Meetings with Remarkable Men - Notes

From the Intro (which admittedly I merely skimmed through most of):

"From my point of view, he can be called a remarkable man who stands out from those around him by the resourcefulness of his mind, and who knows how to be retrained in the manifestations which proceed from his nature, at the same time conducting himself justlu and tolerantly towards the weaknesses of others."

Riffing

His writing about his father and the "ashokhs" makes me think of improvisational jazz, which is probably the closest thing to the musical jam sessions he describes in which the local bards of the areas, "not only knew by heart innumerable and often very lengthy narratives and poems, and sang from memory all their various melodies, but when improvising in their own, so to say, subjective way, they hit upon the appropriate rhymes and changes of rhythm for their verses with astounding rapidity."

Most of them were illiterate, he writes, but "possessed such a memory and alertness of mind as would now be considered remarkable and even phenomenal."

There were weeks long contests, but when there are such things one also has to say the practice is continual, because in between contests there is keeping up momentum. The way he describes these contests also sounds a lot like Japanese poetry circles.

Thus he begins describing the basis for the taste of his quest.

Interestingly for our purposes, a story he calls a "spiritualizing factor" in his explorations, arises from his father reciting and singing the legend of the "flood before the flood" in Gilgamesh, as he discusses all night with a friend. Gurdjieff describes the two men as becoming "two aspects of the divinity of my inner God," which to me is a fascinating way of giving mind its due in the devotional equation. :)

Equanimity

He writes about the loss of family wealth, the regaining of some in a different form of life, and, the "grandeur of my father's calm and the detachment of his inner state in all his external manifestations, through the misfortunes which befell him."

Further, "I can now say for certain that in spite of his deperate struggle with the misfortunes which poured upon him as though from the horn of plenty, he continued then as before, in all the difficult circumstances of his life, to retain the soul of a true poet." 

And that his father engendered in them "happy impulses."

:)

Then he writes about the conversation with his father about the soul and finer perceptions, which was seen in the film, and what the film boils down to a small encounter with a snake, he writes out as a constant practice of his father to make him unaffected, including waking in the wee hours to wash in a cold spring and run around naked. He credits such training with his ability to manage his difficult travels.

When I read stories like this, I feel acutely some difference between myself and people who have had present fathers, including my own children who, though they take issue, also strongly regard their father's path, internally. For me, the 'father not there' was a strong figure of path as well.

Like all adults to children, his father passed down some 'odd/off' lessons as well, which G seems to have taken as wise.

<pause, who can say for how long>