Ask Yourself

(From Gurdjieff's "Views from the Real World," pp. 56-59)

The more a man studies the obstacles and deceptions which lie in wait for him at every step
in this realm, the more convinced he becomes that it is impossible to travel the path of self-
development on the chance instructions of chance people, or the kind of information culled
from reading and casual talk.

At the same time he gradually sees more clearly--first a feeble glimmer, then the clear light
of truth which has illumined mankind throughout the ages. The beginnings of initiation are
lost in the darkness of time, where the long chain of epochs unfolds. Great cultures and
civilizations loom up, dimly arising from cults and mysteries, ever changing, disappearing
and reappearing.

The Great Knowledge is handed on in succession from age to age, from people to people,
from race to race. The great centers of initiation in India, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, illumine
the world with a bright light. The revered names of the great initiates, the living bearers of
the truth, are handed on reverently from generation to generation. Truth is fixed by means
of symbolical writings and legends and is transmitted to the mass of people for preservation
in the form of customs and ceremonies, in oral traditions, in memorials, in sacred art
through the invisible quality in dance, music, sculpture and various rituals. It is
communicated openly after a definite trial to those who seek it and is preserved by oral
transmission in the chain of those who know. After a certain time has elapsed, the centers of
initiation die out one after another, and the ancient knowledge departs through
underground channels into the deep, hiding from the eyes of the seekers.

The bearers of this knowledge also hide, becoming unknown to those around them, but they
do not cease to exist. From time to time separate streams break through to the surface,
showing that somewhere deep down in the interior, even in our day, there flows the
powerful ancient stream of true knowledge of being.

To break through to this stream, to find it--this is the task and the aim of the search; for,
having found it, a man can entrust himself boldly to the way by which he intends to go; then
there only remains "to know" in order "to be" and 'to do." On this way a man will not be
entirely alone; at difficult moments he will receive support and guidance, for all who follow
this way are connected by an uninterrupted chain.

Perhaps the only positive result of all wanderings in the winding paths and tracks of occult
research will be that, if a man preserves the capacity for sound judgment and thought, he
will evolve that special faculty of discrimination which can be called flair. He will discard the
ways of psychopathy and error and will persistently search for true ways. And here, as in
self-knowledge, the principle which I have already quoted holds good: "In order to do, it is
necessary to know; but in order to know, it is necessary to find out how to know."

To a man who is searching with all his being, with all his inner self, comes the unfailing
conviction that to find out how to know in order to do is possible only by finding a guide with
experience and knowledge, who will take on his spiritual guidance and become his teacher.

And it is here that a man's flair is more important than anywhere else. He chooses a guide
for himself. It is of course an indispensable condition that he choose as a guide a man who
knows, or else all meaning of choice is lost. Who can tell where a guide who does not know
may lead a man?
Every seeker dreams of a guide who knows, dreams about him but seldom asks himself
objectively and sincerely--is he worthy of being guided? Is he ready to follow the way?

Go out one clear starlit night to some open space and look up at the sky, at those millions of
worlds over your head. Remember that perhaps on each one of them swarm billions of
beings, similar to you or perhaps superior to you in their organization. Look at the Milky Way.
The earth cannot even be called a grain of sand in this infinity. It dissolves and vanishes,
and with it, you. Where are you? And is what you want simply madness?

Before all these worlds ask yourself what are your aims and hopes, your intentions and
means of fulfilling them, the demands that may be made upon you and your preparedness
to meet them.

A long and difficult journey is before you; you are preparing for a strange and unknown land.
The way is infinitely long. You do not know if rest will be possible on the way nor where it will
be possible. You should be prepared for the worst. Take all the necessities for the journey
with you.

Try to forget nothing, for afterwards it will be too late and there will be no time to go back
for what has been forgotten, to rectify the mistake. Weigh up your strength. Is it sufficient
for the whole journey? How soon can you start?

Remember that if you spend longer on the way you will need to carry proportionately more
supplies, and this will delay you further both on the way and in your preparations for it. Yet
every minute is precious. Once having decided to go, there is no use wasting time.

Do not reckon on trying to come back. This experiment may cost you very dear. The guide
undertakes only to take you there and, if you wish to turn back, he is not obliged to return
with you. You will be left to yourself, and woe to you if you weaken or forget the way--you
will never get back. And even if you remember the way, the question still remains--will you
return safe and sound? For many unpleasantnesses await the lonely traveler who is not
familiar with the way and the customs which prevail there. Bear in mind that your sight has
the property of presenting distant objects as though they were near. Beguiled by the
nearness of the aim toward which you strive, blinded by its beauty and ignorant of the
measure of your own strength, you will not notice the obstacles on the way; you will not see
the numerous ditches across the path. In a green meadow covered with luxuriant flowers, in
the thick grass, a deep precipice is hidden. It is very easy to stumble and fall over it if your
eyes are not concentrated on the step you are taking.

Do not forget to concentrate all your attention on the nearest sector of the way--do not
concern yourself about far aims if you do not wish to fall over the precipice.

Yet do not forget your aim. Remember it the whole time and keep up in yourself an active
endeavor toward it, so as not to lose the right direction. And once you have started, be
observant; what you have passed through remains behind and will not appear again; so if
you fail to notice it at the time, you never will notice it.

Do not be overcurious nor waste time on things that attract your attention but are not worth
it. Time is precious and should not be wasted on things which have no direct relation to your
aim.

Remember where you are and why you are here.

Do not protect yourselves and remember that no effort is made in vain.

And now you can set out on the way.

Relaxation
(From Nicoll's Commentaries, pp 1252 and 809)

We are taught to practise relaxation. In some situations it is the only thing we can practise--
just to relax and not think. Begin with the small muscles of the face. Yes-- but to relax the
muscles of the face it is necessary to become conscious that they are tightened or
contracted. A muscle can tighten without visibly contracting. It can be in a state of
heightened tone which is unnecessary and wastes force. When a person is said to be "keyed
up" or some similar phrase, if you examine him, you may find all his reflexes over-brisk,
which may mean over-tone in the muscles which are being kept on the stretch unnecessarily
and so are wasting force. I will not argue about this point....

To return: as we are, directed attention practised, say, for five minutes, by putting
consciousness into every part of the body, beginning with the face-muscles, will give
definite results at any moment when it is done in order to prevent some difficult period of
being identified. Directing one's attention to the Intellectual or Emotional Centre
demands internal attention. Internal attention begins with self-observation. Putting
consciousness into the muscle-tension of the body is both internal and external attention.
Begin by trying, say, to put your consciousness into your right thumb--then shift it to your
left.

Try therefore to study relaxation when you can. Notice how your face-muscles are
contracted and try by putting your internal attention into the face-muscles to relax them. I
advise you to begin with the muscles round about your eyes and then the muscles round
about your nose (those muscles which sneer so easily) and then the small muscles all round
your mouth and your cheeks; and then put your internal attention into those muscles which
are just under the chin and in the front of the neck and then go round the back of your head
and relax those muscles that make you stiff-necked, and then into the bigger muscles round
your shoulders and gradually descend through internal attention right down to your toes. Of
course this takes a long time but it is a very good thing to try to do. I have left out the
muscles of the hands. I should have said: Pass from the shoulders down the arms to the
hands and begin with the wrist-muscles. Put your internal attention into your wrist-muscles
so that your wrists are quite flexible, quite dropped down, and then try to go into the small
muscles of the fingers and relax them. Everyone in going through the muscular tensions in
their bodies in this way will get to know for themselves certain groups of muscles which are
not ordinarily relax properly. remember above all that you cannot relax just by saying to
yourself: "Relax." It is an actual exercise of internal attention. It is a directed effort that has
to be made comparatively consciously and even if you do it only once a week you will get
results.

Often people are kept awake at night because of a certain group of muscles being in a
these state. They may observe their Emotional Centre and their Intellectual Centre and try
to relax--i.e. not identify with these two centres--but they do not observe through internal
attention the muscular contractions that exist in their body. Now this paper is about
muscular relaxation. It is about relaxing the Moving Centre. I will remind you again that the
Work says that every centre can hypnotize another centre. In the case of Moving Centre this
means that certain typical postures and typical expressions induce in you typical emotions
and typical thoughts. For example, a hurried person, who cannot stop rushing about, is a
person who has a Moving Centre that assumes certain positions or postures, or rather, in
this case, certain movements, which belong to the same idea, and therefore is always
hypnotized by Moving Centre assuming these postures and movements. These hurried
movements would induce hurried and anxious emotions and hurried and anxious thoughts.
This is where illness sometimes is so good. I can only say that I have noticed it in myself
very often. Illness quiets Moving Centre and so often does a great deal of good by relaxing
us. Perhaps some of you have noticed the same thing. I may not be emotionally anxious or
have any reason to be, but if I am accustomed to make hurried movements and apparently
never have time for anything, my Moving Centre will hypnotize my Emotional Centre into
feeling anxiety and being harassed. Of course we must not think for a moment that we are
all going to begin to walk about majestically and slowly just to shew off how we are relaxed.
One has to be really relaxed through internal attention when one wishes to be and when one
feels one needs to be relaxed. If you will start with the small muscles of your face and do
this exercise quite sincerely you will be very surprised to find out how very often rather
difficult and worrying thoughts completely cease. For example, stop frowning for a short
time, I mean, don't just stop frowning because you are told not to frown but through internal
attention really go into the muscles that are frowning, and lo and behold, all your frowning
thoughts will disappear. This means that they are kept going by the posture of your face.
Again, people who stick out their jaws and clench their fists find that it is quite remarkable if
they can cease to do this--they feel quite alien from themselves. But, since we all wish to
remain mechanical and do not wish to change at all, I fancy that these people will very soon
stick out their jaws and clench their fists and make chests as before.

