Pondering pondering

Detail from the Tympanum of St. Foy, in Conques. 

A devil and an angel weigh a soul.

Likewise, an all-round awareness of everything concerning these sacred laws also conduces, in general, to this, that three-brained beings irrespective of the form of their exterior coating, by becoming capable in the presence of all cosmic factors not depending on them and arising round about them—both the personally favorable as well as the unfavorable—of pondering on the sense of existence, acquire data for the elucidation and reconciliation in themselves of that, what is called, ‘individual collision’ which often arises, in general, in three-brained beings from the contradiction between the concrete results flowing from the processes of all the cosmic laws and the results presupposed and even quite surely expected by their what is called ‘sane-logic’; and thus, correctly evaluating the essential significance of their own presence, they become capable of becoming aware of the genuine corresponding place for themselves in these common-cosmic actualizations.

Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, pages 756-57, 1950 edition.

Gurdjieff’s magnum opus has acquired the dubious status of a Bible among most Gurdjieff aficionados; criticizing it is a moribund art in those circles, and – let's face it – most other circles simply ignore the book, which is a silent but perhaps more pointed form of criticism.

The book, like the works of James Fenimore Cooper – which in no way whatsoever ought ever to be compared with Gurdjieff’s writing, other than the one you are about to hear –finds itself guilty as charged of Mark Twain's criticism of Cooper, to wit, “he never uses one word where 50 will do.” The above sentence has 145 – count them, 145 – words in it. I am hoping this sets some kind of a record for any language, but I'm not sure. It's possible there may be even longer sentences in this book.

Why bring this up? Well, by the time honored-traditions of accident and serendipity. It's mostly because having recently been party to a conversation about the word pondering, a search for it in the book was called for. 

It only comes up some 25 times or so throughout the entire course of the novel, which is not a lot, but the word has acquired a good deal of weight in Gurdjieff circles. This is perhaps rightly so, and entirely appropriate — the word, after all, is derived from the Latin root -pondus which refers to weight.

To ponder is not just to think over, which is what the word means today. It means to deliberate—which, not coincidentally, also refers to weight in its Latin origins, -de, meaning down, and librare, from Libra, or scales. 

Ahem—since I speak as a Libra, I think we can all agree I’m uniquely qualified to comment on this. Amen.

The point of pondering is not just to think. 

It is to weigh, which is a physical action, involving an impression and sensation of the way that gravity affects comparable objects. Furthermore, it is not just to weigh, but to thereby discriminate, to distinguish between.

Pondering, in other words, involves having a physical sensation of a question, not just a mental one, and using the impression that that conveys in order to make a choice between the two. The element of choice is essential in the act of pondering, because there is no point in weighing and comparing things unless the aim is to first understand the difference; and to then choose one or the other.

This ties the action of true inward discrimination to the question of the gravity of sensation of Being. And, as I explained to someone the other night, if we have a sensation of Being, it changes our thinking a very great deal. Without sensation, thinking is not tethered down. It floats around like a balloon, affected by every breeze that comes along. As soon as sensation enters the picture, thinking assumes a subservient position. With gravity in place, it becomes relatively motionless and prepared to receive what arrives. The more organic sensation, the more this is true.

Just as a public service, I’m going to engage in sacrilege and translate Gurdjieff’s paragraph into something simpler:

A complete awareness of these sacred laws also helps in this: no matter who they are, if people are able, in the midst of all external circumstances, whether favorable or unfavorable, to weigh the collision between their expectations and what actually happens, they can correctly evaluate how important they are, and what their place in the world is.  

This is the gist of what Gurdjieff says, with better than 60% fewer words. 

And, mind you, people call me loquacious. 

This, then, is the essence of pondering. To weigh what is within Being. Notice, furthermore, that in the same criminal run-on sentence which Gurdjieff mentions this word pondering, he points out that the result of pondering is an act of discrimination. 

One does not ponder just for the sake of pondering; one ponders in order to discriminate. Pondering, in other words, cannot be some aimless, mindless mental noodling that stumbles from one subject to another without understanding, touching on many ideas without sorting them out. 

It has a purpose—an aim—a direction. 

There's more.

Before one weighs anything, one has to decide what to weigh. One can't just throw the whole world on a set of scales at one time and sort it out. Scales are designed to accommodate two comparative objects at a time, no more. In this sense, the discrimination begins even before one ponders. It begins as the impressions enter the gravity of one’s being. First, one must just be present for that, in order to know what ought to be pondered.

Ponder that.

Readers who wish to read my monograph on the tympanum at St. Foy in Conques, which is much more fun than it sounds, may email me for a free copy.

May your heart be close to God, 

and God close to your heart.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.