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>>20400303
Here is where Gurdjieff’s philosophy is quite similar to the Indian Samkhya school, in which Purusha and Prakriti are the two major divisions of reality. Prakriti is mechanism, matter, the material substrate or primordial matrix of the universe, the Purusha is the higher soul or awareness, the ensouling force. The yogic system of Samkhya, is much the same thing Gurdjieff was saying and prescribing — one has to become aware of and extricate one’s Purusha, from the blind mechanical forces of Prakriti it is become caught up in, has, so to speak, gone to sleep in.

Hence, Gurdjieff’s way becomes here a way of negation. When eating, getting angry or upset, sleeping, thinking, enjoying artwork — you see that it is not “you” really doing that, but the mechanisms of Prakriti. And it is this very seeing (self-observation, self-remembering) which awakens and develops the Purusha, or soul. What Samkhya says about the Prakriti, and Gurdjieff about the unregenerate human being, is much the same as what some modern eliminative materialist philosopher or cognitive scientist like Daniel Dennett would say about all of humanity — it is not “conscious,” it has no “free-will,” it is simply a mechanism. In Sanskrit, it is simply an interplay of gunas (qualities) like tamas (passivity, lethargy, blind inertia, negativity), rajas (activity, energy, striving, action, movement, positivity) and sattwa (harmonious, balanced, reconciling or neutralizing), and Tattwas, different levels and aspects of the universe which it can be divided into — quite analogous to the conception of the great chain of being in Western philosophy — where there are 25 Tattwas, conceived of as:

1. Purusha (Transcendental Self)
2. The uncreated (unmanifest) Prakriti (primordial nature)
3. Mahat/Buddhi (intellect)
4. Ahamkara (ego, consciousness of self)
5. Manas (mind)
6-10. The five sense-organs
11-15. The five motor-organs
16-20. The five subtle elements
21-25. The five gross elements