Now in discussing this paper please remember that we start in the Work with relaxing the
muscles of the face and this takes a lot of practice in putting the consciousness into these
muscles and relaxing them one by one, and remember especially the small skin-muscles
just underneath the chin and the muscles at the back of the neck. In my personal
experience I have found that relaxing the wrist-muscles when I have no time to do anything
else is extremely useful. Let your hands drop because the hands so easily express violence.

Elder
(G, as quoted in Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous," p. 203)

"It is impossible to recognize a wrong way without knowing the right way. This means that it
is of no use troubling oneself how to recognize a wrong way. One must think of how to find
the right way. This is what we are speaking about all the time. It cannot be said in two
words. But from what I have said you can draw many useful conclusions if you remember
everything that has been said and everything that follows from it. For example, you can see
that the teacher always corresponds to the level of the pupil. The higher the pupil, the
higher can be the teacher. But a pupil of a level which is not particularly high cannot count
on a teacher of a very high level. Actually a pupil can never see the level of the teacher. This
is a law. No one can see higher than his own level. But usually people not only do not know
this, but, on the contrary, the lower they are themselves, the higher the teacher they
demand. The right understanding of this point is already a very considerable understanding.
But it occurs very seldom. Usually the man himself is not worth a brass farthing but he must
have a teacher no other than Jesus Christ. To less he will not agree. And it never enters his
head that even if he were to meet such a teacher as Jesus Christ, taking him as he is
described in the Gospels, he would never be able to follow him because it would be
necessary to be on the level of an apostle in order to be a pupil of Jesus Christ. Here is a
definite law. The higher the teacher, the more difficult for the pupil. And if the difference in
the levels of the teacher and pupil go beyond a certain limit, then the difficulties in the path
of the pupil become insuperable. It is exactly in connection with this law that there occurs
one of the fundamental rules of the fourth way. On the fourth way there is not one teacher.
Whoever is the elder, he is the teacher. And as the teacher is indispensable to the pupil, so
also is the pupil indispensable to the teacher. The pupil cannot go on without the teacher,
and the teacher cannot go on without the pupil or pupils. And this is not a general
consideration but an indispensable and quite concrete rule on which is based the law of a
man's ascending. As has been said before, no one can ascend onto a higher step until he
places another man in his own place. What a man is received he must immediately give
back; only then can he receive more. Otherwise from him will be taken even what he has
already been given."

(G, as quoted in Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous," p. 294)

"Speaking in general it must be understood that the enneagram is a universal symbol. All
knowledge can be included in the enneagram and with the help of the enneagram it can be
interpreted. And in this connection only what a man is able to put into the enneagram does
he actually know, that is, understand. What he cannot put into the enneagram he does not
understand. For the man who is able to make use of it, the enneagram makes books and
libraries entirely unnecessary. Everything can be included and read in the enneagram. A
man may be quite alone in the desert and he can trace the enneagram in the sand and in it
read the eternal laws of the universe. And every time he can learn something new,
something he did not know before.

"If two men who have been in different schools meet, they will draw the enneagram and
with its help they will be able at once to establish which of them knows more and which,
consequently, stands upon which step, that is to say, which is the elder, which is the
teacher and which the pupil. The enneagram is the fundamental hieroglyph of a universal
language which has as many different meanings as there are levels of men."

Limit Of Consciousness
(From Ouspensky's "Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution," pp. 19-20)

I shall try to explain how consciousness can be studied. Take a watch and look at the second
hand, trying to be aware of yourself, and concentrating on the thought, "I am Peter
Ouspensky," "I am now here." Try not to think about anything else, simply follow the
movements of the second hand and be aware of yourself, your name, your existence, and
the place where you are. Keep all other thoughts away.

You will, if you are persistent, be able to do this for two minutes. This is the limit of your
consciousness. And if you try to repeat the experiment soon after, you will find it more
difficult than the first time.

This experiment shows that a man, in his natural state, can with great effort be conscious
of one subject (himself) for two minutes or less.

The most important deduction one can make after making this experiment in the right way
is that man is not conscious of himself. The illusion of his being conscious of himself is
created by memory and thought processes.
 One Thing You Can Do
(from Nicoll's Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky,
pp. 369-370)

One of the objects of self-observation is actually to observe something. Now I must say
here that to take the Work-phrase "Man cannot do" in such a way that one makes no effort
is a very good example of chaotic thinking in the Work. There is one thing that you are told
you can do in regard to yourself and that is that you can observe yourself, that you can
observe the working of different centres and that you can observe different 'I's in yourself,
that you can observe when you are internally considering, that you can observe when you
are negative, that you can observe when you are identifying, that you can observe when
you are justifying yourself, and so on. This Work is to pull a person together, to brace him,
and to make him have a more distinct relationship to all that goes on inside him. For this
reason, you are taught first of all to observe yourself, and then to observe yourself from
certain well-defined angles. A man must get hold of himself, he must steady himself, he
must try to let light into himself in order to see what is going on in him and so where he is
going in himself. Also he must observe where he is talking wrongly, where he is complaining
and not working, where he is saying things mechanically that should belong to self-
observation.

The Work must be practised. In every wrong state it is absolutely necessary to review
oneself from what the Work teaches and try to see where one is. If you never call upon the
Work to help you it will not be able to help you. Your relationship to the Work is an internal
matter that lies between you and the Work right down, deep inside you. A person can talk
as much as he likes about his difficulties with the Work. He can let the whole of the Work
discharge itself into small 'I's. He can connect the Work with some feature in himself and
turn it into a source of perplexity and worry. A man can treat the Work in a thousand
different ways. But it is important how one treats the Work. It can produce very great
tensions within one. Its object is to do so. But it is necessary to keep the Work, as it were,
inviolate, as something utterly pure that cannot be contradicted and which at the same time
is telling one something if one will only listen to what it is saying, if one will only relate
oneself to what it is teaching. It is quite easy to say that one does not understand the Work,
but there is a right way of saying this and a wrong way. It is quite useless to shrug one's
shoulders mentally speaking and again it is quite useless to think that one should
understand the Work after a few years' casual practicing of it. A great deal of patience is
necessary, and patience is the Mother of Will. We find ourselves in a crowd of people within
us and some of them say one thing and some say another. If there is valuation and if in spite
of all difficulties we can feel that here is something that can eventually lead us away from
our present states, and if in spite of all the failures this valuation persists, then a centre of
gravity will be formed, a point in the Work will be established, and when this is so it is a very
blessed condition.

So do not complain too easily, because, as you all know, it takes a very long time to learn
anything in a real way in life. You remember how often it was said that if you wish to learn
Chinese thoroughly it will take you all your life. So do not have too short a view. Do not think
that when you begin to observe yourself and find a chaos within you you need be
pessimistic. It is actually the first step in the Work, the first step to realization. What then, a
person may ask, must I do? The answer is that you must begin to follow as sincerely as you
can all the practical things that the Work tells you to observe and separate from. The
intelligent scrutiny of oneself, the practice of a directed noticing of oneself, the application
of non-identifying with certain states of oneself, remembering that certain 'I's weaken
oneself and undermine everything one does--all this is being led by the Work. All this is
following the Work. People do not surrender to the Work for a long time. They keep on trying
to do things by themselves according to their own lights instead of doing things according to
the Work. They continue to make the same life-efforts as before but they do not make Work-
effort. But all this it is necessary to pass through, and one must pass through this jungle,
through this tangled forest, this kind of darkness, until one discerns the Work and what it is
saying. For a long time the last thing that we ever think of doing is to work on ourselves in
accordance with what the Work teaches. We wriggle about, as it were, like a fish on the end
of a line and will not submit to the gentle pull of the line which will lift us into another
atmosphere. We get into a bad state and we identify with it right away. Then we see
everything through the medium of this bad state but we do not think of practising non-
identifying with this bad state, of seeing that it is not 'I'. On the contrary, we say 'I' to it, and
we argue about everything from this bad state which is quite incapable of leading us
anywhere save into a worse state. We are like people standing in the drenching rain
complaining that they are catching cold and saying how miserable they feel, when their own
house is standing close beside them into which they can go. Very often when we stand in
this drenching rain and this bad inner state, we think vaguely of trying to work on ourselves
and separating ourselves from it internally by an act of consciousness and Will, but some
small 'I' pipes up and says: "Oh, the Work is too difficult for me."

Study Of Lying
(From Ouspensky's Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution, pp. 47-48)

En Espaol

Now we must see what are those harmful features that man finds in himself.

Speaking in general, they are all mechanical manifestations. The first, as has already been
said, is lying. Lying is unavoidable in mechanical life. No one can escape it, and the more
one thinks that one is free from lying, the more one is in it. Life as it is could not exist
without lying. But from the psychological side, lying has a different meaning. It means
speaking about things one does not know, and even cannot know, as though one knows and
can know.

You must understand that I do not speak from any moral point of view. We have not yet
come to questions of what is good, and what is bad, by itself. I speak only from a practical
point of view, of what is useful and what is harmful to self-study and self-development.

Starting in this way, man very soon learns to discover signs by which he can know harmful
manifestations in himself. He discovers that the more he can control a manifestation, the
less harmful it can be, and that the less he can control it, that is, the more mechanical it is,
the more harmful it can become.

