Gurdjieff Brasil

The relativity of ones perception

In Judaism it is told that to hear is standing in opposite of the other senses and that hearing is the quintessence. One explains further that the hearing is not only the hearing of the spoken word, but hearing in all ways. That is why one says: Salomo understands the language of the animals as well as the language of the plants. This does not mean that he understands the crowing of the cock, but he is able to hear something that maybe not at all in this way is expressed. The profets for instance do hear a voice also. And here one says about: this does not necessarily go together with sound in the way of our speech. They can hear that voice without any sound! If that very voice is heard, then it is hocus-pocus and that should be ignored. That voice is heard in another way.

The Jiddish language expresses this in a special way. Jiddish is a kind of dialect from middle-age German which was spoken by the Jews who were expelled from Germany or fleeing at the time of the 'Black Death'(1300). They were admitted 'en masse' in then at that time Kingdom Poland and they took the middle-age German with them and this language has itself maintained there in the Jewish society. It has assimilated in the course of time some Slav and Hebrew words.
In that Jiddish there is a difference between 'herren' of the German 'hoeren' that is hearing of a sound, and 'der herren' that signifies hearing in an other way. This word is used when for instance someone is telling that he has made the voyage through the 'Hechalos', that is the palaces (in modern terms one could say a voyage in meditation). One has left this world here and one has entered the palaces of the other realm.

The senses hearing and seeing

If we look at the functions of hearing and seeing more closely, than we notice that there is certainly a principal similarity between these two senses; hearing and seeing have something in common but ofcourse there is also a difference. One can hear for instance more octaves even at the same time and one can never see just something more than one octave. This signifies that with seeing and thus with inner seeing also all the different octaves are at present within one octave. Or other wise that with seeing, a lot of facets are possible to see. A lot of colors which all are pointing at a oneness, each from a different angle. That as it were one can possibly see a whole rainbow of facets. In other words: everyone sees the same but it is possible to see in that same thing something else. This is with hearing also, but there the different octaves are present as well. In hearing therefore are the facets multiplicated to an enormous quantity.

In the old Sanskrit language the words for light and sound tell us something that illustrates this clearly. In Sanskrit the words for light and sound are nearly the same, light is 'Svar' and sound is 'Svara'. The last vowel signifies: coming forth from. The sound thus comes from the 'Svar', comes out of light and that is what one have said also in the old and ancient days.

This we can say is a legamonisme, something what expresses the unity, we just have to look or hear and we can understand.

This same aspect of relativity seen from a different angle is that these two senses have in there working together a special relation. Is it not so that it depends on the vision of a certain moment of an individual, what that person is hearing in the sounds and that according to that he is interpretating them likewise? Can we not say: The vision of the moment is making the outlines wherein that what the ear is hearing is placed? In this process the seeing takes the perception in without time, as a
flash of light, and the hearing takes the perception in with some course of time. This is clear in the different velocities of the waves of light and sound.

And it is so that it is necessary for understanding something fully, that these two perceptions are taken in at the same time, that they come together in a special place. This we can experience in the moment, that is the place always of the most young moment, there where our life crosses the things which happen.
If this crossing takes place there give the waves of light perspective to the waves of sound. It is a kind of seeing back in time, a kind of remembering also from that very moment. That is why everybody can only take in according to the remembering of ones own visions combined with a certain life-quality and the things what he is hearing. Just follow this short story and you will get this more clear.

Twinkling eyes due to the light

You are walking in the street and you hear at a distance in a crossing street a young boy cry hard and loud and you see him shrinking from pain. A big man is beating the little boy very, very hard.

You are coming near with a certain vision. You put your hands on your collar, the wind is cold.

On your way you see a hole in a window-pane and a woman with a ball in her hand behind it.

Your vision is already changing, but you do not find it necessary to punish that what happened there in such a hard way.

Coming nearer you see some women standing aside and laughing to each other about something. You see they also laugh about the pain of the boy and that they are even encouraging the man!

You ask now keen and careful, with the hidden intention to come in between, why this punishment is done so severely. And you hear that this is already the fourth time this week that on behalf of the boy a window-pane is broken and that the boy had until this time simply jumped out. But now his father was here and he could have catched him with a funny trick. You learn further that the father has no money and is not able to pay the prize for the broken windows, but on behalf of this atonement all his neighbours will pay together with him for the damage, each a little. You give it a look for a while and you listen to the many voices, you observe that all the mature people are happy and at ease. In short, all things are right.

Convinced that here coming in between has no sense at all and only could damage the happening. Ultimately you take slowly some steps backwards and you turn around in order to continue your way. Your steps are light, your face smiles lightly. You have to keep your eyes half closed in order to see, because of the many twinkles of the breaking sunlight on the edges of the broken glass.