A look at Ouspensky's idea of recurrence with insights gleaned from Steiner's comments on Nietzsche, from whom Ouspensky first derived this idea.
For many people, the first contact with Gurdjieff's "Work" is as presented by Ouspensky's "System" - his systematization of the material he gleaned from Gurdjieff during the period reflected in his "In Search of the Miraculous", that is, from 1915-1924.
Aside from the many stylistic differences of approach and understanding that clearly distinguish Ouspensky, the all but maverick pupil, from Gurdjieff, the source, one of the most remarkable elements forming a keystone in Ouspensky's exposition is his elaborate doctrine of eternal recurrence, which he has grafted into the 'system'.
Recurrence is the idea that one's life repeats itself eternally. In Ouspensky's concept, there is further the idea that it is possible, by a special effort of remembering, to effect different and better choices between recurrences. (This aspect is developed to great effect in the film Groundhog Day with Bill Murray; only there, it is a single day which recurs, and which in fact - much more interestingly - it is played out in a hundred variations before he finally gets it "right".) Ouspensky is clearly fascinated by this idea and feels it is the answer to a great many riddles.
It seems clear that one of the primary source of Ouspensky's fascination with this idea is Nietzche's embrace of the idea, as found in "Thus Spake Zarathustra". Welded together with Ouspensky's other fascination, with "the fourth dimension" (and other "higher dimensions"), he was spring-loaded to make this part of his "System", given the slightest encouragement.
On page 250 of "In Search of the Miraculous", he relates this dialog with Gurdjieff:
"… You never answer any questions I ask."
"Very well," said G., laughing. "I promise to answer now any question you care to ask, as it happens in fairy tales."
I felt he wanted to draw me out of my bad mood and I was inwardly grateful to him, although something in me refused to be mollified.
And suddenly I remembered that I wanted above all to know what G. though about "eternal recurrence," about the repetition of lives, as I understood it. I had many times tried to start a conversation about this and to tell G. my views. But these conversations had always remained almost monologues. G. had listened in silence and then begun to talk of something else.
"Very well," I said, "tell me what you think of recurrence. Is there any truth in this, or none at all. What I mean is: Do we live only this once and disappear, or does everything repeat and repeat itself, perhaps an endless number of times, only we do knot know and do not remember it?"
At this point it should again be made clear that Ouspensky is not referring to the concept of reincarnation - repeated earthy lives in a series of different bodies through the course of the ages, but rather to the idea that one's life and all the events in it repeat endlessly, throughout eternity; upon death, our consciousness is returned to the moment of our birth. Listen carefully to Gurdjjieff's reply.
"This idea of repetition," said G. "is not the full and absolute truth, but is the nearest possible approximation of the truth. In this case truth cannot be expressed in words. But what you say is very near to it. And if you understand why I do not speak of this, you will be still nearer to it. What is the use of a man knowing about recurrence if he is not conscious of it and if he himself does not change? … Why should he make any efforts today when there is so much time and so many possibilities ahead - the whole of eternity?"
Further on Ouspensky continues:
… My bad mood vanished, I did not even notice when.
G. sat there smiling.
"You see how easy it is to turn you; but perhaps I was merely romancing to you, perhaps there is no recurrence at all. What pleasure is it when sulky Ouspensky sits there, does not eat, does not drink. 'Let us try to cheer him up,' I think to myself. And how is one to cheer a person up? One likes funny stories. For another, you must find his hobby. And I know that Ouspensky has this hobby - 'eternal recurrence.' So I offered to answer any question of his. I knew what he would ask."
Further:
…The future showed that I was right, for although G. did not introduce the idea of recurrence into his exposition of the system, he re3ferred several times to the idea of recurrence, chiefly in speaking of the lost possibilities of people who had approached the system and then had drawn away from it.
