Welcome to a series of talks about objective consciousness, an objective Universe, and an objective way to awaken, expanding upon the works of George I. Gurdjieff and Russell A. Smith.

In today’s podcast, Russell would like to share with you some of the remarkable things that occurred as a result of G. I. Gurdjieff’s work.

I shall let him tell the story in his own words.

Let’s begin:

Russell:  When I encountered Gurdjieff’s work thirty years after his death, I was somewhat familiar with the fact that the numbers seven and three were not only prevalent in nature but could also be found in many belief structures. However, I did not know why.

But today, we shall find out why.

I would like to thank Wikipedia for listing them, and Mr. G. I. Gurdjieff for opening the door to their understanding. 

We shall start with the number seven.

According to Wikipedia:  In classical antiquity there are

Seven Classical planets and the derivative Seven Heavens

Seven Wonders of the ancient world

Seven metals of antiquity

Seven days in the week

Seven Seas

Seven Sages

Seven champions that fought Thebes

Seven hills and Seven Kings of Rome

Seven Sisters, the daughters of Atlas also known as the Pleiades

In Judaism there are

Seven days of Creation, leading to the seventh day or Sabbath

Seven-fold vengeance visited on Cain for the killing of Abel 

Seven pairs of every clean animal loaded onto the ark by Noah

Seven years of plenty and seven years of famine in Pharaoh's dream

Seven times bullock's blood is sprinkled before God

Seven nations God told the Israelites they would displace when they entered the land of Israel

Seven days of Passover 

Seven-branched candelabrum or Menorah

Seven trumpets played by seven priests for seven days to bring down the walls of Jericho 

Seven things that are detestable to God:  “A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.”

Seven Pillars of the House of Wisdom 

Seven archangels in the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit 

In the Jewish tradition there are

Seven divisions of the weekly readings or aliyah of the Torah

Seven Jewish men (over the age of 13) are called to read aliyahs in Shabbat morning services

Seven blessings recited under the chuppah during a Jewish wedding ceremony

Seven days of festive meals for a Jewish bride and groom after their wedding, known as Sheva Brachot or Seven Blessings

Seven Ushpizzin prayers to the Jewish patriarchs during the holiday of Sukkot

In Christianity there are

Seven loaves multiplied into seven basketfuls of surplus

Seven demons were driven out of Mary Magdalene

Seven last sayings of Jesus on the cross

Seven Spirits of God, Seven Churches, and Seven Seals in the Book of Revelation

Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride; and seven terraces of Mount Purgatory

Seven Virtues: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, kindness, patience, and humility

Seven Joys and Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary

In the Islamic tradition there are

Seven ayat in surah al-Fatiha, the first book of the holy Qur'an

Seven circumambulations of Muslim pilgrims around the Kaaba in Mecca during the Hajj and the Umrah

Seven walks between Al-Safa and Al-Marwah performed by pilgrims during the Hajj and the Umrah

Seven doors to hell 

Seventh day naming ceremony held for babies

In Hinduism there are

Seven worlds in the universe and seven seas in the world 

Seven sages or Saptarishi and their seven wives or Sapta Matrka 

Seven stars in a constellation called "Saptharishi Mandalam" 

Seven promises, or Saptapadi, and seven circumambulations around a fire 

Seven virgin goddesses or Saptha Kannimar 

Seven hills at Tirumala known as Yedu Kondalavadu in Telugu, or ezhumalaiyan in Tamil, meaning "Sevenhills God"

In Eastern traditions there are

Seven steps taken by the Buddha at birth

Seven Chakras in eastern philosophy

Seven Lucky Gods

Seven-Branched Sword

Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove 

Seven minor symbols of yang in Taoist yin-yang

Seven divine ancestresses of humankind

In other references there are

Seven palms in an Egyptian Sacred Cubit

Seven ranks in Mithraism

Seven hills of Istanbul

Seven islands of Atlantis

Seven lives of cats in Iran and German and Romance language-speaking cultures

Seven fingers on each hand, seven toes on each foot and seven pupils in each eye of the Irish epic hero Cú chulainn

Seventh sons will be werewolves in Galician folklore

Seventh sons of a seventh son will be magicians with special powers of healing and clairvoyance in some cultures, or vampires in others

Seven prominent legendary monsters in Guaraní mythology

Seven gateways traversed by Inanna during her descent into the underworld

Seven sister goddesses or fates in Baltic mythology called the Deivės Valdytojos.

