A few comments on Sex by Gurdjieff

 

“At the same time sex plays a tremendous role in maintaining the mechanicalness of life. Everything that people do is connected with ‘sex’: politics, religion, art, the theater, music, is all ‘sex.’ Do you think people go to the theater or to church to pray or to see some new play? That is only for the sake of appearances. The principal thing, in the theater as well as the church, is that there will be a lot of women or a lot of men. This is the center of gravity of all gatherings. What do you think brings people to cafes to restaurants, to various fetes ? One thing only. Sex: it is the principal motive force of all mechanicalness. All sleep, all hypnosis, depends upon it.

 

“You must try to understand what I mean. Mechanicalness is especially dangerous when people try to explain it by something else and not by what it really is. When sex is clearly conscious of itself and does not cover itself by anything else it is not the mechanicalness about which I am speaking. On the contrary sex which exists by itself and is not dependent on anything else is already a great achievement. But the evil lies in this constant self-deception!”

 

...

 

“‘New birth,’ of which we have spoken before, depends as much upon sex energy as do physical birth and the propagation of species.

 

“‘Hydrogen’ si 12 is the ‘hydrogen’ which represents the final product of the transformation of food in the human organism. This is the matter with which sex works and which sex manufactures. It is ‘seed’ or ‘fruit.’

 

....

 

“The role of the sex center in creating a general equilibrium and a permanent center of gravity can be very big. According to its energy, that is to say, if it uses its own energy, the sex center stands on a level with the higher emotional center. And all the other centers are subordinate to it. Therefore it would be a great thing if it worked with its own energy. This alone would indicate a comparatively very high level of being. And in this case, that is, if the sex center worked with its own energy and in its own place, all other centers could work correctly in their places and with their own energies.”

 

—Chapter 12.

 

Excerpts taken from In Search of the Miraculous by P. D. Ouspensky, pub. Paul H. Crompton Ltd, 2004.

 

Note from Lee:

 

Chapter 12 of In Search of the Miraculous contains extensive references to sex and sexuality which may be more thoroughly understood if re-examined in light of my essays regarding the sweetness of the Lord.

 

The male turkey's striking colors are an example of sexual display, and an illustration of how all impressions have, in one way or another, a sexual function and character. Gurdjieff's comments about sex energy and its role in transformation relate directly to the understanding that taking in impressions is part of a procreative, and thus essentially sexual, action.