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A ‘hasnamuss’ is a certain type of very dangerous person that Gurdjieff wrote about in Beelzebub’s Tales and Ouspensky spoke about in his lectures published in The Fourth Way and A Further Record. In order to understand what it is and what it means to us and to the world at large, we must understand three other terms used by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. They are ‘householder,’ ‘tramp,’ and ‘lunatic.’ As it happens none of the words can be defined in relation to their ordinary meaning. A ‘householder’ does not necessarily own a house, a ‘tramp’ may be wealthy and admired, and a ‘lunatic’ may be the head of a corporation or an important politician.
These terms all refer not to the role that the person plays but to the values that motivate his actions, or, as it often is in the case of tramp, the lack of action. Put simply a householder has correct values, a tramp has no values, and a lunatic has wrong values. Unfortunately the word ‘values’ in the last forty years has been used so much by certain hypocritical conservative politicians in the United States that it has lost its meaning and has become an unfashionable topic, especially among intellectuals. The word ‘priorities’ has become a replacement word in many circles.
But what I mean here by values is not difficult to understand. A value is what is important to you. But again this has to be understood in relation to what motivates you to act. If you say that you value helping those that are less fortunate than you, but the efforts you make to help the poor are motivated by a desire to give the impression to others that you are a good person, then what you actually value is the opinion of others. A value is also a relative term in that a person can value one thing over another, and a third thing can be valued above the other two. A person may, for instance, value honesty but find that in some situations honesty may not be the most practical or compassionate action.
Two qualities that are characteristic of a householder are the ability to think in a practical way and having a certain amount of discipline. Thinking practically means being able to observe a situation and to formulate an action that secures the aim you have set for yourself, and being disciplined means being able to carry out that action, even if it difficult or unpleasant. In conscious evolution these two qualities are not only important but essential. Without a certain level of householder, the student of the way will find no meaning in his work, or he will turn his work into something wrong or destructive.
Tramp is easy to understand. Tramp is an attitude that nothing matters, that everything is relative to everything else and therefore nothing can be of more value than anything else. There are people who romanticize tramp; they believe that having no values is a kind of objectivity and that an attitude of tramp makes them superior to others; nothing could be further from the truth. Dostoevsky seemed interested in characters who were ruled by tramp (he thought of it as nihilism, a philosophy that states that all values are baseless and that there are no universal moral truths). If nothing matters, then a man may murder his landlady, as Raskolnikov did in Crime and Punishment, and believe that he will not be haunted by the consequences. You can see how such an attitude can lead to bad choices, but, in most people, tramp is less dramatic; it often means despondency in relation to the world or an inability to act. Why should I do anything if nothing matters? But things matter. The universe is constructed of lower and higher worlds, of which are, to some extent, reflected in our inner experience. To believe that higher and lower worlds are of the same value is a misunderstanding of the human experience.
A lunatic has values, but they are the wrong values. A politician, who values winning over everything else, will make choices that are morally wrong or even criminal because his peace of mind and conscience are less important to him than winning. Lunatic as a feature is also prevalent in the corporate world where greed is often seen as a virtue. Making money is valued even if the way the money is made exploits other people or destroys the planet where we all live. You can see that these values are wrong or in an incorrect order. There is nothing wrong with making money, but when it becomes more important than the wholesale suffering of a workforce or the health of the planet, then something is out of joint. Lunatics are also devoted to formatory thinking; that is, either-or thinking or absolute thinking. Much of the justification of a lunatic’s extreme behavior is based on formatory thinking. If you believe that you are absolutely right and that your opponents are wrong and that there is no gray area or middle ground, then it becomes possible for you to justify questionable actions. This is seen in many issues that are presently being debated in the United States. The firearm debate is a good example. People block a clear need for gun laws by believing that the second amendment of the U. S. Constitution is an absolute right, that no matter what the consequences, this amendment gives Americans the right to buy and use any gun that they like, even military-style weapons. There is no consideration of the reality of the situation, and no compromise is possible, no matter how many people die. The second amendment makes them right and their opponents wrong, and there is no higher right in their defense.
By definition, a hasnamuss is a lunatic and a tramp at the same time, which at first glance seems impossible. How can you have no values and wrong values at the same time? But when you begin to look at the examples you will see that it is possible. Another way to view a hasnamuss is that he is a lunatic given to extreme and unpredictable behavior who also has no values.