Seven superuniverses in the cosmology of Urantia

And in other concepts there are

Seven continents

Seven colors in the rainbow

Seven liberal arts

As well as seven notes in the diatonic scale

Russell:  Thank you Wikipedia, that was a lot of seven’s!

Next, we shall tackle the number three.

Again, according to Wikipedia:  

In science there are

Three fundamental particles: the proton, the neutron, and the electron

Three dimensions: height, width, and depth

Three elementary fermion generations 

The triangle, a polygon with three edges and three vertices, is the most stable physical shape. 

Three types of color receptor cells, or cones in the eye

Three primary colors in the additive and subtractive models.

In religion in general we have

The Hindu Trimurti

The Three Jewels of Buddhism

The Three Pure Ones of Taoism

The Christian Holy Trinity

The Triple Goddess of Wicca

In Christianity we find

During the Agony in the Garden, Christ asked three times for the cup to be taken from him.

Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his death.

The devil tempted Jesus three times.

Saint Peter thrice denied Jesus, and thrice affirmed his faith in Jesus.

The Magi – wise men who were astronomers/astrologers from Persia gave Jesus three gifts.

Paul the Apostle went blind for three days after his conversion to Christianity.

In Judaism we find

Noah had three sons: Ham, Shem, and Japheth

The Three Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

The prophet Balaam beat his donkey three times.

The prophet Jonah spent three days and nights in the belly of a large fish

Three divisions of the Jewish people: Kohen, Levite, Yisrael

Three daily prayers: Shacharit, Mincha, Maariv

Three Shabbat meals, which ends when three stars are visible in the night sky

Three Pilgrimage Festivals: Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot

Three matzos on the Passover Seder table

The Three Weeks, a period of mourning bridging the fast days of Seventeenth of Tammuz and Tisha B'Av

Three cardinal sins for which a Jew must die rather than transgress: idolatry, murder, sexual immorality.

The Torah states that when you plant a fruit tree, you shall not eat from it for three years. 

Which leads to Upsherin, a Jewish boy's first haircut, at the age of 3

A Beth din is composed of three members

Potential converts are traditionally turned away three times to test their sincerity

In Buddhism there is

The Triple Bodhi: Budhu, Pasebudhu, and Mahaarahath.

In Shinto there is

The Imperial Regalia of Japan: of the sword, mirror, and jewel.

In Daoism we find

The Three Treasures are pinyin, sānbǎo, and san-pao 

The Three Dantians

Three Lines of a Trigram

In Hinduism there are

Three Trimurti: Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer.

Three Gunas in Hindu philosophy.

Three paths to salvation in the Bhagavad Gita: Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Jnana Yoga.

In Zoroastrianism there is

Three virtues of Humata, Hukhta and Huvarshta (Good Thoughts, Good Words and Good Deeds)

In Norse mythology we find

Prior to Ragnarök, there were three hard winters without an intervening summer, the Fimbulwinter.

Odin endured three hardships upon the World Tree in his quest for the runes: he hanged himself, wounded himself with a spear, and suffered from hunger and thirst.

Bor had three sons, Odin, Vili, and Vé.

And in other religions we have

The Wiccan Rule of Three.

The Triple Goddess: Maiden, Mother, Crone; the three fates.

The sons of Cronus: Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.

The Slavic god Triglav had three heads.

Russell:  Wow, that was a lot of three’s as well, which begs me to ask, “Why are there so many threes and sevens?”

Thanks to Gurdjieff, I received an answer. 

Gurdjieff proposed that the numbers three and seven are so prevalent, because they are cosmic laws, that’s why. And, as Cosmic laws, they stand behind everything in the Universe, and as such, they have woven their way into everything.

It is no wonder that we, as beings of reason, were able to see them in life as well as in the Universe, and as a result, placed them into our belief structures.

Thank you, Mr. Gurdjieff, for making that very clear to us, and for opening a door for me. That is, when I first read what you had postulated, I became very enthusiastic, because your model was mathematical, and with mathematics, I knew I would be able to investigate the numbers seven and three in great detail, and not only understand how they worked, but also understand how they had woven their way into so many of our belief structures.

Most importantly, your mathematics was simple. Mathematics that wouldn’t hurt the brain of an eight-year old, as all it required was addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Just simple mathematics, with no calculus; and, because of that I was stoked! Thus, I began to calculate octaves of every imaginable size to get a better feel for their proportionality, and when I did, a world beyond belief came into view; and, as a result, I awoke.