Although nothing more passes from Gurdjieff's lips on the topic, it nonetheless is given a complete chapter in Ouspensky's "Fourth Way," which may be presumed to be representative of the teaching as he presented in England subsequent to his break with Gurdjieff. He also devotes a chapter of his "New Model of the Universe" to recurrence, and, of course, has written a novel, "Strange Life of Ivan Osokin" based on its premise. Further the idea was taken up in full earnest by both one of his most capable followers, Maurice Nicoll and, and by his most personally devoted, Rodney Collin, who in fact each dedicate whole books to the idea. Nicoll, with his "Living Time" - where he essentially uses the idea as a starting point - and Collin in his "Theory of Eternal Life," where he takes Ouspensky's "gift for calculation" to its ultimate extreme. More will be said about the former work, whose title we have borrowed as part of the title of this article.
One must truly honor Ouspensky greatly for the apparent accuracy with which he reports of Gurdjieff's teachings, and in this case, unblushingly reporting what others might take as a mere chain-pulling as instead the warrant and authentication for a doctrine of the eternal destiny of the soul!
Not that we won't find, as Gurdjieff suggests, hints of profundity in what can nonetheless be experienced as both a very clumsy and contradictory et of theories (although certainly no paradoxical than, for example, the many-worlds and similar theories of quantum physics), and also, as one capable of easily tending towards despair.
Before leaving Gurdjieff's comments, it seems appropriate, inconsidering things recurrent and redux, how this dialog is an ironical replay of Buddha's dialog with his disciples (e. g., Malunkya-Putta) in response to similarly abstruse metaphysical questions such as whether or not the world is eternal or whether a Buddha exists after death, or if the ego recincarnates. The Buddha declined all such questions as being "not useful" nor conducing to a religious life or enlightenment. But notice, in this case, Gurdjieff does reply, only with much qualification and equivocation, and at the same time, arguing like Buddha, what's the point? And in particular, he voices the argument Steiner often cites as the justification for the western prejudice, with its emphasis on a single life in determining the eternal fate of the oul, against the traditional concept of reincarnation, as tending towards promotion of indolence with respect to the tasks of the present life. Gurdjieff has invited Ouspensky to take the whole thing as merely suggestive and approximate, but Ouspensky instead seizes on it as doctrine. (In fairness, Ouspensky does qualify it in his later teachings as well, saying it is a more "theoretical" part of the system.)
But back to Nietzche's doctrine of recurrence, as seen by Rudolf Steiner. In 1895, Rudolf Steiner became acquainted with Nietzsche's ister, Elisabeth Foerster-Nietzsche. Although they later fell out, for a time, he was her guest on multiple occasions at the Nietzsche archives. He describes all of this in his autobiography ("The Course of My Life"), where he also describes his visit to Nietzsche in his sick room - this is after Nietzsche had developed the profound mental illness of his last years.
Steiner reports encountering sources of Nietzche's own thinking while perusing his library: (see http://wn.elib.com/Steiner/Books/GA028/TSoML/GA028_c18.html for the complete chapter excerpted here.)
A penetrating conception of Nietzsche's final creative period shone clearly before me as I read his marginal comments on Eugen Dühring 's chief philosophical work. Dühring there develops the thought that the cosmos can be conceived at a single moment as a combination of elementary parts. Thus the course of the world-process would be the succession of all such possible combinations. When once these should have been exhausted, the first would have to return, and the whole series repeated.
In other words, if we conceive of the world as simply an agglomeration of a finite number of deterministic atoms, with each state of the entire system being absolutely determined by the relations present in the previous state, of the preceding moment, everything is not only predetermined, but bound to repeat eventually, forever, and throughout eternity, again and again in exactly the same way.
If such a thing represents reality, it must have occurred innumerable times in the past and must occur again innumerable times in the future. We should thus arrive at the conception of the eternal repetition of the same states of the cosmos. Dühring rejects this thought as an impossibility. Nietzsche reads this; he receives from it an impression which works further in the depth of his soul and finally takes form with him as "the return of the same," which together with the idea of the "superman," dominates his final creative period.
I was profoundly moved - indeed, hocked - by the impression I received from thus following Nietzsche in his reading. For I saw what a contrast existed between the character of Nietzsche's mind and that of his contemporaries. Dühring , the extreme positivist, who rejects everything that is not the result of a system of reasoning directed with cold and mathematical regularity, considers "the eternal repetition of the same" as an absurdity, and sets up the idea only to show its impossibility; but Nietzsche must take this up as his own solution of the world-riddle, like an intuition arising from the depths of his own soul.
