Ideas
Gurdjieff claimed that people cannot perceive reality in their current states because they do not possess consciousness but rather live in a state of a hypnotic "waking sleep."
"Man lives his life in sleep, and in sleep he dies." As a result of this condition, each person perceives things from a completely subjective perspective. He asserted that people in their typical state function as unconscious automatons, but that one can "wake up" and become a different sort of human being altogether.
Read more about this topic: George Gurdjieff
Famous quotes containing the word ideas:
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.... A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice—is often the means of their regeneration.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
“The myth of motherhood as martyrdom has been bred into women, and behavioral scientists have helped embellish the myth with their ideas of correct “feminine” behavior. If women understand that they do not have to ignore their own needs and desires when they become mothers, that to be self-interested is not to be selfish, it will help them to avoid the trap of overattachment.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)
“... most reform movements in our country have been cursed by a lunatic fringe and have mingled sound ideas for social progress with utopian nonsense.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)