[A hasnamuss] never hesitates to sacrifice people or to create an enormous amount of suffering, just for his own personal ambitions. ~ P. D. Ouspensky
In order to understand how this works, we need to understand that we all have lunatic and tramp. For most people tramp and lunatic are just ‘I’s, or groups of ‘I’s, that are not believed or fought against, but in some people these same groups of ‘I’s grow strong and can, eventually, become crystallized. Both the lunatic and the tramp are unable to distinguish between higher and lower worlds, and as a result of his wrong crystallization, the hasnamuss is unable to manifest from higher worlds. He manifests from the lowest worlds experienced by man. Here we can add another characteristic of the hasnamuss: he does not experience positive emotions. Positive emotions require the burning of higher hydrogens (hydrogen 12), but the hasnamuss has lost his capacity to create hydrogen 12, he is, in Ouspensky’s words, crystallized in the wrong hydrogen.
The emotional function, when it works with its own energy, is an organ of perception, and the hasnamuss, who has only negative emotions, loses his ability to perceive from the emotional function. Part of what this means is that he has no conscience, no empathy, and no shame. In many important ways, it is exactly this that gives him his power over other people and his apparent strength. Since he has no conscience, he is not troubled by his lies or by his actions when they create suffering for other people. It is also his lack of shame that makes him attractive to a certain type of person. Many ordinary people are frustrated by the burden of conscience; shame and guilt keep these people from acting on their most base impulses, and the hasnamuss, when he achieves a position of power, gives them permission to manifest their prejudice, their hatred, and their violent desires. Here we come to another characteristic of the hasnamuss: he appeals to the lowest in his followers, and in doing so destroys whatever higher possibilities they have.
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In ordinary conditions, in ordinary life, in ordinary times, they are just criminals or actual lunatics—nothing more. But in certain periods of history—in times like these, for example—such people very often play a leading part; they may become very important people. ~ Ouspensky
It’s not clear from the source that I have, but this statement by Ouspensky seems to have been made in 1935; that is, just after the rise of Hitler and Mussolini.
Gurdjieff believed that darker times were cyclical and that they were the result of planetary influences.
Somewhere up there two or three planets have approached too near to each other; tension results. Have you noticed how, if a man passes quite close to you on a narrow pavement, you become all tense? The same tension takes place between planets. For them it lasts, perhaps, a second or two. But here, on the earth, people begin to slaughter one another, and they go on slaughtering maybe for several years. ~ G. I. Gurdjieff
Clearly we are now in another such time. The instability in the United States caused by the rise of Trump certainly has the most potential for a large-scale disaster, but the figures of hasnamuss have appeared in other countries as well, as would be expected if Gurdjieff is right and this movement is the result of planetary influences that affect the earth as a whole.
In the United States we find politicians and business people who think that they can use Trump to get what they want while he is in power without falling prey to his sordidness; they are mistaken. History has shown us that people who support the hasnamuss are either betrayed by him or, if they hold out, are shunned by coming generations. It also has to be observed that when powerful people protect the hasnamuss, it only emboldens him to commit greater crimes. It is predictable that his crimes will eventually become so horrific that they will go beyond what the majority of his supporters can stomach. The hasnamuss lives his life in a downward spiral and is happy to pull others into his inevitable downfall.
Others in the United States believe they can change Trump; they too are mistaken. The hasnamuss is crystallized in the meanest human desires and the most degenerate behavior. By definition he cannot change. More than anything he fears higher emotions, like love and compassion and sympathy, because he cannot understand them. They are no longer within his range of experience, and so, like Trump, the first impulse of the hasnamuss, on encountering anyone manifesting from higher emotions, is to bring them down to his level, and, if he can’t do this, to do his best to destroy them.
The next natural question is: what can we do? But in this case, the most revealing question is: what would a householder do? A householder is more than anything practical. A householder knows what is possible for him to affect and what is not. He doesn’t enter into fights that he cannot win, yet at the same time he does what he can to support the institutions that are trying to counter the trends the hasnamuss has created, and he doesn’t expect those institutions to be perfect or run by perfect individuals. A householder acts when he sees any possibility of positive change, and doesn’t allow himself to be drawn into domains where he has no influence. He is disciplined when he needs to be and aloof when the situation is out of his control.
On a human level, a householder does what he can when he can do it and then withdraws. He understands his possibilities as well as his limitations.
