The Meaning of Life

I haven't read Gurdjieff (to be honest, I've not heard that name before) but that sounds, at least in part, what old Albert is driving at.

The Gurdjieff movement attracted many intellectuals of the early 20th century. Its concepts are still followed today, both under its own name and via its off-shoots such as the "School of Practical Philosophy".
(Try google. The psychology is interesting, but the cosmology is weird)

I'm interested in what you know about this so called "School of Practical Philosophy." I've walked by its Upper East Side campus [12 East 79th Street; New York, NY] and for the past couple of years, I've seen it advertise on the MTA.

I've never given attendance a serious thought. And until now, I assumed it was just that an academic/collegiate level school for philosophy, albeit a new agey yet still accredited school rather then a potential cult/spiritual money maker. Is that a fair assessment?

The purpose of life is the pursuit of ones happiness with full respect for individual rights.

Name the philospher.

The school has tried to clean up its act following accusations of "cultism" in the 70's. I would say the first level course is useful and therapeutic for those looking for a bit of order in their lives. However, some "carrots" are dangled which tend to be grasped by those who "burn a few boats" during course one, and this may suck them into to a "pyramid of advancement" syndrome. It is this social structure aimed at "enlightenment" , rather than a cynical money making mechanism , which tends to sustain the organization.

Sounds like something John Locke would say but I'm really just taking a blind guess.

Interesting. A slightly more earnest and honest version of The Kabbalah Centre?

The one and only AYN RAND.

I got turned on to her in college, met her and Nathanial Brandon at a lecture at BU, and I am still turned.

Well if we have to take Ayn Rand seriously, I am bowing out of the thread.

I'm not famililiar with Kabbalah except that I believe it stresses the experiential, rather than the theoretical. Practical Philosophy/Gurdjieff stresses the experiential in the form of "self observation". Such experience moves the observer into a different state which is receptive of various cosmological concepts. I would think that it in the details of self preparation, and the cosmological system, where Kabbalah might differ, although they probably have some features in common.

at this juncture

i'd like to thank my parents, ayn rand and god

Ayn Rand patched together her philosophy of objectivism in about the same amount of time it took L. Ron Hubbard to concoct Dianetics, now known as Scientology 'cause nobody wanted to follow a philosophy named after a steak.

Please don't go, edgar. Will it make you feel better to know that at her appearance at B.U. she was picketed by about 200 sign-carrying students who objected to her even being allowed on campus? Her sense of timing was in credibly bad. How does one, at the height of the flower-power movement when everyone is carrying peace signs and living in communes, expect to be taken seriously if one states that altruism is the root of all evil. The hippies wanted to lynch her.

What?! If they were willing to ordain you as a cardinal of the church of sirloinology, you'd turn it down?

Actually Dianetics is still alive and well. It's kind of the secular arm of the Church of Scientology. Believe it or not, there are actually some otherwise quite normal-appearing corporations that use Dianetics as a training tool for its junior executives. Go figure.

I drove from Concord N.H. to Boston in a blizzard to see Ayn Rand. I didn't see no stinkin' hippies out in the snow with signs.

I once drove from La Junta Co to Walsenburg Co to see Ayn Rand, fortunately she was in NYC at the time.

it's lines like this that make me wish you didn't have me on ignore

I'm no philosopher, but to me the meaning of life is to be happy. It isn't something to be pursued. You just have to decide to be it and adjust how you think about things that currently interfere with your perception of happiness.

It's only our ego's that prevent us from realizing that none of it matters in the end. Tomorrow? Ten years from now? 15 years? 25 years? When will it stop mattering that someone cut you off at the on ramp? Or, that your neighbor, in your opinion, planted a tree too close to your property line? Or, that your spouse cheated? Why can't it stop making you unhappy today?

You're now gonna force me to start a new thread, Squinney -- "What is the meaning of Happiness?"

BTW, where ya been?