When man understands this, he becomes afraid of lying, again not on moral grounds, but on
the grounds that he cannot control his lying, and that lying controls him, that is, his other
functions.
 (From Ouspensky's The Fourth Way, p. 30)

The most serious lying is when we know perfectly well that we do not and cannot know the
truth about things and yet never act accordingly. We always think and act as though we
knew the truth. This is lying. When I know that I do not know something, and at the same
time say that I know, or act as though I knew it, it is lying. For instance, we know nothing
about ourselves, and we really know that we know nothing, yet we never recognize or admit
the fact; we never confess it even to ourselves, we act and think and speak as though we
knew who we are. This is the origin, the beginning of lying.

(G, as quoted in Ouspensky's In Search Of The Miraculous, pp. 229-230)

"Speaking in general the most difficult barrier is the conquest of lying. A man lies so much
and so constantly both to himself and to others that he ceases to notice it. Nevertheless
lying must be conquered. And the first effort required of a man is to conquer lying in relation
to the teacher. A man must either decide at once to tell him nothing but the truth, or at
once give up the whole thing.

"You must realize the teacher takes a very difficult task upon himself, the cleaning and the
repair of human machines. Of course he accepts only those machines that are within his
power to mend. If something essential is broken or put out of order in the machine, then he
refuses to take it. But even such machines, which by their nature could still be cleaned,
become quite hopeless if they begin to tell lies. A lie to the teacher, even the most
insignificant, concealment of any kind such as the concealment of something another has
asked to be kept secret, or of something the man himself has said to another, at once puts
an end to the work of that man, especially if he has made previous efforts.

"Here is something you must bear in mind. So long as a man has not made any serious
efforts the demands made upon him are very small, but his efforts immediately increase the
demands made upon him. And the greater the efforts that are made, the greater the new
demands.

"At this stage people very often make a mistake that is constantly made. They think that the
efforts they have previously made, their former merits, so to speak, give them some kind of
rights or advantages, diminish the demands to be made upon them, and constitute as it
were an excuse should they not work or should they afterwards do something wrong. This,
of course, is most profoundly false. Nothing a man did yesterday excuses him today. Quite
the reverse, if a man did nothing yesterday, no demands are made upon him today; if he did
anything yesterday, it means that he must do more today. This certainly does not mean that
it is better to do nothing. Whoever does nothing receives nothing.

"As i have said already, one of the first demands is sincerity. But there are different kinds of
sincerity. There is clever sincerity and there is stupid sincerity, just as there is clever
insincerity and stupid insincerity. Both stupid sincerity and stupid insincerity are equally
mechanical. But if a man wishes to learn to be cleverly sincere, he must be sincere first of
all with his teacher and with people who are senior to him in the work. This will be 'clever
sincerity.' But it here necessary to note that sincerity must not become 'lack of considering.'
Lack of considering in relation to the teacher or in relation to those whom the teacher has
appointed, as I have said already, destroys all possibility of any work. If he wishes to learn
and to be cleverly sincere he must be insincere about the work and he must learn to be
silent when he ought to be silent with people outside it, who can neither understand nor
appreciate it. But sincerity in the group is an absolute demand, because, if a man continues
to lie in the group in the same way as he lies to himself and others in life, he will never learn
to distinguish the truth from a lie."

Work On Uncontrolled Imagination

(From Ouspensky's "Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution," pp. 47-50)

Now we must see what are those harmful features that man finds in himself.

Speaking in general, they are all mechanical manifestations. The first, as has already been
said, is lying....

The second dangerous feature he finds in himself is imagination. Very soon after starting his
observation of himself he comes to the conclusion that the chief obstacle to observation is
imagination. He wishes to observe something, but instead of that, imagination starts in him
on the same subject, and he forgets about observation. Very soon he realizes that people
ascribe to the word "imagination" a quite artificial and quite undeserved meaning in the
sense of creative or selective faculty. He realizes that imagination is a destructive
faculty, that he can never control it, and that it always carries him away from his more
conscious decisions in a direction in which he had no intention of going. Imagination is
almost as bad as lying; it is, in fact, lying to oneself. Man starts to imagine something in
order to please himself, and very soon he begins to believe what he imagines, or at least
some of it....

The difficulties he has in observing these four manifestations--lying, imagination, the

expression of negative emotions, and unnecessary talking--will show man his utter
mechanicalness, and the impossibility even of struggling against this mechanicalness
without help, that is, without new knowledge and without actual assistance. For even if a
man has received certain material, he forgets to use it, forgets to observe himself; in other
words, he falls asleep again and must always be awakened.

States
(From Nicoll's Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky,
pp. 1499-1500)

The influences coming down the Ray of Creation and received by Higher Centres, which can
change us, are shut out. Now if one believes in nothing else, one can admit that sometimes
one is in a better state and sometimes in a worse one. We know there are far worse states
than we usually experience. We can experience hell on earth in more ways than one,
externally and internally. This, I repeat, must be admitted even if one believes nothing else,
and for those who have difficulty with their inner denial and awkward doubts it can form a
starting-point beyond argument for the reception of the Work. Now, to set about cleansing
the Augaean stables of negative emotions by running the river of the truth of the Work-
teaching throught them is real intelligence indeed. And, of course, this task gives one an
entirely new angle on life and what one has to do. The results, ideally speaking, would be
finally to eradicate violence; for all negative emotions lead down to violence and root in it.
No one can be rising in the scale of being unless he is leaving violence more and more
behind him. Eventually in one's development violence must go.

I will append here an account of an experience I had in connection with this matter some
time ago. It is in the form of a dream, and is as follows:

The difficult-to-cross ditch at the top of the slope is full of the bones of prehistoric animals--
the remains of violent things, of beasts of prey, of monsters, of snakes. They go far down
into this abyss. There is a plank to cross by, but the air seems full of restraining power, like
the invisible influence of some magnet; and this, with the fear of crossing this depth--
although the width is not great--holds me back. I cannot say for how long for there is no
ordinary time in all this. Then I find myself across--on the other side. What wonderful vision
do I now behold? I see someone teaching or drilling some recruits. That is all. At first sight
there seems nothing marvellous. He smiles. He indicates somehow that he does not
necessarily expect to get any results from what he is doing. He does not seem to mind. He
does not shew any signs of impatience when they are rude to him. The lesson is nearly over,
but this will not make any difference to him. It is as if he said, "Well, this has to be done.
One cannot expect much. One must give them help, though they don't want it." It is his
invulnerability that strikes me. He is not hurt or angered by their sneers or lack of discipline.
He has some curious power but hardly uses it. I pass on, marvelling that he could do it. I
could not take on such a thankless task. I come to a place, perhaps a shop, where boats are
stored. Beyond is the sea.

When I wake I think of this man. To do what he is doing is so utterly contrary to anything I
would do. I would need a new will to do it.

It would mean I would have to go in a direction I never went in. I thought much about this
direction. How could I define it to myself? I would have been violent to those recruits. Yes,
that was it. He shewed no violence. He had not a will of violence. He seemed purified from
all violence. That was the secret. That was the source of the curious power I detected in
him. A man without violence. And then I reflected that to reach him I had to get across to
the other side of the deep gulf full of the bones of prehistoric beasts, where the non-violent
lived and taught--the country of the non-violent, where recruits were being taught.

He had nearly finished his lesson. Beyond was the sea, and there were boats stored near it.
No doubt when he had finished he was going on, somewhere. As for me, I had been given
only a glance into the meaning of a new will--a will not based on violence or on having your
own way. I repeat--only a glance. For I knew I had not really crossed that deep gulf filled with
the bones of the violent past and left it behind finally. There were no recruits for me and
certainly none of the waiting boats was mine. But from this glance I know better what going
in a new direction is and what a new will purified from violence means. I know also that the
possibilities of following this new will and new direction lie in every moment of one's life.

Note from Kevin Roberts:

It is useful to consider your teacher/school in this light, as a person who is without violence
psychologically. Unless you can see this side, this special effort you teacher/school makes,
you will fight with them. This requires a different sort of assessment than is ordinarily made.
 Active Reasoning
(From Gurdjieff's "Views from the Real World," pp. 266-270)

Liberation leads to liberation.

These are the first words of truth--not truth in quotation marks but truth in the real meaning
of the word; truth which is not merely theoretical, not simply a word, but truth that can be
realized in practice. The meaning behind these words may be explained as follows:

By liberation is meant the liberation which is the aim of all schools, all religions, at all times.

This liberation can indeed be very great. All men desire it and strive after it. But it cannot be
attained without the first liberation, a lesser liberation. The great liberation is liberation from
influences outside us. The lesser liberation is liberation from influences within us.

At first, for beginners, this lesser liberation appears to be very great, for a beginner depends
very little on external influences. Only a man who has already become free of inner
influences falls under external influences.

Inner influences prevent a man from falling under external influences. Maybe it is for the
best. Inner influences and inner slavery come from many varied sources and many
independent factors--independent in that sometimes it is one thing and sometimes another,
for we have many enemies.

There are so many of these enemies that life would not be long enough to struggle with
each of them and free ourselves from each one separately. So we must find a method, a line
of work, which will enable us simultaneously to destroy the greatest possible number of
enemies within us from which these influences come.

I said that we have many independent enemies, but the chief and most active are vanity
and self-love. One teaching even calls them representatives and messengers of the devil
himself.

For some reason they are also called Mrs. Vanity and Mr. Self-Love.

As I have said, there are many enemies. I have mentioned only these two as the most
fundamental. At the moment it is hard to enumerate them all. It would be difficult to work
on each of them directly and specifically, and it would take too much time since there are so
many. So we have to deal with them indirectly in order to free ourselves from several at
once.

These representatives of the devil stand unceasingly at the threshold which separates us
from the outside, and prevent not only good but also bad external influences from entering.
Thus they have a good side as well as a bad side.