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A householder is a normal man, and a normal man, given favorable conditions, has the possibility of development. ~ Ouspensky
A householder has the possibility of development, but it is not a certainty. In many ways it comes down to luck. He must be in the right place at the right time when conditions allow for the teachings of esoteric ideas. Ouspensky believed that the development of a teaching needs a time of relative calm, despite Gurdjieff’s claim to the contrary.
I think they were both right in their own way. Ouspensky observed that in difficult times it becomes next to impossible to organize a teaching and attract new people, and Gurdjieff believed that hard times were beneficial to people who have already adopted the fourth way as a way of life. So if we take both of these as correct, we can say that what hurts the organization of esotericism as a whole may benefit the individual.
The system is designed in a way that we can profit, on a spiritual level, from difficulties by using the tools that are given. We can transform suffering, if we know how to do it and have the discipline to bring the appropriate tools to the situation in the moment. Non-identification, external considering, and self-remembering are powerful tools in ordinary situations and become more powerful in difficult or extraordinary situations.
The moment you suffer, try to remember yourself. ~ Ouspensky
Of course, a comparison to the 1930s and ‘40s to our time is not exactly correct. On a human level the stakes are much higher now in our time. The hasnamuss, the lunatic, and the tramp are not only in a position to slaughter many, many people, and make many more suffer, but are in a position to destroy the entire human experiment on earth. The fact of global warming, unchecked pollution, extreme weather, and massive amounts of stockpiled weapons in countries that are now unstable does make a happy ending, or even a sustainable path forward, less likely. The question for us is this: do we allow the reality of what is happening force us into a state of fear and instinctive desperation, or do we use the situation to better understand that we are in essence spiritual beings.
For a long time we have taken self-remembering too narrowly. We have thought of our self as this body in this life, and have used self-remembering to further our worldly aims. But self-remembering can be more. If we can reach higher centers even for short periods of time, we will uncover a different being, one based on the experience of many lifetimes, whose understanding is rooted in spiritual worlds. And this is the self we ultimately want to remember.
Congratulations with this very well written article. I’m curious who wrote it.
Rene, I write all the articles for this website. It is stated in the about page. WP
How disappointing , you had me until you started presenting your o – pinions as truths , maybe there is more of the luna tic in you than you imagine
Asher: Perhaps, but it is tramp that believes that no truths are possible (only opinion). It’s an old argument that goes all the way back to Socrates and Plato and their detractors.
Thank you for all your articles. I just discovered them last month & they are helping me so much on my journey with The Fourth Way teachings.
I’m very interested in this subject of truths versus opinions described as “an old argument that goes all the way back to Socrates and Plato and their detractors.”
It is curious to me how for so long I was not able to hear many of the truths
Ouspenski writes of in “In Search.” There is a point in that book where
Gurdjieff warns his pupils not be too theoretical with the material in order to let the
experiences of their efforts seep in, I think.
“G. warned us all the time against too much theorizing. “You must understand the feel this law in yourselves,” he said. “Only then will you see it outside yourselves.”
He was speaking on the law of octaves there, but the whole process of being able to assimilate truths and understand differences between truth and opinion is fascinating. When I first read how O. experienced seeing a man walking on the street as “asleep,” I wanted so much to be able to see what he saw! Why could I not see this the way he did? I so wanted to. I also love Gandhi’s words, early in his career, when he was talking with someone about political parties, “If I am only a party of one, the truth is the truth.”
That quote comes from a film, not something I read, and it might not be perfectly accurate, but it spoke ever so loudly to me.
Marjorie, Seeing sleeping people requires at certain level of work, but the method is simple. When you are standing in line at the grocery store, look around and remember yourself. At first when we remember ourselves it is all we can do to keep our attention on our inner self and very little perception of the external world is possible, but as our being grows these perception do come on their own.
One of my early readers told me that what she liked about these essays was that ‘they made light bulbs go on in her head.’ I cannot think of a recommendation that pleases me more. I am trying to communicate understanding, not theories, not knowledge. If you look at the world, you will see that most of our problem are not caused by a lack of action, but by people acting without understanding.
I find this article a most worthy insight into the teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. What I can’t understand is how many comments ( by readers) found fault with this truly beautiful and perceptive account of the householder, tramp, lunatic and hasnamuss. The critics themselves seem to have fallen into some odd position of argument for the sake of something other than true “hearing.”
