false or unreal value and projecting it. this leads no where.
most people start in pretty much the same place as your adjuster.
the work ideas sort out our lives and give possibilities.
merry christmas William
Tate: you wrote, ‘there is nothing good or bad…’
This is a paraphrase of a famous quote from Shakespeare (Hamlet) that I considered including in the article.
‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so…’ ~ Shakespeare
It’s a funny little shock.
Having or not having money isn’t the point of what I wanted to say. It’s an example, and I only used it because it’s what most people think of as good fortune. I could have just as well used being beautiful or handsome or having robust health or being artistically gifted.
Hope to see you soon.
I did an interesting exercise once where I asked a heap of people I knew if they had the choice between receiving a one-time only payment of 1 million dollars, or to have all their bills paid for the rest of their life (assuming they live the same lifestyle) but you weren’t allowed to go out and earn money, almost all chose the million dollars…
it was a predictable response but considering that both would free up peoples time to do more creative and voluntary work, yet the millionaire would live in constant fear of losing his or her money, and so would need to learn or find ways to invest it etc, and when they do eventually lose it as 95% will, they will then have to go out and earn money again, it seemed that if people took the time to think about it, they may change their position.
whenever I read religious texts regarding masters and slaves i always have tended to view the master as the more “fortunate” and the slave as less so..but is that reality? does not the master, who is most likely the creditor/lender/asset/land owner etc, always in fear of losing his assets? and is not the slave fed, clothed, housed in order to be able to serve?
…yes obviously there are bad masters and poorly treated slaves, but even Caesar brought in laws that forced slaves to be treated well
it really brings home this quote you posted William
‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so…’ ~ Shakespeare
Two of the greatest stoic writers were Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and one was an emperor and the other was a slave and cripple. If you read their works side by side, you have the impression that it was Marcus Aurelius who was more burdened by his role.