02 Oct If you look for the use, then the whole of life is useless. (OSHO)
Gurdjieff used to tell his disciples to do foolish, absurd work – and to be responsible. For example, he would tell a disciple to dig a hole. The whole day the disciple dug; it was hard work and he was perspiring.
By the evening, Gurdjieff would come and tell him to fill it up again. So the earth had to be put back into the ground.
The following day, again Gurdjieff would say to dig another hole. The disciple wondered what was going to happen, but again, by the evening Gurdjieff would be there telling him to refill the hole.
And he used to say to be responsible!
What Gurdjieff is trying to say is that if you look for the use, then the whole of life is useless. It is just digging holes and filling them up again. Eat every day, and then throw it out of the body; fill the hole in the stomach, then throw it out.
Every night go to sleep, get up again every morning.
And this goes on and on until one day, one dies.
The whole thing is just like that.
But Gurdjieff says that that is not the point. He says do the work as responsibly as possible, as if much depends on it – do it with full alertness.
He would allow a person to stop such absurd work only when he saw that he had become responsible.
It would take months sometimes; for three months the person would be just digging and refilling a hole.
People would escape from Gurdjieff sometimes because it was maddening.
You knew from the very beginning that it was useless.
But if you stuck to it, by and by a tremendous beauty arose.
The hole became irrelevant.
The emphasis now was on consciousness.
Doing it lovingly, by and by you forgot about the end.
You simply enjoyed this moment.
Hammer on the Rock
OSHO
