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What is the purpose of man’s existence? – P.D. Ouspensky
Man and even mankind does not exist separately, but as a part of the whole of organic life. The earth needs organic life as a whole – men, animals, plants. The Ray of Creation is a growing branch, and this communication is necessary in order that the branch may grow further. Everything is connected, nothing is separate, and smaller things, if they exist, serve something bigger. Organic life serves planetary purposes, it does not exist for itself. An individual man is a highly specialized cell in it, but on that scale an individual cell does not exist – it is too small. Our ordinary points of view are very naive and homocentric: everything turns round man. But man is a very insignificant thing, part of a very big machine. Organic life is a particular cosmic unit and man is a unit in this big mass of organic life. He has the possibility of further development, but this development depends on man’s own effort and understanding. It enters into the cosmic purpose that a certain number of men should develop, but not all, for that would contradict another cosmic purpose. Evidently mankind must be on earth and must lead this life and suffer. But a certain number of men escape, this also enters into the cosmic purpose.
So individually we are not important for the universe at all. We cannot speak even about humanity in relation to the universe – we can only speak about organic life. As I said, we are part of organic life, and organic life plays a certain part in the solar system, but it is a very big thing compared with us. We are used to thinking of ourselves individually, but very soon we lose this illusion. It is useful to think about different scales; take a thing on a wrong scale and you lose your way.
Excerpt: All and Everything – G. I. Gurdjief
“How is it possible to reconcile the fact that a man is terrified at a small timid mouse, the most frightened of all creatures, and of thousands of other similar trifles which might never even occur, and yet experiences no terror before the inevitability of his own death?
In any case, to explain such an obvious contradiction by the action of the famous human will – is impossible.
When this contradiction is considered openly, without any preconceptions, that is to say, without any of the ready-made notions derived from the wiseacring of various what are called “authorities,” who in most cases have become such thanks to the naivete and “herd instinct” of people, as well as from the results, depending on abnormal education, which arise in our mentation, then it becomes indubitably evident that all these terrors, from which in man there does not arise the impulse, as we said, to hang himself, are permitted by Nature Herself to the extent in which they are necessary for the process of our ordinary existence.
And indeed without them, without all these, in the objective sense, as is said, “fleabites,” but which appear to us as “unprecedented terrors,” there could not proceed in us any experiencings at all, either of joy, sorrow, hope, disappointment, and so on, nor could we have all those cares, stimuli, strivings, and, in general, all kinds of impulses, which constrain us to act, to attain to something, and to strive for some aim.
It is just this totality of these automatic, as they might be called, “childish experiencings” arising and flowing in the average man which on the one hand make up and sustain his life, and on the other hand give him neither the possibility nor the time to see and feel reality.
If the average contemporary man were given the possibility to sense or to remember, if only in his thought, that at a definite known date, for instance, tomorrow, a week, or a month, or even a year or two hence, he would die and die for certain, what would then remain, one asks, of all that had until then filled up and constituted his life?
Everything would lose its sense and significance for him. What would be the importance then of the decoration he received yesterday for long service and which had so delighted him, or that glance he recently noticed, so full of promise, from the woman who had long been the object of his constant and unrewarded longing, or the newspaper with his morning coffee, and that deferential greeting from the neighbor on the stairs, and the theater in the evening, and rest and sleep, and all his favorite things – of what account would they all be?
They would no longer have that significance which had been given them before, even if a man knew that death would overtake him only in five or six years.
In short, to look at his own death, as is said, “in the face” the average man cannot and must not – he would then, so to say, “get out of his depth” and before him, in clear-cut form, the question would arise: “Why then should we live and toil and suffer?”
Precisely that such a question may not arise, Great Nature, having become convinced that in the common presences of most people there have already ceased to be any factors for meritorious manifestations proper to three centered beings, had providentially wisely protected them by allowing the arising in them of various consequences of those nonmeritorious properties unbecoming to three centered beings which, in the absence of a proper actualization, conduce to their not perceiving or sensing reality.