For a man who wishes to discriminate among the influences he receives, it is an advantage
to have these watchmen. But if a man wishes all influences to enter, no matter what they
may be--for it is impossible to select only the good ones--he must liberate himself as much
as possible, and finally altogether, from these watchmen, whom some considerable
undesirable.
For this there are many methods, and a great number of means. Personally I would advise
you to try freeing yourselves and to do so without unnecessary theorizing, by simple
reasoning, active reasoning, within yourselves.

Through active reasoning this is possible, but if anyone does not succeed, if he fails to do so
by this method, there are no other means for what is to follow.

Take for instance, self-love, which occupies almost half of our time and our life. If someone,
or something, has wounded our self-love from outside, then, not only at that moment but for
a long time afterwards, its momentum closes all the doors, and therefore shuts out life.

When I am connected with outside, I live. If I live only inside myself, it is not life; but
everybody lives thus. When I examine myself, I connect myself with the outside.

For instance, now I sit here. M. is here and also K. We live together. M. called me a fool--I am
offended. K. gave me a scornful look--I am offended. I consider, I am hurt and shall not calm
down and come to myself for a long time.

All people are so affected, all have similar experiences the whole time. One experience
subsides, but no sooner has it subsided than another of the same nature starts. Our
machine is so arranged that there are no separate places where different things can be
experienced simultaneously.

We have only one place for our psychic experiences. And so if this place is occupied with
such experiences as these, there can be no question of our having the experiences we
desire. And if certain attainments or liberations are supposed to bring us to certain
experiences, they will not do so if things remain as they are.

M. called me a fool. Why should I be offended? Such things do not hurt me, so I don't take
offense--not because I have no self-love; maybe I have more self-love than anyone here.
Maybe it is this very self-love that does not let me be offended.

I think, I reason in a way exactly the reverse of the usual way. He called me a fool. Must he
necessarily be wise? He himself may be a fool or a lunatic. One cannot demand wisdom
from a child. I cannot expect wisdom from him. His reasoning was foolish. Either someone
has said something to him about me, or he has formed his own foolish opinion that I am a
fool--so much the worse for him. I know that I am not a fool, so it does not offend me. If a
fool has called me a fool, I am not affected inside.

But if in a given instance I was a fool and am called a fool, I am not hurt, because my task is
not to be a fool; I assume this to be everyone's aim. So he reminds me, helps me to realize
that I am a fool and acted foolishly. I shall think about it and perhaps not act foolishly next
time.

So, in either case I am not hurt.

K. gave me a scornful look. It does not offend me. On the contrary, I feel sorry for him
because of the dirty look he gave me. For a dirty look must have a reason behind it. Can he
have such a reason?

I know myself. I can judge from my knowledge of myself. He gave me a dirty look. Possibly
someone had told him something that made him form a bad opinion of me. I am sorry for
him because he is so much a slave that he looks at me through other people's eyes. This
proves that he is not. He is a slave and so he cannot hurt me.

I say all of this as an example of reasoning.

Actually, the secret and the cause of all such things lies in the fact that we do not possess
ourselves nor do we possess genuine self-love. Self-love is a great thing. If we consider self-
love, as we generally understand it, as reprehensible, then it follows that true self-love--
which, unfortunately, we do not possess--is desirable and necessary.

Self-love is a sign of a high opinion of oneself. If a man has this self-love it proves what he is.

As we have said earlier, self-love is a representative of the devil; it is our chief enemy, the
main brake to our aspirations and our achievements. Self-love is the principal weapon of the
representative of hell.

But self-love is an attribute of the soul. By self-love one can discern the spirit. Self-love
indicates and proves that a given man is a particle of heaven. Self-love is I--I is God.
Therefore it is desirable to have self-love.

Self-love is hell, and self-love is heaven. These two, bearing the same name, are outwardly
alike, but totally different and opposite to one another in essence. But if we look
superficially, we can go on looking throughout our whole life without ever distinguishing the
one from the other.

There exists a saying: "He who has self-love is halfway to freedom." Yet, among those sitting
here, everyone is full to overflowing with self-love. And in spite of the fact that we are full to
the brim with self-love, we have not yet attained one tiny bit of freedom. Our aim must be to
have self-love. If we have self-love, by this very fact we shall become free of many enemies
in us. We can even become free of these principal ones--Mr. Self-Love and Mrs. Vanity.

How to distinguish between one kind of self-love and another? We have said that on the
surface it is very difficult. This is so even when we look at others; when we look at ourselves
it is still more difficult.

Thank God we, who are sitting here, are safe from confusing the one with the other. We are
lucky! Genuine self-love is totally absent, so there is nothing to confuse.

In the beginning of the lecture I used the words "active reasoning."

Active reasoning is learned by practice; it should be practiced long and in many varied
ways.

Submission Of Will
(From Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous, pp. 159-61)

Gurdjieff:

"In the life of an ordinary man truth and falsehood have no moral value of any kind because
a man can never keep to one single truth. His truth changes. If for a certain time it does not
change, it is simply because it is kept by 'buffers.' And a man can never tell the
truth. Sometimes 'it tells' the truth, sometimes 'it tells' a lie.Consequently his truth and his
falsehood have no value; neither of them depends upon him, both of them depend upon
accident. And this is equally true when applied to a man's words, to his thoughts, his
feelings, and to his conceptions of truth and falsehood.

"In order to understand the interrelation of truth and falsehood in life a man must
understand falsehood in himself, the constant incessant lies he tells himself.

"These lies are created by 'buffers.' In order to destroy the lies in oneself as well as lies told
unconsciously to others, 'buffers' must be destroyed. But then a man cannot life without
'buffers.' 'Buffers' automatically control a man's actions, words, thoughts, and feelings. If
'buffers' were to be destroyed all control would disappear. A man cannot exist without
control even though it is only automatic control. Only a man who possesses will, that is,
conscious control, can live without 'buffers.' Consequently, if a man begins to destroy
'buffers' within himself he must at the same time develop a will. And as will cannot be
created to order in a short space of time a man may be left with 'buffers' demolished and
with a will that is not as yet sufficiently strengthened. The only chance he has during this
period is to be controlled by another will which has already been strengthened.
"This is why in school work, which includes the destruction of 'buffers,' a man must be ready
to obey another man's will so long as his own will is not yet fully developed. Usually this
subordination to another man's will is studied before anything else. I use the word 'studied'
because a man must understand why such obedience is necessary and he must learn to
obey. The latter is not at all easy. A man beginning the work of self-study with the object of
attaining control over himself is accustomed to believe in his own decisions. Even the fact
that he has seen the necessity for changing himself shows him that his decisions are correct
and strengthens his belief in them. But when he begins to work on himself a man must give
up his own decisions, 'sacrifice his own decisions,' because otherwise the will of the man
who directs his work will not be able to control his actions.

"In schools of the religious way 'obedience' is demanded before anything else, that is, full
and unquestioning submission although without understanding. Schools of the fourth way
demand understanding before anything else. Results of efforts are always proportional to
understanding.

"Renunciation of his own decisions, subordination to the will of another, may present
insuperable difficulties to a man if he had failed to realize beforehand that actually he
neither sacrifices nor changes anything in his life, that all his life he has been subject to
some extraneous will and has never had any decisions of his own. But a man is not
conscious of this. He considers that he has the right of free choice. It is hard for him to
renounce the illusion that he directs and organizes his life himself. But no work on himself is
possible until a man is free from this illusion.

"He must realize that he does not exist; he must realize that he can lose nothing because he
has nothing to lose; he must realize his 'nothingness' in the full sense of the term.
"This consciousness of one's nothingness alone can conquer the fear of subordination to the
will of another. However strange it may seem, this fear is actually one of the most serious
obstacles on a man's path. A man is afraid that he will be made to do things that are
opposed to his principles, views, and ideas. Moreover, this fear immediately creates in him
the illusion that he really has principles, views, and convictions which in reality he never has
had and never could have. A man who has never in his life thought of morality suddenly
begins to fear that he will be made to do something immoral. A man who has never thought
of his health and who has done everything possible to ruin it begins to fear that he will be
made to do something which will injure it. A man who has lied to everyone, everywhere, all
his life in the most barefaced manner begins suddenly to fear that he will be made to tell
lies, and so on without end. I knew a drunkard who was afraid more than anything that he
would be made to drink.
"The fear of being subordinated to another man's will very often proves stronger than
anything else. A man does not realize that a subordination to which he consciously agrees is
the only way to acquire a will of his own."

(From Ouspensky's Conscience, p. 107-109)

O: What does giving up will mean? How can it be achieved? You have mistaken ideas about
this. First you think of it as a final action: that you give up will and have no more will. This is
an illusion because you have no such will to give up. Our wills last for about three minutes.
Will is measured by time. If once we give up three minutes of will, tomorrow another three
minutes will grow. Giving up will is a continuous process, not one single action. A single
action means nothing. A second mistake is not remembering certain principles to which you
give up will, such as rules. For example there is a rule that you should not talk about this
system. The natural desire is to talk, but if you stop yourself, it means that you give up will;
that you obey this rule. There are many other principles to which you must give up your will
in order to follow them.

Q: Does giving up one's will mean not to act without understanding?

O: You see, this another of your mistakes. You think that giving up will
means doing something. This happens very seldom. In most cases you are told not to do
something. There is a great difference in this. For instance, you want to explain to someone
what you think of him, and you must not do it. It is a question of training. Will can be grown
if a man works on himself and makes his will obey the principles of the work. Things that do
not concern the work cannot be connected with it, but the more you enter into the work, the
more things begin to touch upon the work. But this needs time.