He continues:
Nietzsche's ideas of the "eternal repetition" and the "superman" remained long in my mind … Nietzsche looked upon the evolution of humanity as if everything that occurs at any moment had already occurred innumerable times in the same form and would occur innumerable times in future. The atomistic structure of the universe makes the character of the present moment seem to be a certain combination of the smallest entities; this must be followed by another, and this in turn by another - until, when all possible combinations have be formed, the first must again appear. A human life, with all its individual details ahs been present innumerable times and will return with all its details innumerable times.
The repeated earth lives of humanity hone darkly in Nietzsche's subconsciousness.
Steiner is here referring to the idea of repeated earth lives in successive incarnations, with an intermediate sojourn in the spiritual world.
These lead the individual human lives through the evolution of humanity to life-stages in which overruling destiny causes the human being to move by sprit-shaping paths, not to a repetition of the same experiences, but to a manifold transition through the course of the world process. Nietzsche was fettered by the natural-scientific conception. What this conception could make repeated earth lives - this was conjured up before his mind. And this was matter of life to him. For he felt his own life to be a tragedy filled with the bitterest experiences, weighted down by grief. To live such a life countless times! - this was what he dwelt upon, instead of the perspective of the liberating experience which is to follow upon such a tragedy in the unfolding of future lives.
Steiner goes on to quote from an article he wrote at the time (1900), where he quotes Dühring :
'The profound logical basis of all conscious life demands in the strongest sense of the word an inexhaustibleness of forms. Is this endlessness, by virtue of which ever new forms will appear, a possibility? The mere number of the parts and of the force elements would in itself preclude the unending multiplication of combinations but for the fact that the perpetual medium of space and time promises a limitlessness in variations. Moreover, of that which can be counted only a limited number of combinations is possible. But from that which cannot according to its nature be conceived as enumerable it must be possible for a limitless number of states and relationships to come to pass. This limitlessness, which we are considering with reference to the destiny of forms in the universe, is compatible with any sort of change and even with intervals of approximation to fixity or precise repetitions (italics are mine) but not with the cessation of all variation. Whoever would cherish the conception of an existence which contradicts the primal state of things ought to reflect that the evolution in time has but a single true tendency, and that causality is always in line with this tendency. It is easier to abandon the distinction than to maintain it, and it then requires but little effort to leap over the chasm and imagine the end as analogous with the beginning. But we ought to guard against such superficial haste; for the once given existence of the universe is not merely an unimportant episode between two states of night, but rather the sole firm and illuminated ground from which we may infer the past and forecast the future ... 'Dühring feels also that an everlasting repetition of states holds no incentive for living.' He says: 'Now it is self-evident that the principle of an incentive for living is incompatible with the eternal repetition of the same form ...'
Nietzsche was forced by the logic of the natural-scientific conception to a conclusion from which Dühring turned back because of mathematical considerations and the repellent prospect which these represented for human life.
… And Nietzsche''s feeling in regard to these thoughts is precisely the opposite of that which Dühring experienced. To Nietzsche this thought is the loftiest formula in which life can be affirmed. [Nietzsche's] Aphorism 43 runs: 'Future history will ever more combat this thought, and never believe it, for according to its nature it must die forever! Only he remains who considers his existence capable of endless repetitions: among such, however, a state is possible to which no Utopian has ever attained.
It was then clear to me that in certain of his thoughts which strove to reach the world of spirit Nietzsche was a prisoner of his conception of nature. For this reason I was strongly opposed to the mystical interpretation of his thought of repetition. I agreed with Peter Gast, who wrote in his edition of Nietzsche''s work: "The doctrine - to be understood in a purely mechanical sense - of limitedness and consequent repetition in cosmic molecular combinations." Nietzsche believed that a lofty thought must be brought up from the foundations of natural science.
