How Deep Was Water?
Following on from:
As with all posts, this article assumes basic familiarity with fundamental Fourth Way texts.
For full citations of abbreviated references, please see:
Continuing the theme of fishes, one might perhaps consider Gurdjieff himself a "fisherman," and it may be that he knew how to fish in "muddy waters"1 as well as clear. After all, to give a similar picture, he did categorise himself at one time among "seekers of pearls in manure."2
Although fishes seem to have a special place in Gurdjieff's inner and outer teaching, with many suggestive hints about a symbolic relationship to the inner life, as has been touched upon in several previous posts, it seems, as always, that nothing is given by him in a definite, clear-cut or complete way. It is, however, dangerously easy to fix upon a pet hypothesis or line of thought, and make of it a whole mini-myth. Maybe even this would not be so bad if it was not for the tendency to swallow such lovingly formed, but quite mechanical, associations, hook, line and sinker, to use a fishy metaphor. Nevertheless, in spite of this swallowing, there is a possibility for further digestion. The question is, do I swallow and digest the associations, or do the associations consume me? A criterion of personal usefulness seems important.