There is deep awareness in this article and in the writer. I applaud your clarity and perception.
Yes, I see a truthful example of putting self observation into action. No growth without housekeeping.
Would you agree that the term hasnamuss is the equivalent to “psychopath” in life psychology? You wrote: “….he has no conscience, no empathy, and no shame.” And I would add no remorse.
As far as I know, G. used the word “psychopath” only a couple of times, and I always wanted to have a deeper understanding of those statements. For example: “Work for a short time, but work well—with all your presence. Then let your ordinary life go on in its usual way; otherwise you will become a psychopath.” I wonder how you would become a psychopath by working too intensely, or for a long time. By the way, this statement is somehow in conflict with “remember yourself always and everywhere”, but this would merit a separate discussion.
I enjoyed the reading. Thank you!
Julio
Hi William. Yes, I just saw that after I sent that message. Anyway, I think this the best article I read by you so far (haven’t read them all).
I dont think the word psychopath had taken on the definition we are more familiar with today.
Today G may have replaced the word psychopath with “Obsessive”.
I was a member of Gurdjeiff group from January 1994 until September 2000. My teacher had been a pupil of Eugene Halliday at the ISHVAL school at Bowden in Cheshire, in North West England. My teacher described “the tramp” as a user with the phrase “What’s in it for me! Where are the perks?” The tramp expects everything for nothing without payment or contributing anything. Your description of “the tramp” completely misses this essential point. “The lunatic”, on the other hand, is a person with extreme views: the Islamic fundamentalist, or the radical lesbian feminist. A man with extreme political views would also class as a lunatic. I see Donald Trump more as a tramp than a hasnamuss. Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin are examples of the hasnamuss, as was Idi Amin the Ugandan dictator. You can look up Eugene Halliday in Wikipedia,
Michael: My definitions of lunatic and tramp are not my own: they are from Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. I think some people don’t believe that Donald Trump can be a hasnamuss because he is a person of low intelligence. They have this idea that evil on a large scale must be conscious in some way, or at least contain an element of intellect. But when you begin to look at it from the point of view of values, it begins to make sense. Anyway thanks for your comment.
“If large quantities of knowledge are concentrated in a small number of people, then this knowledge will give very great results. From this point of view it is far more advantageous that knowledge should be preserved among a small number of people and not dispersed among the masses.”
Of course knowledge is material, but it doesn’t seem the same density of material as say, potable water. There is only so much potable water on Earth, and we must conserve and make sure we handle it and ourselves in relation to it in such a way that we survive. But knowledge, particularly the deep knowledge that leads us closer to right living—I experience that as a flow I must allow in, and through. It’s a surrendering, and I don’t believe more surrender will deplete the supply—it can only increase the flow. Perhaps we’re defining knowledge differently—I’m thinking of the finest material ever-emanating from the Absolute, crystallizing in ever denser forms on its way to our experience, but endless and finer than what we normally perceive: Divine Love. Isn’t that the knowledge we hope to receive? And in living it as best we can pass it through to others? Necessarily pass it through to others? Again, I may be misunderstanding “esoteric knowledge,” but it seems any higher knowledge would be thick with this Love, and that love hoarded would not be more concentrated and valuable, but really no love at all; that the more hearts and minds opened to this endless flow, the better. I’m part of a local spiritual community, for example. We all have a sense of what it is to live love, and we each do so as we can, at our own level. We are not diminished in our work because we are many, but helped—and some of us, at least some of the time, really suck at it (okay, I really suck at it, and I’m really helped.) But it’s the nature of the work that makes failures helpful—the same can be said of the Work, right? Additionally, in my own moments of being more present and useful—my work involves counseling and sound healing—I feel myself less a repository than a conduit. All these things together make me resistant to the idea that esoteric knowledge is best kept to an elite few—it seems wrong-headed, like damming a needed river or covering a needed light. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve disagreed with Gurdjieff—but when I do, it’s usually because I don’t yet understand what he’s saying.
Gurdjieff said all the spiritual energy you require is available as most people have no interest in assuming their share. The ‘small number” you refer to is not an exclusive club with an unreasonable barrier to entry. It’s just that very few wish to apply for membership.
Very well thought, very well written. Thank you William.