When their chance comes and people are told to do something, or not to do something, they
go against it for what seems to them the very best of reasons. So they miss their
opportunity. Time passes, and later they may see that they have missed their opportunity,
but it can no longer be replaced by anything. That is the penalty of self-will.

About this idea of giving up one's will: it must be repeated that men nos 1, 2 and 3 have no
will, but only self-will and willfulness. Try to understand what that means. Being willful
means one wants to do or actually does something forbidden, simply because it is
forbidden. And an instance of self-will is when someone sees that you are trying to do
something that you do not know how to do and wants to help you, but you say, 'No, I will do
it myself.' These are the two types of will we have. They are based on opposition. Real will
must depend on consciousness, knowledge and Permanent 'I'. Such as we are, we have not
got it. All that we have is self-will and willfulness. Our will is resultant of desires. Desires may
be very well hidden. For instance, a man may want to criticize someone and he calls it
sincerity. But the desire to criticize may be so strong that he would have to make a really big
effort to stop it, and a man cannot make real efforts by himself.

In order to create will, a man must try to co-ordinate his every action with the ideas of the
work; he must in every action ask himself: How will it look from the point of view of the
work? Is it useful or harmful to me, or to the work? If he does not know, he can ask. If a man
has been long in the work, there is practically not a single action that does not touch upon
the work; there are not independent actions. In that way one is not free, in the sense that
one cannot act foolishly and without discrimination. One must think before one acts. If one
is not sure, one can ask. This is the only method by which will can be created, and for this
method school organization is necessary. Without school one can do nothing.
 Sacrifice Suffering
(From Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous, p. 274)

"I have already said before that sacrifice is necessary," said G. "Without sacrifice nothing
can be attained. But if there is anything in the world that people do not understand it is the
idea of sacrifice. They think they have to sacrifice something that they have. For example, I
once said that they must sacrifice 'faith,' 'tranquillity,' 'health.' The understand this literally.
But then the point is that they have not got either faith, or tranquillity, or health. All these
words must be taken in quotation marks. In actual fact they have to sacrifice only what they
imagine they have and which in reality they do not have. They must sacrifice their fantasies.
But this is difficult for them, very difficult. It is much easier to sacrifice real things.

"Another thing that people must sacrifice is their suffering. It is very difficult also to sacrifice
one's suffering. A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his
suffering. Man is made in such a way that he is never so much attached to anything as he is
to his suffering. And it is necessary to be free from suffering. No one who is not free from
suffering, who has not sacrificed his suffering, can work. Later on a great deal must be said
about suffering. Nothing can be attained without suffering but at the same time one must
begin by sacrificing suffering. Now, decipher what this means."

(From Nicoll's Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky,

vol. 4, pp. 1239-42)

Work-Ideas

Gurdjieff said:

(1) "This Work is Esoteric Christianity."

(2) "People imagine they have something to sacrifice. There is only one thing they have to
sacrifice and that is their suffering."

(3) "A man in this Work must eventually begin to know what Conscious Suffering is
compared with Mechanical Suffering."

Commentary

Everyone suffers. Cheerful people assure you they never suffer. They are always bright,
healthy, and so on. Yet they suffer, in spite of this rather tiresome picture of themselves.
Everyone suffers mechanically. What is mechanical suffering? It is something quite different
from conscious suffering. It is something so intricate, so devious, so apparently
contradictory, so various, so subtle, so historically long-standing--in short, a habit--that we
do not observe it. We do not see its continual, inner, private, petrifying action, like that
steady drip of calcium-charged water that builds up those strange pillars in deep caves
between floor and roof. The Work teaches that we all, inevitably, have mechanical suffering
and that this is the only thing we have to offer as sacrifice. In order to change, one must
sacrifice something. Understand clearly and ask yourself--if it ever does occur to you to
ask yourself a question, which means that you will have actually to think for yourself of the
answer--I say, ask yourself this question: "Can I possibly imagine that I can change if I do
not give up, sacrifice, something?" This means simply that you cannot change if you wish to
continue as the same person. To change is to become different. If I want to go to London, I
must give up being at Amwell.

Now notice carefully what we have to give up. The sacrifice the Work seeks is that of our
habitual, mechanical suffering. Of course, people will at this point justify themselves and say
they have no such suffering, or that what suffering they have is logical and reasonable. Oh,
this self-justifying that you all go in for. But notice especially where this teaching, which
belongs to the Fourth Way, begins in regard to what you have to give up. Not with your sins
in any ordinary sense, but with what the Work regards as a great, even perhaps the greatest
sin--namely, being identified with "Mechanical Suffering". A man, a woman, the Work
teaches, must sacrifice their suffering. Mechanical suffering leads nowhere. A man, a
woman, cannot awaken if they retain this dreadful weight, their mechanical suffering, and
nourish it, by a continual process of justifying it. In the Work-sense there is no justice on this
planet where everything happens in the only way it can happen. How can there be justice in
a world of sleeping people--of people who are not yet conscious--of people who are
governed by their negative emotions and finally by hate? Now how, when you begin to see
your own mechanicalness in your behaviour, can you blame others who were equally so?
Were not those who you think caused your suffering mechanical people? Remember that in
such a case you can only forgive, which in the Gospels means, dazzlingly, "cancel" the debt.
Yes, but this is possible according to your level of being. A low level of being forgives no one.
It only sees its own merit. That surely is a key to how to reach a higher level of being. When,
through self-observation and work on yourself, you see more and more clearly that you are
as bad as anyone else, then you ascend the Ladder of Being which ends in Divine Being--
which forgives all--a thing we cannot remotely understand as we are at present with our
store of negative emotion. Why? Because we are all low down in this total Scale of Being,
which means we include very little in our consciousness of what we are like ourselves,
projecting on to others all we cannot accept as being in ourselves, so we are very brittle to
insult. But as Consciousness increases we include more and more as being in ourselves,
with an increasing lack of conceit, until we cannot be insulted. Nor, then, do we judge. How
can I, if I realize I am worse than you, judge you? At present, of course, we pretend we do
not judge--a quite different matter, a matter of being full of meritorious virtues and so of
swelling up the False Personality which imitates every virtue inartistically and so causes
much weariness and boredom to others, like a bad play. How many bad plays walk the
streets of London, male and female. I fancy I am saying something similar to a remark made
by Mr. Ouspensky when he was first teaching. He called attention to the fact that most
people whom we meet in the street, in the club, at tea, at dinner, are dead, and died often
years ago. Now a man, a woman, with Magnetic Centre, who seeks to find something more
than life does not so easily die. But life alone makes us dead very soon. We die life-
millionaires, working day and night for fifty years--yes, but we died perhaps years ago. This
is a matter we all have to reflect on. The Work does not invite us until we reach a certain
life-value called "Good Householder". This is the first education--the formation of a good
educated life-personality. But there is a second education and always has been. This is for
those who do not believe that life can be explained in terms of itself. It is for those Good
Householders, those educated and responsible people, who do not really believe in life and
yet carry on their duties. And those Good Householders who believe still further that there is
and must be something else and seek for it--that is, those Good Householders, whose being
is characterized by the possession of Magnetic Centre--will understand how this Work offers
the second education for men and women who have fulfilled the conditions necessary for
attaining the level of Good Householder.

***

Let us come now to the idea of conscious suffering as distinct from mechanical suffering.
Gurdjieff said: "This Work is Esoteric Christianity." He meant that this Work lies hidden in the
New Testament. Let us take an example. The Work teaches that mechanical suffering is
useless--it leads to nothing--but that conscious suffering leads to inner development. Can
we find any parallels in the New Testament? I would say that in the Gospels, in the Sermon
on the Mount, for instance, we find ample--in fact, copious verification. But let us take a
clear example from Paul. He has written a letter to his group at Corinth cursing them for not
working on themselves. He explains that to feel one has not been working--that is, that one
has been fast asleep in life and its vexatious daily troubles and therefore identified with the
events entering from outside via the senses--this is to suffer in another way. He calls this
"godly suffering". I will quote the passage:

"For though I made you sorry with my epistle, I do not regret it, though I did regret; for I see
that that epistle made you sorry, though but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that ye were
made sorry but that ye were made sorry after a godly sort, that ye might suffer loss by us in
nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation, a repentance which bringeth
no regret: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold, this self-same thing, that
ye were made sorry after a godly sort, what earnest care it wrought in you, yea, what
clearing of yourselves . . ." (II Cor. vii.8-11)

Now this rather outworn terminology masks the real meaning. What Paul is saying is that to
suffer because you have behaved mechanically can lead to something. And so he says that
the suffering of the world leads to death--that is, mechanical suffering. From this brief
example one can see what Gurdjieff meant in saying that this Work is Esoteric Christianity.
Esoteric means simply inner--not obvious. People easily read the New Testament without
seeing what is meant. The Work, once you begin to understand what it is saying, opens your
mind to innumerable things said in the New Testament. Now reflect on this remark: "The
sorrow of the world worketh death." Do you see that in these words is the same idea as
"mechanical suffering is useless for self-development and puts us to sleep--that is, death? A
man, a woman, must sacrifice their mechanical suffering". What then replaces it? What
replaces it is suffering because you are suffering. That is, you must replace the luxury of
mechanical suffering by suffering because you still love mechanical suffering.

In one of the Gnostic Books--the Acts of John--which are not included in the ordinary New
Testament, there is a passage which runs in this way. It is connected with the Sacred Dance
that Christ performed with his disciples:

"If thou hadst known how to suffer, thou wouldest have been able not to suffer. Learn thou
to suffer, and thou shalt be able not to suffer."