Steiner elsewhere (see also his "Friedrich Nietzsche, A Fighter Against His Age") characterizes at length the way in which Nietzsche, driven by an instinct of honesty, was forced to try and let the "… spirit weave … but in a wonderful spiritual dream woven out of the stuff of material reality. The spirit is reduced to dust in its unfolding, because it cannot find itself but can experience as its illusionary being only that dream-reflection from the material."
Recurrence as a concrete conception of reality is thus seen to be founded, in its modern origins (it also had ancient adherents) in an attempt to escape the bounds of 19th century scientific materialism. (It could be noted in passing that any number of current mathematical/scientific ideas such as Gödel's theorem, quantum mechanics, and the uncertainty principle make even the simplistic conception of "return of the same" impossible to think of in the same terms as conceived by Dühring; however, there are plenty of replacement "scientific" theories that similarly would reduce the spirit to dust.) Ouspensky, however, continues to try and found his understanding of the eternity of the spirit on crude calculations of "the scale of time" in the different cosmoses described by Gurdjieff. The most elaborate of these results, as developed by Rodney Collin, are not without interest; but they are completely misleading in terms of providing any kind of real knowledge of the spirit; at best, they can serve as a bridge for the materialistically prejudiced mind to begin thinking about the spirit. As such, these ideas are mere scaffolding and must be discarded and replaced before any real results can be experienced in the life of the spirit.
Maurice Nicoll, who first came to the work through Ouspensky, tudied later directly with Gurdjieff. It is also interesting to note both that he had studied with, and maintained some connection to, Carl Jung, and that his half-sister Mildred was also apparently connected somehow with anthroposophy (she was translator into English of Steiner's "Redemption of Thinking"). His book, "Living Time", examines the idea of recurrence but places it squarely within a broader exploration of the concept of time, eternity, and "the life in living-time". Approximating his thesis, he tries to suggest an appreciation of the eternal existence of "the life" - past, present, and future. From a consciousness that is rooted in the sense of the eternal, the life exists as a whole. The book reflects a wide and understanding reading of Hermetic and related sources, as well as a use of the notion of the Gnostic "Aeon" imilar to Jung's (cf. Aion).
In fact, Nicoll ends up providing an excellent picture of the way in which Rudolf Steiner describes the etheric body as being the time-body. Steiner (see his "Anthroposophy, an Introduction") goes so far as to say that, as soul and spirit beings, we never actually "leave" the piritual world, that is, eternity; rather, we stretch ourselves out to each moment of passing time through our etheric bodies.
In Steiner's anthroposophy, the etheric body is one of four essential members of the human being: physical body; etheric or life body, or body of formative forces, which we posses in common with living plants; the astral body or soul body, the vehicle of consciousness, we is similarly possessed by animals, and the (true) ego or "I", which is the representative of the eternal in man. (cf. Theosophy, Occult Science, and other works by Steiner).
It is the etheric body, which, according to Steiner's description, lingers for approximately three days in the consciousness of one who had died, as a life-tableau - a picture of the whole life existing all at once before one. Indeed, it is this same form that one "sees" as the pre-figured destiny of one's life before one "enters" into incarnation - however, when viewed from the "before" perspective, it is only a sketch, whereas, from the "after", it is complete in every detail - the details of our lives as actually lived.
In Steiner's concept, there are clearly different orders of time, and it is clear that the soul can experience itself as existing in eternity. But if our conception of time is limited to that of passing-time, of clock-time, of before and after time - further, if our conception of the world is narrowed by materialism, as it was for Nietzsche - when the deep oul intuition of these realities described by Steiner flashes before the oul, as it did for Nietzsche, it can only conceive - and even possibly, only experience - the connection of eternity, the present moment, and passing-time, by conceiving of eternal repetition or recurrence. Taken as a mental picture, it may help to stimulate the sensation of the eternal existence of the life in living time. But the soul, in sensing this, must be free to identify itself with the eternal, with the timeless, with the unborn. In so doing, it must relinquish it's earthly sense of identity - the creation of passing time.