Pouring from the empty into the void. Let’s say Knowledge is just another word for Love. You attract those who are receptive to it, and those who are not are repelled. Yet you can, if you wish, stop anybody in their tracks. You can bring them into the Moment, which creates an opening where an inner exchange of energies occur, seeds can be planted, a piece of me goes into you, and a piece of you goes into me; and that’s how our multiple personalities form in us.. We all want love, but as one teacher put it, “Do we ever sincerely ask ourselves whether we are even worthy of such a state?’ But Anyone can have this who knows how to open up to it. It’s an invisible process. Nobody is deprived of anything. What is Love? Not what we think. Love is pure positive emotion emanating from the Higher Emotion Center.
I had a “Gurdjieff” in my 14-25, youth. Father Norman Roggi. He smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, (never saw him drunk), and told the best risqué jokes I ever heard. He called it Living in the State off Grace. Happiest man I ever knew. He was Christ Incarnate. I didn’t know that then. The first my wife of the time when she met him for the first time, she reported to me, “I just looked into his eyes, and I was blown away.” A woman knows!
Global Warming ?
Start here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7whL9jvdL5s
Then Perhaps try the Corbett Report “How big oil conquered the world”
and “Why big oil conquered the world”
Plenty of Hasnamass types to see there.
Good work, William. We rest in the lap of an immense intelligence – the absolute, that makes us recipients of its truth and agents of its activity: conscious, like Milton, Montaigne, Plato and others or unconscious, like the lunatics, vagabonds, the Hasnamus to which Gurdjieff refers, and the few men drunk like in the popular fable that tells the story of a drunk who was caught almost dead in a street, carried to the duke’s house, bathed and dressed, made him lie on the duke’s bed, and, upon waking up, being treated with all the ceremonies worthy of a duke, he was assured that he was crazy. This fable is popular due to the fact that it perfectly symbolizes the state of man, who is in the world half drunk, but from time to time he wakes up, exercises his reason and finds out that he is a true prince. When we recognize and live the divine presence, we just give way to the rays of this intelligence. We can only affirm its presence or absence, and nothing more. Walter Campos,Brazil
The following resonated with me and touched me deeply: If we can reach higher centers even for short periods of time, we will uncover a different being, one based on the experience of many lifetimes, whose understanding is rooted in spiritual worlds. This is the self we ultimately want to remember.
Dear William – What a fabulous article, and I appreciate the depth of exploration as to our current hasnamuss problem in the world. My question/comment is in finding the balance between remaining enlightened peace seekers, understanding what we are being presented with, and seeing many in my community fail to take action or an active stance in opposition to those who support the hasnamuss. I recommend action, organization, and they say something such as, “The world will take care of it,” or “It is only for a time. It will pass”, or even vaguely pointing to a passing of planetary alignments.
It seems that their spirituality has become an excuse to hide behind a cloak of peace, while evil prevails over the innocent or endangered. It is very painful for me to hear people who are enlightened thinkers take the position that “working on oneself” is the best or even only answer to the problem, meanwhile turning a blind eye to those suffering in this very moment at the hands of the hasnamuss.
In your conclusion, I see that you too are perhaps seeking to find that balance of taking action, but also not becoming sunk into the mire created by the hasnamuss? With the idea of “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”, I’d love to hear your comments on finding that balance, and how we can safely avoid the traps of becoming entrenched by the hasnamuss and its followers.
Thank you for the topic introduction. I am new to the community and the words.