Like What It Does Not Like

(From Gurdjieff's Views from the Real World, pp. 243-245)

There are two kinds of love: one, the love of a slave; the other, which must be acquired by
work. The first has no value at all; only the second has value, that is, love acquired through
work. This is the love about which all religions speak.
If you love when "it" loves, it does not depend on you and so has no merit. It is what we call
the love of a slave. You love even when you should not love. Circumstances make you love
mechanically.

Real love is Christian, religious love; with that love no one is born. For this love you must
work. Some know it from childhood, others only in old age. If somebody has real love, he
acquired it during his life. But it is very difficult to learn. And it is impossible to begin
learning directly, on people. Every man touches another on the raw, makes you put on
brakes and gives you very little chance to try.

Love may be of different kinds. To understand what kind of love we are speaking about, it is
necessary to define it.

Now we are speaking about love for life. Wherever there is life--beginning with plants (for
they too have life), animals, in a word wherever life exists, there is love. Each life is a
representative of God. Whoever can see the representative will see Him who is represented.
Every life is sensitive to love. Even inanimate things such as flowers, which have no
consciousness, understand whether you love them or not. Even unconscious life reacts in a
corresponding way to each man, and responds to him according to his reactions.

As you sow, so you reap, and not only in the sense that if you sow wheat you will get wheat.
The question is how you sow. It can literally turn to straw. On the same ground, different
people can sow the same seeds and the results will be different. But these are only seeds.
Man is certainly more sensitive to what is sown in him than a seed. Animals are also very
sensitive, although less so than man. For instance, X. was sent to look after the animals.
Many became ill and died, the hens laid fewer eggs, and so on. Even a cow will give less
milk if you do not love her. The difference is quite startling.

Man is more sensitive than a cow, but unconsciously. And so if you feel antipathy or hate
another person, it is only because somebody has sown something bad in you. Whoever
wishes to learn to love his neighbor must begin by trying to love plants and animals.
Whoever does not love life does not love God. To begin straightaway by trying to love a man
is impossible, because the other man is like you, and he will hit back at you. But an animal
is mute and will sadly resign itself. That is why it is easier to start practicing on animals.

It is very important for a man who works on himself to understand that change can take
place in him only if he changes his attitude to the outside world. In general you don't know
what must be loved and what must not be loved, because all that is relative. With you, one
and the same thing is loved and not loved; but there are objective things which we must
love or must not love. Therefore it is more productive and practical to forget about what you
call good and bad and begin to act only when you have learned to choose for yourself.

Now if you want to work on yourself, you must work out in yourself different kinds of
attitudes. Except with big and more clear-cut things which are undeniably bad, you have to
exercise yourselves in this way: if you like a rose, try to dislike it; if you dislike it, try to like
it. It is best to begin with the world of plants; try from tomorrow to look at plants in a way
you have not looked before. Every man is attracted toward certain plants, and not by others.
Perhaps we have not noticed that till now. First you have to look, then put another in its
place and then notice and try to understand why this attraction or aversion is there. I am
sure that everyone feels something or senses something. It is a process which takes place in
the subconscious, and the mind does not see it, but if you begin to look consciously, you will
see many things, you will discover many Americas. Plants, like man, have relations between
themselves, and relations exist also between plants and men, but they change from time to
time. All living things are tied one to another. This includes everything that lives. All things
depend on each other.

Plants act on a man's moods and the mood of a man acts on the mood of a plant. As long as
we live we shall make experiments. Even living flowers in a pot will live or die according to
the mood.

No News
(From Gurdjieff's Life is real only then, when I am, pp. 103-5)

This benevolent advice of mine to you Americans, composing in the given case this group,
and who became, thanks to a series of accidentally arranged circumstances of life, my
nearest essential friends, consists in indicating the categorical necessity that each of you
should cease entirely, at least for three months, the reading of your newspapers and
magazines, and during this time should become as well acquainted as possible with the
contents of all three books of the first series of my writings entitled An Objectively Impartial
Criticism of the Life of Man [All and Everything: "An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life
of Man" or Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson].

An acquaintance with the contents of these books is quite indispensable for each of you,
chiefly in order to obtain directly or indirectly information elucidated from all sides regarding
those definite notions upon which will be based and from which will logically derive all the
problems which are pursued for practical attainments. It was just for this purpose that your
group was organized and is now reorganized to consist of people who have more or less
cognized the absurdity of our ordinary life and who, although you have not yet sensed it
with all your Being but are seriously striving to take in what you have cognized, are
continuing to learn as many aspects of the objective truth as possible so as to determine, in
accordance with this, your own real individuality, in order to manifest afterwards in
everything in a way corresponding to a Godlike creature.

It must be said that all I have expounded in the three books of the first series in its totality
embraces almost all the questions which in my opinion, formed on the basis of long years of
experimental elucidations, may arise under the conditions of contemporary life in the
ordinary mentation of man, and the elucidation of all these questions has been made by me
in such a logical sequence and in such a confrontative form as, helping to accustom the
reader automatically to active mentation and contributing to an easy and simultaneous
theoretical assimilation of the very essence of the questions dealt with, should give the
possibility to cognize, first of all, not only with one's ordinary automatic consciousness,
which in this case has no value, but with all one's being, that which is most important and is
unfailingly required for the possibility of further work upon oneself, namely, the ephemeral
nature of former conceptions and understandings.

An all-around acquaintance with the contents of these three books is necessary also in order
that when I personally, or the mentioned instructors, speak during our general meetings
about some question which in the given moment is the center-of-gravity question, and
speak about its details, we may, for the purpose of economizing time, simply refer to the
corresponding chapter in this first series, and you, already having preliminary information
about this, may easily assimilate what we shall subsequently develop in detail.
For example, intending in today's meeting to speak about a question which is based on data
I have already more or less elucidated in the last chapter of the third book, namely in the
chapter entitled "From the Author," the deliberations on the proposed question today should
be as a continuation of this chapter.

Well, if you were all well-informed of its contents, then I could for the purpose of
economizing time refer to the requisite passages, but now I shall be compelled to waste
time on reading to you certain extracts.

Separating the Mind from the Essence

from Gurdjieff's "Views from the Real World," pp. 148-150

As long as a man does not separate himself from himself he can achieve nothing, and no
one can help him.

To govern oneself is a very difficult thing--it is a problem for the future; it requires much
power and demands much work. But this first thing, to separate oneself from oneself, does
not require much strength, it only needs desire, serious desire, the desire of a grown-up
man. If a man cannot do it, it shows that he lacks the desire of a grown-up man.
Consequently it proves that there is nothing for him here. What we do here can only be a
doing suitable for grown-up men.

Our mind, our thinking, has nothing in common with us, with our essence--no connection, no
dependence. Our mind lives by itself and our essence lives by itself. When we say "to
separate oneself from oneself" it means that the mind should stand apart from the essence.
Our weak essence can change at any moment, for it is dependent on many influences: on
food, on our surroundings, on time, on the weather, and on a multitude of other causes. But
the mind depends on very few influences and so, with a little effort, it can be kept in the
desired direction. Every weak man can give the desired direction to his mind. But he has no
power over his essence; great power is required to give direction to essence and keep
essence to it. (Body and essence are the same devil.)

...

Speaking of the mind I know that each of you has enough strength, each of you can have
the power and capacity to act not as he now acts.

...

I repeat, every grown-up man can achieve this; everyone who has a serious desire can do it.
But no one tries.

...

In order to understand better what I mean, I shall give you an example: now, in a calm
state, not reacting to anything or anyone, I decide to set myself the task of establishing a
good relationship with Mr. B., because I need him for business purposes and can do what I
wish only with his help. But I dislike Mr. B. for he is a very disagreeable man. He understands
nothing. He is a blockhead. He is vile, anything you like. I am so made that these traits
affect me. Even if he merely looks at me, I become irritated. If he talks nonsense, I am
beside myself. I am only a man, so I am weak and cannot persuade myself that I need not
be annoyed--I shall go on being annoyed.

Yet I can control myself, depending on how serious my desire is to gain the end I wish to
gain through him. If I keep to this purpose, to this desire, I shall be able to do so. No matter
how annoyed I may be, this state of wishing will be in my mind. No matter how furious, how
beside myself I am, in a corner of my mind I shall still remember the task I set myself. My
mind is unable to restrain me from anything, unable to make me feel this or that toward
him, but it is able to remember. I say to myself: "You need him, so don't be cross or rude to
him." It could even happen that I would curse him, or hit him, but my mind would continue
to pluck at me, reminding me that I should not do so. But the mind is powerless to do
anything.

This is precisely what anyone who has a serious desire not to identify himself with his
essence can do. This is what is meant by "separating the mind from the essence."

And what happens when the mind becomes merely a function? If I am annoyed, if I lose my
temper, I shall think, or rather "it" will think, in accordance with this annoyance, and I shall
see everything in the light of the annoyance. To hell with it!

And so I say that with a serious man--a simple, ordinary man without any extraordinary
powers, but a grown-up man--whatever he decides, whatever problem he has set himself,
that problem will always remain in his head. Even if he cannot achieve it in practice, he will
always keep it in his mind. Even if he is influenced by other considerations, his mind will not
forget the problem he has set himself. He has a duty to perform and, if he is honest, he will
strive to perform it, because he is a grown-up man.

No one can help him in this remembering, in this separation of oneself from oneself. A man
must do it for himself. Only then, from the moment a man has this separation, can another
man help him.

...