It was glorious.

Then, when you told us about inner octaves, I calculated them as well; and, when I did, I could clearly see our centers, their parts, and their parts-of-parts in the structure produced. I also saw where our higher centers resided, and as such, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that, although few people had acquired them, they indeed were there, which gave me renewed hope for mankind.

Next, was the Law of Three, and the mathematics of the separation of the forces, which not only allowed me to precisely locate their place of existence, but resulted in the creation of the Periodic Table of Elements. Not to mention the fact that it also revealed the order in which atoms fill their orbitals that subsequently created the Fibonacci series.

I was starting to be overwhelmed with the precise truth of it all.

And in the chapter The Holy Planet Purgatory, in your book All and Everything, when you unveiled how creation occurred because one stopinder was lengthened, a second was shortened, and a third was disharmonized, I did exactly what you said, and I made a working model of creation, and when I got to witness the Universe becoming diatonic, I was gobsmacked. Later on, when I showed that model to my students, they were gobsmacked as well. 

By the way, an animation of the model can be found on our website, thedogteachings.com. If you watch it, you just might be gobsmacked too.

And it didn’t stop there.

After identifying where the forces lived, I was able to witness what happened when they tried to ascend and descend, and when I did, I saw harmonic places of existence emerge, which always came in pairs, and as such, a Universe of oscillations was created, that is, a Universe of dualities. 

In addition, when I found the molecules of tRNA and DNA in the structure, they too became working models. And afterwards, when I showed them to my students, they went beyond being gobsmacked. 

But you can witness that for yourself, as those models are also on the animation’s page.

Even the Enneagram was no longer a mystery. Primarily because everyone who studied the structure was able to find eight additional Lines of Supervision, for a grand total of fourteen lines; and, after they did, everything in the Enneagram became clear and precise. Not to mention the fact that when they found the additional Lines of Supervision, they went way beyond being gobsmacked. 

The bottom line was this: By mathematically figuring out the structure for themselves, their possibilities became more than just misguided hopes and dreams, and as a result, their hopes and dreams were elevated to the status of becoming realistic potentials, and as such, their awakenings became law-conformable. That is, when everyone saw that they could walk through the door that Gurdjieff had opened, they did so with certainty, as it was no longer a case of speculation, conjecture, and guess. 

But something was missing. What was missing you ask? Well, a tried-and-true way of escaping was missing, that’s what. 

Unfortunately, we had been trapped in our lower stories for so long, we were, as Mr. Gurdjieff put it, destined to “die like dogs.” And, although he tried and tried for decades, he was unable to discover a way of showing others how to escape. 

Fortunately, he had the insight of leaving his remarkable work behind, knowing that, someday, someone would come along and decipher it. And, as it stands, that someone was me.

Let me explain. 

After I awoke, I too sought for a way of showing others how to awaken. Primarily because my students had been pleading with me for years, to find a way of doing just that.

However, I was at a loss. 

But, thanks to their constant promptings, I pursued the idea until the answer came.

It occurred on March 30th, 1990. I was in New Orleans on business; and, late that evening, I was pondering the following: Why are my students not awake? They read the books, they do the exercises, they are honorable folks, and sincere hard workers; not to mention the fact that they, like me, have been gobsmacked by the structure.

Out of nowhere, I received an answer. An answer that came from someplace well beyond my Intellectual Center. 

Which was: 

“You awoke subjectively. All teachers awake subjectively. All schools die when their teachers die. No one can teach the subjective way in which they awoke to others; not you, Mr. Gurdjieff, or anyone else.”

It then told me the story of a man who was desperately trying to awaken. 

“One day, the man was walking through the forest, his eyes were on his heaven, his thoughts were on his God, and his prayers were on his tongue. However, he was not watching where he was walking, and as such, in sandaled-feet, his toe struck a root. He had kicked the root with such force that the pain was excruciating, and as a result, he grabbed his toe and started hopping around on one foot. 

“Because of that event (coupled with his quest, his wish, and his prayers), at that moment, the man’s machine aligned, and he himself awoke. 

“It was glorious. He became enlightened.

“After that event, everyone who met him recognized his Being, and thus questioned him, as to who he was, and what had happened. And, as a result, he eventually told them of his quest, his wish, his prayers, and how he had kicked the root and awoke.

“Soon, a school was formed; a school that was based on his quest, his wish, and his prayers, which attracted hundreds of students. Students who every day, went walking through the forest, trying to kick a root just as he had done, in hopes that they too would awaken.