A few notes on the “general welfare and general equality” and the fantastic theories that just keep proliferating, mutating variations on the fantastic theories that had Mr. Gurdjieff and his groups looking for an exit strategy as Russia came unglued. This is quite plain, and I recall when I read this decades ago how forthright this comment is; it could not be clearer. I even highlighted my 30-year-old copy at this point in the book. As with all matters, Mr. Gurdjieff thinks clearly and precisely, But his observations have fallen on deaf ears, and have obviously made little impact on humanity. People love their fantastic theories of equality and a world without suffering; they never tire of such childlike theorizing. I could say more, but I will refrain. Mr. Gurdjieff is unequivocal:
“Of course there are very many people who consider that the life of humanity is not proceeding in the way in which according to their views it ought to go. And they invent various theories which in their opinion ought to change the whole life of humanity. One invents one theory. Another immediately invents a contradictory theory. And both expect everyone to believe them. And many people indeed do believe either one or the other. Life naturally takes its own course but people do not stop believing in their own or other people’s theories and they believe that it is possible to do something. All these theories are certainly quite fantastic, chiefly because they do not take into account the most important thing, namely, the subordinate part which humanity and organic life play in the world process. Intellectual theories put man in the center of everything; everything exists for him, the sun, the stars, the moon, the earth. They even forget man’s relative size, his nothingness, his transient existence, and other things. They assert that a man if he wishes is able to change his whole life, that is, to organize his life on rational principles. And all the time new theories appear evoking in their turn opposing theories; and all these theories and the struggle between them undoubtedly constitute one of the forces which keep humanity in the state in which it is at present. Besides, all these theories for general welfare and general equality are not only unrealizable, but they would be fatal if they were realized. Everything in nature has its aim and its purpose, both the inequality of man and his suffering. To destroy inequality would mean destroying the possibility of evolution. To destroy suffering would mean, first, destroying a whole series of perceptions for which man exists, and second, the destruction of the ‘shock,’ that is to say, the force which alone can change the situation. And thus it is with all intellectual theories.”
P. Ouspensky “In Search of the Miraculous” Pg 307-8
Certainly an accurate description of the first category of hasnamuss, which has been a destructive force throughout the history of mankind. But if I were you I’d be more worried about hasnamuss categories 2, 3, and 4, as described in Chapter 28 of Beelzebub’s Tales..
I realize I’m commenting very late on this post, but have to ask…
William, what is your opinion of where Gurdjieff would put people with Personality Disorders? I’ve read that the rate of PDs was much lower in the early 1900s, but that now some western societies may have as many as 10-15% personality disordered individuals as a percent of population.
Gurdjieff’s writings make hasnamuss’ sound like a rare breed, so I’ve been reluctant to lumping such a large portion of the population into that category. But I’m not sure where else to fit them?
Zach,
Such an interesting question.
First of all, a hasnamuss is, in my understanding, fairly rare. It’s hard to know how rare because the public only finds out about the ones that have wealth or positions of power, but I think it’s likely that wealth and positions of power can provide an accelerated path to becoming a hasnamuss. The rarity is largely due to the necessity of wrong crystallization, which is one of the hallmarks of a hasnamuss. Wrong crystallization takes time and special circumstances, as I explain in article. Imagine for a moment that a certain ex-president had never been a man of position and that he had been born poor and had remained poor. If the same personality disorders and delusions had started to manifest in this imaginary individual, it is very unlikely that they would have been tolerated. And if they had progressed, despite outside resistance from family and friends, such an individual would have probably ended up in a mental institution. It’s even possible that his personality disorders could have been caught early and treated. We, as a society, defer to wealthy individuals because we imagine that they possess some secret to happiness, which is simply a misunderstanding of what happiness is and what the conditions are that lead to happiness.
As for the percentages, of course, it’s impossible to judge what the actual percentages were in the early 1900s. Maybe they were the same as now, but people went undiagnosed. Maybe there are factors in the modern world that make personality disorders more common. Hard to know. In this work personality disorders are not necessarily a liability that cannot be overcome. What we look for is valuation to change. If valuation is strong enough a lot can be overcome. By definition personality can be changed, so unless it has become fixed (crystallized), there is the possibility of inner work. Once wrong crystallization occurs, there are no more possibilities for work.
If you want to understand this subject better, you have to change the scale of you’re thinking. There is another article, that will probably seem to many people to be very theoretical, but it can tell you many things, for instance, it explains how some people, who seem to have no possibilities, are still learning what it means to be human; that is, they are still learning to use their emotions and intellect. But that’s okay because we all live many lives. Here is the link. https://bepresentfirst.com/the-ray-of-conscious-influence-or-god-and-man/
Hello:
I just read the comments. There was a comment by a “Marjorie” on 5/14/2023. It feels genuine. She mentions how much she wished to “see people sleeping” as Mr. Ouspensky described his own observation.
I suggest starting first with oneself. Whether driving my car, walking to my office, watching TV, standing in lines or even in a conversation there are plenty of opportunities for observing myself fading in/out of wakefulness. Who among us hasn’t suddenly realized they’ve arrived at a destination but can’t quite remember details of the journey?
After acceptance of my own waking sleep, I start seeing the dazed dozing of others as well. Sometimes, there appears to be darkness under the eyes. It is a shock when I realize I’m looking at what I am most of my day.