The only difference between a child and a grown-up man is in the mind. All the weaknesses
are there, beginning with hunger, with sensitivity, with naivet; there is no difference. The
same things are in a child and in a grown-up man: love, hate, everything. Functions are the
same, receptivity is the same, equally they react, equally they are given to imaginary fears.
In short there is no difference. The only difference is in the mind: we have more material,
more logic than a child.

Sounding

from Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous," p. 304

On one occasion, in connection with the description of exercises in concentration and

bringing the attention from one part of the body to another, G. asked:

"When you pronounce the word 'I' aloud, have you noticed where this word sounds in you?"
We did not at once understand what he meant. But we very soon began to notice that when
pronouncing the word 'I' some of us definitely felt as if this word sounded in the head,
others felt it in the chest, and others over the head--outside the body.

I must mention here that personally I was entirely unable to evoke this sensation in myself
and that I have to rely on others.

G. listened to all these remarks and said that there was an exercise connected with this
which, according to him, had been preserved up to our time in the monasteries of Mount
Athos.

A monk kneels or stands in a certain position and, lifting his arms, which are bent at the
elbows, he says--Ego aloud and drawn out while listening at the same time where the word
"Ego" sounds.

The purpose of this exercise is to feel "I" every moment a man thinks of himself and to bring
"I" from one center to another.

The Apple
(From Kevin)

It is helpful to have someone 'give' this exercise to you, but reading it will suffice. It is
usually done with eyes closed.

Start by seeing, in your mind's eye, yourself and, at some distance, a horse. Notice the
condition and demeanor of this horse.

Pull from your pocket the juiciest, most delicious red apple you have ever tasted and offer it
to this horse. Make eye contact as the horse receives the apple; wait for a message from the
horse (If you are giving the exercise, wait for a change in the bodymind). This message will
likely not be in words.

Notice how you feel and how your relationship to the horse has changed.

Repeat often; substitute carrots etc., or grooming, riding or other things the horse needs.

Externally consider the horse as you are able. Feel what it is like to have some idiot pulling
the reins; the maladjusted bridle and bit; wrong mounting of the harness to the horse; the
harness holding the shafts too tight or loose; the shafts attached wrongly to the cart and the
cart which itself is in bad repair. People shouting from all angles in a language completely
unfamiliar. And always the whip. These are all things the horse must deal with in the best of
conditions. In worse conditions there is no adequate food, hooves are cracked, flies are
biting, diseases, etc. There is always this nagging feeling that you are going nowhere.

As the exercise progresses over time, try making adjustments, always waiting for a message
from the horse. Do not go too fast; the horse needs time to develop a relationship with you!

One Telling
from Kevin

This simple exercise requires that in all relating of events and constatations to friends and
acquaintenences we 'tell the story' only once.

This will bring about a definite 'conscious labor/suffering' and reveal much in regard to
lying. It will force an organizing of our talking and a prioritizing of audience as well as a
shock for remembering during the relating.

Sun Absolute Meditation

from Leah, who made a variation on Russ' exercise:

Imagine the sun. Imagine the sun, our sun, shining on you. Just feel the sun, without other
details. Notice the effect it has on you.

(Pause)

Now imagine the Sun Absolute, where our Creator resides. It is very far away. Far away even
from our tiny sun. Feel how the rays of the Sun Absolute touch the earth - just barely, just a
few rays make it all the way to Earth. But feel how incredibly intense they are to our being.
Feel how these rays which hardly even make it here, are more than enough for us to absorb.
But we have to be open to them.

Notice where the rays of the Sun Absolute touch you. Much deeper than the skin and head-
brain. Stay in contact with these rays of the Sun Absolute for a few minutes, and if you get
lost, return first to our sun, then venture out to that sun which is so much bigger and so less
familiar.

When you are ready, stop the exercise.

The Quiet Place

(From Ouspensky's "Fourth Way" pp. 132-133)

Q. I had a problem which was worrying me. I tried to self-remember and for a short time I
got into a state in which it was no longer possible to worry, and at the same time my sense
of values generally changed. This state did not last long, but the problem, when it returned
as one, did not again assume the importance it had before. I find it very difficult to
recapture this state.

A [Ouspensky]. Quite right. Continue to observe and you will find that there is a place in you
where you are quiet, calm, and nothing can disturb you--only it is difficult to find the way
there. But if you do it several times you will be able to remember some of the steps, and by
the same steps you may come there again. Only you cannot do it after one experience, for
you will not remember the way. The quiet place is not a metaphor--it is a very real thing.

Q. Is it the state you get to when you self-remember, because everything seems peaceful
then and one really seems to be aware of oneself?

A. Yes, you can take it like that.

Q. I have tried to reach it again by trying to self-remember, but could not find it.
A. If you find yourself in it again, try to remember how you got there, for sometimes it
happens that one finds this place and loses the way there; then again one finds it and again
loses the way. It is very difficult to remember the way to this place.

Be Gentle
(From Nicoll's Commentaries, pp. 1377)

People all have unpleasant or even truly devilish 'I's but they must be awake to them and
not identify with them, not think that this is their I. One must say: "This is not really me."
The Work teaches that we have Real I in us, which is far from most of us, and yet the Work
says we all have a trace of it. How many of you have had the ever-recurring experience of
losing what you call your temper with someone that you care for and then feeling that you
ought to seek forgiveness? This kind of forgiveness is not much good. What you have to do
is to see that certain 'I's emerged and you gave way to them on the stage of your limited
consciousness. You put the feeling of I into these 'I's which are always bitter and negative,
waiting in the wings to emerge on the stage. The idea that we are not one but many 'I's can
begin to transform your relationships to one another. Instead of becoming pointed, so to
speak, you become broad. Instead of being bound up in an artificial packet you will
distribute your feeling of yourself over a wider area and therefore you will become gentler--
first to yourself and then to other people. Be gentle to yourself consciously first of all. So
this transforming idea which is only one among many that could be mentioned as psycho-
transforming is very important. It dissolves away some of your wrong self-valuation. It
softens you, it relaxes you. Remember that from the senses you would not guess this idea of
Man or Woman not being one. I mean, that life as Neutralizing Force that exhibits us to one
another as single fat or thin bodies does not give you this power which comes from the
Work-ideas as Neutralizing Force, which make you think differently, conceive differently, and
have new attitudes to one another. So perhaps you will begin to see that psycho-
transformism means calling the ideas of the Work into your daily duties and reactions and
seeing the Work point of view instead of the life point of view. A man is not his body: a
woman is not her body. But via the senses it looks so.

Filing Impressions

from Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous, p109

"It is necessary to know what these points are and it is necessary to know how to approach
them, for if one does not begin with them one will either get no result at all or wrong and
undesirable results.

"Having fixed in his own mind the difference between the intellectual, the emotional, and
the moving functions, a man must, as he observes himself, immediately refer his
impressions to this or that category. And at first he must take mental note of only such
observations as regards which he has no doubt whatever, that is, those where he sees at
once to what category they belong. He must reject all vague or doubtful cases and
remember only those which are unquestionable. If the work is carried on properly, the
number of unquestionable observations will rapidly increase. And that which seemed
doubtful before will be clearly seen to belong to the first, the second, the third center. Each
center has its own memory, its own associations, its own thinking. As a matter of fact each
center consists of three parts: the thinking, the emotional, and the moving. But we know
very little about this side of our nature. In each center we know only one part. Self-
observation, however, will very quickly show us that our mental life is much richer than we
think, or in any case that it contains more possibilities than we think.

"At the same time as we watch the work of the centers we shall observe, side by side with
their right working, their wrong working, that is, the working of one center for another: the
attempts of the thinking center to feel or to pretend that it feels, the attempts of the
emotional center to think, the attempts of the moving center to think and feel. As has been
said already, one center working for another is useful in certain cases, for it preserves the
continuity of mental activity. But in becoming habitual it becomes at the same time harmful,
since it begins to interfere with right working by enabling each center to shirk its own direct
duties and to do, not what it ought to be doing, but what it likes bast at the moment. In a
normal healthy man each center does its own work, that is, the work for which it was
specially destined and which it can best perform. There are situations in life which the
thinking center alone can deal with and can find a way out of. If at this moment the
emotional center begins to work instead, it will make a muddle of everything and the result
of its interference will be most unsatisfactory. In an unbalanced kind of man this is precisely
what 'being unbalanced' or 'neurotic' means. Each center strives, as it were, to pass its work
on to another and, at the same time, it strives to do the work of another center for which it
is not fitted. The emotional center working for the thinking center brings unnecessary
nervousness, feverishness, and hurry into situations where, on the contrary, calm judgment
and deliberation are essential. The thinking center working for the emotional center brings
deliberation into situations which require quick decisions and makes a man incapable of
distinguishing the peculiarities and the fine points of the position. Thought is too slow. It
works out a certain plan of action and continues to follow it even though the circumstances
have changed and quite a different course of action is necessary., Besides, in some cases
the interference of the thinking center gives rise to entirely wrong reactions, because the
thinking center is simply incapable of understanding the shades and distinctions of many
events. Events that are quite different for the moving center and for the emotional center
appear to be alike to it. Its decisions are much too general and do not correspond to the
decisions which the emotional center would have made. This becomes perfectly clear if we
imagine the interferences of thought, that is, of the theoretical mind, in the domain of
feeling, or of sensation, or of movement; in all three cases the interference of the mind
leads to wholly undesirable results. The mind cannot understand shades of feeling We shall
see this clearly if we imagine one man reasoning about the emotions of another. He is not
feeling anything himself so the feelings of another do not exist for him. A full man does
not understand a hungry one. But for the other they have a very definite existence. And the
decisions of the first, that is of the mind, can never satisfy him. In exactly the same way the
mind cannot appreciate sensations. For it they are dead. Nor is it capable of controlling
movement. Instances of this kind are the easiest to find. Whatever work a man may be
doing, it is enough for him to try to do each action deliberately, with his mind, following very
movement, and he will see that the quality of his work will change immediately. If he is
typing, his fingers, controlled by his moving center, find the necessary letters themselves,
but if he tried to ask himself before every letter: 'Where is "k"?' 'Where is the comma?' 'How
is this word spelled?' he at once begins to make mistakes or to write very slowly. If one
drives a car with the help of one's mind, one can go only in the lowest gear. The mind
cannot keep pace with all the movements necessary for developing a greater speed. To
drive at full speed, especially in the streets of a large town, while steering with the help of
one's mind is absolutely impossible for an ordinary man."

