"Gurdjieff, G I - Beelzebubs Tales To His Grandson" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gurdjieff G I)

which principle consists in this, always to remember and take into account the fact of the weakening of
the functioning of the mentation of the contemporary reader and not to fatigue him with the perception of
numerous ideas over a short time.
Moreover, when I asked one of the people always around me, who are "eager to enter Paradise without
fail with their boots on", to read aloud straight through all that I have written in this introductory chapter,
what is called my "I"—of course, with the participation of all the definite data formed in my original
psyche during my past years, which data gave me among other things understanding of the psyche of
creatures of different type but similar to me— constated and cognized with certainty that in the entirety
of every reader without exception there must inevitably, thanks to this first chapter alone, arise a
"something" automatically engendering definite unfriendliness towards me personally.
To tell the truth, it is not this which is now chiefly worrying me, but the fact that at the end of this
reading I also constated that in the sum total of everything expounded in this chapter, the whole of my
entirety in which the aforesaid "I" plays a very small part, manifested itself quite contrary to one of the
fundamental commandments of that All-Common Teacher whom I particularly esteem, Mullah Nassr
Eddin, and which he formulated in the words: "Never poke your stick into a hornets' nest."
The agitation which pervaded the whole system affecting my feelings, and which resulted from
cognizing that in the reader there must necessarily arise an unfriendly feeling towards me, at once
quieted down as soon as I remembered the ancient Russian proverb which states: "There is no offence
which with time will not blow over."
But the agitation which arose in my system from realizing my negligence in obeying the commandment
of Mullah Nassr Eddin, not only now seriously troubles me, but a very strange process, which began in
both of my recently discovered "souls" and which assumed the form of an unusual itching immediately I
understood this, began progressively to increase until it now evokes and produces an almost intolerable
pain in the region a little below the right half of my already, without this, overexercised "solar plexus."
Wait! Wait! … This process, it seems, is also ceasing, and in all the depths of my consciousness, and let
us meanwhile say "even beneath my subconsciousness", there already begins to arise everything requisite
for the complete assurance that it will entirely cease, because I have remembered another fragment of life
wisdom, the thought of which led my mentation to the reflection that if I indeed acted against the advice
of the highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin, I nevertheless acted without premeditation according to the
principle of that extremely sympathetic—not so well known everywhere on earth, but never forgotten by
all who have once met him—that precious jewel, Karapet of Tiflis.
It can't be helped … Now that this introductory chapter of mine has turned out to be so long, it will not
matter if I lengthen it a little more to tell you also about this extremely sympathetic Karapet of Tiflis.
First of all I must state that twenty or twenty-five years ago, the Tiflis railway station had a "steam
whistle."
It was blown every morning to wake the railway workers and station hands, and as the Tiflis station
stood on a hill, this whistle was heard almost all over the town and woke up not only the railway
workers, but the inhabitants of the town of Tiflis itself.
The Tiflis local government, as I recall it, even entered into a correspondence with the railway authorities
about the disturbance of the morning sleep of the peaceful citizens.
To release the steam into the whistle every morning was the job of this same Karapet who was employed
in the station.
So when he would come in the morning to the rope with which he released the steam for the whistle, he
would, before taking hold of the rope and pulling it, wave his hand in all directions and solemnly, like a
Mohammedan mullah from a minaret, loudly cry:
"Your mother is a —, your father is a —, your grandfather is more than a —; may your eyes, ears, nose,
spleen, liver, corns …" and so on; in short, he pronounced in various keys all the curses he knew, and not
until he had done so would he pull the rope.
When I heard about this Karapet and of this practice of his, I visited him one evening after the day's
work, with a small boordook of 'Kakheteenian' wine, and after performing this indispensable local