The livingness of each moment in eternity is part of the livingness of the etheric body. Everything good and true that is experienced in life on earth is preserved in the universal ether or akasha. To become conscious of the life existing in eternity is to become free to be ever more living into eternity at all points of the life. To the extent that we are conscious only of passing-time, that is doom enough; the danger is not, as Ouspensky describes, that we will be doomed to "repeat" the life; we are already "repeating" it insofar as we are not conscious - if only dimly or abstractly - of being timeless in our true essence, that is, unborn and undying.
The fact that the soul does indeed repeat successive lives on earth, as understood in the way Steiner describes, can lead to profound feelings of anguish to the extent that incarnation itself is experienced as divorce from the spiritual. Once awakened to the realization that earthly live is instead the platform for both self-transformation and self-expression and self-revelation, the sense of divorcement can be healed. This sense can be part of the experience of alienation and poverty of spirit that is part of the consciousness-soul experience of our age, and which is a necessary tep in our individual development.
This sensation of recurrence, in the Nietzschean/Ouspenkian ense, can be experienced very vividly and with great apparent reality under the influence of certain drugs, for example. Nicoll describes an account of an experiment with ether where small quantities were uccessively inhaled and changes in consciousness reported. Various modifications in the sense of time were reported, with both a sense of always-ness and of recurrence of events. From an anthroposophical point of view, this would be described as a loosening of the etheric body (similar to the near-death experiences where "my life flashed before my eyes"), where the etheric body (both of the individual and of the surrounding environment, i. e., the world) were experienced outside of passing-time.
The sensation of the eternal existence of the life in time can give rise to hellish experiences if one is in a negative state: one has always been here, and will always be stuck here. This is perhaps suggestive of the belief (as opposed to the experience) in the possible eternal damnation (or salvation of the soul) understood as infinite continued existence in passing time in either a hellish or heavenly state.
Indeed, it is one that we will recur to, not in precise repetitions, but rather in recurring patterns and situations that arise continuously to the extent that we do not transform and redeem the lessons imposed on us by the present moments. This kind of psychological recurrence is a well known commonplace of pop psychology in the 21st century; it is also the sense in which Ouspensky's own "Ivan Osokin" can be understood as a metaphor for the patterns we repeat again and again, each time different but each time the same. ("plus ca change".)
The teachings of anthroposophy shed additional light on the experience of having "lived before". Steiner relates how, both in sleep and in the life after death, the soul does indeed re-experience the life just lived, only in reverse order - like a film being played in reverse - and re-experienced with a profound shift in perspective which embraces the moral significance of our deeds. The soul, in its review or re-experience, judges its deeds in the light of its now vivid experience of how they are experienced by others. One views and experiences one's self in full empathy with the experience of the other. One's consciousness does, in a sense, return to the moment of one's birth; but not in a mechanical circle of repetition, but rather, by being experienced as a counter-current in time.
This review, which the soul experiences during sleep (without remembering except through the filter of dreams) is in fact an experience of the piritual (or eternal) component of our experience which is in fact present while we experience or perform our deeds and impressions, but which, because of our the demands of earthly consciousness, we do not experience in the moment (indeed, if we did, we would begin to lose our connection to the earth). However, this reality - the moral judgment of our deeds from the viewpoint of the eternal, and the experience of the reverse flow of time - can be experienced consciously in extreme or special states of consciousness. Because we lack the categories of experience to understand and properly interpret such experiences, the soul can experience itself as if an 'exact repetition' were being experienced -- that is, if it brings to the experience the categories of materialistic thinking. What is really happening is the perspective of eternity is dawning on the oul; past, present and future are all intersecting in the present moment. What is the critical idea to grasp, from the perspective of human freedom, is that, from the timeless vantage of 'eternity', the expression of human will, of choice, can reflect not only the compulsions imposed by the past, but the simultaneous determination of what will meet the present moment out of the stream from the future, where the soul also exists, just as the past is always existent in eternity.
What actually takes place in the present moment is determined in the present moment; the more present we are to the moment itself, to now, the closer we are also to eternity, where all is determined, all exists, and all is possible.
The idea of mechanical recurrence or repetition is, in effect, a shadow of eternity, cast into our earthly lives and minds. Steiner's anthroposophical teachings can clarify our understanding in this domain so that we do not mistake the hadow for the light.