And Great Nature was constrained to adapt Herself to such an, in the objective sense, abnormality, in consequence of the fact that thanks to the conditions of their ordinary life established by people themselves the deteriorating quality of their radiations required for Higher Common Cosmic Purposes insistently demanded , for the maintenance of equilibrium, an increase of the quality of the arisings and existings of these lives.
Whereupon it follows that life in general is given to people not for themselves, but that this life is necessary for the said Higher Cosmic Purposes, in consequence of which Great Nature watches over this life so that it may flow in a more or less tolerable form, and takes care that it should not prematurely cease.
Do not we, people, ourselves also feed, watch over, look after, and make the lives of our sheep and pigs as comfortable as possible?
Do we do all this because we value their lives for the sake of their lives?
No! We do all this in order to slaughter them one fine day and to obtain the meat we require, with as much fat as possible.
In the same way Nature takes all measures to ensure that we shall live without seeing the terror, and that we should not hang ourselves, but live long; and then, when we are required, She slaughters us.
Under the established conditions of the ordinary life of people, this has now already become an immutable law of Nature.
There is in our life a certain very great purpose and we must all serve this Great Common Purpose – in this lies the whole sense and predestinations of our life.
All people without exception are slaves of this “Greatness,” and all are compelled willy-nilly to submit, and to fufill without condition or compromise, what has been predestined for each of us by his transmitted heredity and his acquired Being.
Now, after all that I have said, returning to the chief theme of the lecture read here today, I wish to refresh your memory about what has several times been referred to in defining man – the expressions “real man” and a “man in quotation marks,” and in conclusion, to say the following.
Although the real man who has already acquired his own “I” and also the man in quotation marks who has not, are equally slaves of the said “Greatness,” yet the difference between them, as I have already said, consists in this, that since the attitude of the former to his slavery is conscious, he acquires the possibility, simultaneously with serving the all-universal Actualizing, of applying a part of his manifestations according to the providence of Great Nature for the purpose of acquiring for himself “imperishable Being”; whereas the latter, not cognizing his slavery, serves during the flow of the entire process of his existence exclusively only as a thing, which when no longer needed, disappears forever.
Interpretation of text by G.I. Gurdjief.
This text explores the paradox of human fear. It questions why humans can be terrified by small, insignificant things like a timid mouse, yet remain seemingly unaffected by the certainty of their own death.
The author suggests that this contradiction cannot be explained solely by human willpower. Instead, they argue that these fears are permitted by nature because they serve a purpose in our everyday lives. Without these fears, we wouldn't experience emotions like joy, sorrow, hope, or disappointment, nor would we have the motivation to strive for goals.
The text then imagines what would happen if people were constantly aware of their impending death. It suggests that life would lose its meaning, as all the things that once brought pleasure or satisfaction would seem insignificant in the face of death.
The author posits that nature, recognizing the lack of merit in most people's lives, allows them to remain unaware of their mortality to prevent existential crises. Instead, people are kept busy with mundane concerns, ensuring the continuation of life for the sake of broader cosmic purposes.
Comparing human care for livestock to nature's care for humans, the text argues that just as we raise animals for eventual slaughter, nature keeps humans alive until their time is up.
Ultimately, the text concludes that all humans serve a "Great Common Purpose" dictated by nature, whether they realize it or not. However, those who are aware of their servitude have the opportunity to transcend their circumstances and strive for "imperishable Being" beyond mere existence.
"Imperishable Being" refers to a state of existence or consciousness that transcends the limitations of physical life and death. It implies a form of being that is eternal, unchanging, and unaffected by the passage of time or the decay of the physical body. In philosophical and spiritual contexts, it often represents a state of enlightenment, self-realization, or unity with a higher reality or cosmic consciousness. It suggests a sense of inner fulfillment, completeness, and immortality that goes beyond the transient experiences of ordinary life.
Cosmic Consciousness - Richard M. Bucke
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