Life and Living, The Horse-drawn Carriage

There is an analogy in Gurdjieff's writings that describes a horse-drawn carriage with a passenger inside.  The analogy works!  Here are some of my observations vis-a-vis the Driver, Carriage, Horse, Passenger analogy:

1) Only the passenger (Master) knows the destination (aim).

2) Faith is required for the Driver to be able to move towards aim because there is no definitive way, at least that can be seen at the moment, for him to know it.

3) Positive is akin to progress towards that destination and Negative is distraction away from it.

4) Unless and until the driver deals costructively with distractions, little progress will be made in achieving aim.

The driver in this analogy is that central persona who directs (and I have referred to him as the director in other writing) which of the others is in the game at the moment. Depending on the circumstances in which the being finds himself, any one of a multitude of personae is put into action to cope with the situation at hand. The carriage is the body. The horse is the emotional motive force that precipitates action. The passenger is Master. I've previously described him; he is mute and influences the being passively to achieve aim.

There is no direct communication between Master and the being. From my personal experience it seems that as long as the being is acting in accord with the aim of Master, all is well but when he is not, bad things happen. They get worse as the degree of separation between the aim of Master and the activities of the being increases. If corrections aren't made, Master may depart prematurely for a different opportunity and leave behind a dead body.