“But no one did! 

And, when the man died, his school died.”

I repeat, “You cannot pass on a subjective way!”

It then made it very clear to me that all enlightened men had failed to show others how to become enlightened, because they themselves were unable to pass along the subjective way in which they awoke.

When I realized that truth, I was saddened, disappointed, dejected, and dismayed. However, for some unknown reason, I looked back at the place which had answered, and inquired, “If no one can pass on a subjective way … then give me an objective one!” 

Fortunately, it did.

It said, “As you have already figured out a structure that gobsmacks everyone who understands it. I will reveal to you a way of showing them how to use that structure, and the state of being gobsmacked, to unify their being and awaken.” 

From that moment forward, I listened very attentively. 

Firstly, it arranged everything I previously discovered into one single model. Secondly, it informed me that everyone who understood the model, and then performed the objective exercise that it was about to give me, would awaken. After which, it explained the exercise in detail, and when it did, I realized that I had been given an objective way of showing others how to awaken, and as such, my school would not die when I died. 

What an incredible moment that was!

I arrived back in Dallas on Friday, March 31st. Our weekly class was scheduled to be held on Saturday, which just happened to be April 1st. At that class, I informed the students of my pondering, as well as the answer I received, and then shared with them the objective exercise. 

When I did, they awoke. 

From that day forward, they began calling the exercise, “The April Fools Exercise,” and later on, “The Objective Exercise.”

So thank you again Mr. Gurdjieff, for stimulating me to calculate the structure of the Universe. And furthermore, for opening a door and providing me with a teaching and philosophy that caused me to awaken, which subsequently allowed me to discover an Objective Exercise that showed everyone who got gobsmacked, how to achieve the same.

And one more thing:

Ten years after discovering an objective way of awakening the Higher Emotional Center, I developed an objective way of awakening the Higher Mental Center as well. It required that students develop their Intellectual Centers by memorizing 1,001 words of Fourth Way memory work. Fortunately, since everyone knew that my promise of showing them how to awaken their Higher Emotional Center was indeed a real thing, they memorized their 1,001 words with great haste and enthusiasm.

So, one-by-one, after memorizing their 1,001 words, they returned to Texas, and when they did, I gave them the Master Exercises and the Double or Nothing Exercises. 

Shortly thereafter, as promised, they acquired their Higher Mental Centers. And when they did, they became official distributors of showing others how to become gobsmacked as well, or something like that. 🙂

Fortunately today, through ZOOM or by other such means, those who memorize their 1,001 words no longer need to travel to Texas to prove to me that they have.

Don’t you love technology?

Okay. Let's do a quick recap: 

It started in 1950 when Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson was first published. At that time, although he died in October, 1949 - a month after I was born - Gurdjieff had opened the door, which 30 years later, I walked through, and when I did, I awoke. 10 years after that, I discovered an objective way of showing those who came to Texas how to also awaken. 10 years later, I developed an objective way of showing them how to go even further, so they once again returned to Texas.

But, as I said, today, you don’t have to come to Texas to awaken. You can do so by just reading my book, and afterwards, through Zoom calls or by other such means, you can share your 1,001 words of memory work with us, and go even further. And you can do so without ever leaving your living room; except perhaps, to run out to the mailbox and retrieve my book.

Again, ain’t technology wonderful? 

Are you ready? 

Join me.

Together, let’s get gobsmacked!

That completes today’s podcast.

Thank you for listening.

If you have any questions that you would like to have answered, please send them to [email protected], and we will endeavor to answer them, and perhaps ... even include them in a future podcast. 

In addition, you may also find us on Telegram, Instagram and Facebook, all under THEDOG Teachings.

If you would like to purchase Russell Smith’s book, The Blueprint of Consciousness, a 520-page hardback, which is also available for PDF download, so that you too can get gobsmacked and awaken, or learn more about the subjects and exercises we have been exploring, you can do so by going to thedogteachings.com.

And now, you may also pose any questions during our new weekly ZOOM classes, held every Saturday. One class for purchasers of The Blueprint of Consciousness, and the other for qualifiers of the Master Exercises. Look under Resources for ZOOM Classes on our website thedogteachings.com.

That’s T H E D O G teachings DOT COM.

There, you will be able to listen to other talks, obtain diagrams, animations, supporting videos, and much, much more.

But most importantly, you will have real time access to the materials we are discussing.

That’s thedogteachings.com

Goodbye, until next time.