Work Photographs

from Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous," pp. 146-47, 149

Gurdjieff:

"When a man comes to realize the necessity not only for self-study and self-observation but
also for work on himself with the object of changing himself, the character of his self-
observation must change. He has so far studied the details of the work of the centers, trying
only to register this or that phenomenon, to be an impartial witness. He has studied the
work of the machine. Now he must begin to see himself, that is to say, to see, not separate
details, not the work of small wheels and levers, but to see everything taken together as a
whole--the whole of himself such as others see him.

"For this purpose a man must learn to take, so to speak, 'mental photographs' of himself at
different moments of his life and in different emotional states: and not photographs of
details, but photographs of the whole as he saw it. In other words these photographs must
contain simultaneously everything that a man can see in himself at a given moment.
Emotions, moods, thoughts, sensations, postures, movements, tones of voice, facial
expressions, and so on. If a man succeeds in seizing interesting moments for these
photographs he will very soon collect a whole album of pictures of himself which, taken
together, will show him quite clearly what he is. But it is not so easy to learn how to take
these photographs at the most interesting and characteristic moments, how to catch
characteristic postures, characteristic facial expressions, characteristic emotions, and
characteristic thoughts. If the photographs are taken successfully and if there is a sufficient
number of them, a man will see that his usual conception of himself, with which he has lived
from year to year, is very far from reality.

"Instead of the man he had supposed himself to be he will see quite another man. This
'other' man is himself and at the same time not himself. It is he as other people know him,
as he imagines himself and as he appears in his actions, words, and so on; but not
altogether such as he actually is. For a man himself knows that there is a great deal that is
unreal, invented, and artificial in this other man whom other people know and whom he
knows himself. You must learn to divide the real from the invented. And to begin self-
observation and self-study it is necessary to divide oneself. A man must realize that he
indeed consists of two men.

"One is the man he calls 'I' and whom others call 'Ouspensky,' 'Zakharov,' or 'Petrov.' The
other is the real he, the real I, which appears in his life only for very short moments and
which can become firm and permanent only after a very lengthy period of work.

"So long as a man takes himself as one person he will never move from where he is. His
work on himself starts from the moment when he begins to feel two men in himself. One is
passive and the most it can do is to register or observe what is happening to it. The other,
which calls itself 'I,' is active, and speaks of itself in the first person, is in reality only
'Ouspensky,' 'Petrov,' or 'Zakharov.'

...

"At this stage a man can see nothing either in relation to himself or to others. The more
convinced he is that he can, the more he is mistaken. But if he can be even to a slight
extent sincere with himself and really wants to know the truth, then he can find an exact
and infallible basis for judging rightly first about himself and then about other people. But
the whole point lies in being sincere with oneself. And this is by no means easy. People do
not understand that sincerity must be learned. They imagine that to be sincere or not to be
sincere depends upon their desire or decision. But how can a man be sincere with himself
when in actual fact he sincerely does not see what he ought to see in himself? Someone has
to show it to him. And his attitude towards the person who shows him must be a right one,
that is, such as will help him to see what is shown him and not, as often happens, hinder
him if he begins to think that he already knows better.

"This is a very serious moment in the work. A man who loses his direction at this moment
will never find it again afterwards. It must be remembered that man such as he is does not
possess the means of distinguishing 'I' and 'Ouspensky' in himself. Even if he tries to, he will
lie to himself and invent things, and he will never see himself as he really is. It must be
understood that without outside help a man can never see himself."

Imagine Yourself Conscious

from Ouspensky's "Fourth Way," p. 113

Q. I still do not see what it means to try and think as we would think if we were more
conscious.

A [Ouspensky]. Try to imagine yourself conscious--that would be the right use of

imagination. We develop this power of imagination in an absolutely wrong and useless way
which is always making trouble for us. But now, for once, try to use it and imagine yourself
conscious. Try to think how you would act, think, speak and so on.

At first self-remembering is an effort on functions. You begin to remember yourself simply by

forming your mental processes in a certain way, and this brings moments of consciousness.
You cannot work on consciousness itself: you can make one or two spasmodic efforts, but no
permanent efforts. But you can make efforts on thoughts, and in this way you can work on
consciousness in a roundabout way. This is the most important part of the method. Try to
understand the difference between remembering yourself in this way and being conscious.
It is the same mental process that you use in everything, in reading, writing and all that you
do, so you have a certain control over it. Even if we put the same amount of energy into
self-remembering that we put into the study of a foreign language we would acquire a
certain amount of consciousness. Unfortunately we do not want to put even that amount of
energy into it; we think that these things must come by themselves, or that it is enough to
try once--and it must come. Self-remembering needs effort, so, if you continue to make
these efforts, moments of consciousness will come more often and will stay longer. Then,
gradually, self-remembering will cease to be purely intellectual--it will have an awakening
power.

Exist as You Exist

from Gurdjieff's "All and Everything," p. 78

"So in the meantime, exist as you exist. Only do not forget one thing, namely, at your age it
is indispensably necessary that every day, at sunrise, while watching the reflection of its
splendor, you bring about a contact between your consciousness and the various
unconscious parts of your general presence. Try to make this state last and to convince the
unconscious parts--as if they were conscious--that if they hinder your general functioning,
they, in the period of your responsible age, not only cannot fulfill the good that befits them,
but your general presence of which they are part, will not be able to be a good servant of
our COMMON ENDLESS CREATOR and by that will not even be worthy to pay for your arising
and existence.
"I repeat once more, my dear boy, try in the meantime not to hink about these questions,
which at your age it is still early for you to think about.

"Everything in its proper time!"

Unconscious Muscle Movement

from Gurdjieff's Views from the Real World Page 90

Question: How can we gain attention?

Answer: There is no attention in people. You must aim to acquire this. Self-observation is
only possible after acquiring attention. Start on small things.

Question: What small things can we start on? What should we do?

Answer: Your nervous and restless movements make everyone know, consciously or
unconsciously, that you have no authority and are a booby. With these restless movements
you cannot be anything. The first thing for you to do is to stop these movements. Make this
your aim, your God. Even get your family to help you. Only after this, you can perhaps gain
attention. This is an example of doing.

Another example--an aspiring pianist can never learn except little by little. If you wish to
play melodies without first practicing, you can never play real melodies. The melodies you
will play will be cacophonous and will make people suffer and hate you. It is the same with
psychological ideas: to gain anything, long practice is necessary.

Dualities ("Seal of Solomon")

from Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous," pp. 280-82

Gurdjieff:

"The understanding of symbols can be approached in the following way: In studying the
world of phenomena a man first of all sees in everything the manifestation of two principles,
one opposed to the other, which in conjunction or in opposition, give one result or another,
that is, reflect the essential nature of the principles which have created them. This
manifestation of the great laws of duality and trinity man sees simultaneously in the cosmos
and in himself. But in relation to the cosmos he is merely a spectator and moreover one who
sees only the surface of phenomena which are moving in various directions though seeming
to him to move in one direction. But in relation to himself his understanding of the laws of
duality and trinity can express itself in a practical form, namely, having understood these
laws in himself, he can, so to speak, confine the manifestation of the laws of duality and
trinity to the permanent line of struggle with himself on the way to self-knowledge. In this
way he will introduce the line of will first into the circle of time and afterwards into the cycle
of eternity, the accomplishing of which will create in him the great symbol known by the
name of the Seal of Solomon.

...

"Man, in the normal state natural to him, is taken as a duality. He consists entirely of
dualities or 'pairs of opposites.' All man's sensations, impressions, feelings, thoughts, are
divided into positive and negative, useful and harmful, necessary and unnecessary, good
and bad, pleasant and unpleasant. The work of centers proceeds under the sign of this
division. Thoughts oppose feelings. Moving impulses oppose instinctive craving for quiet.
This is the duality in which proceed all the perceptions, all the reactions, the whole life of
man. Any man who observes himself, however little, can see this duality in himself.

"But this duality would seem to alternate; what is victor today is the vanquished tomorrow;
what guides us today becomes secondary and subordinate tomorrow. And everything is
equally mechanical, equally independent of will, and leads equally to no aim of any kind.
The understanding of duality in oneself begins with the realization of mechanicalness and
the realization of the difference between what is mechanical and what is conscious. This
understanding must be preceded by the destruction of the self-deceit in which a man lives
who considers even his most mechanical actions to be volitional and conscious and himself
to be single and whole.

"When self-deceit is destroyed and a man begins to see the difference between the
mechanical and the conscious in himself, there begins a struggle for the relation of
consciousness in life and for the subordination of the mechanical to the conscious. For this
purpose a man begins with endeavors to set a definite decision, coming from conscious
motives, against mechanical processes proceeding according to the laws of duality. The
creation of a permanent third principle is for man thetransformation of the duality into the
trinity.

"Strengthening this decision and bringing it constantly and infallibly into all those events
where formerly accidental neutralizing 'shocks' used to act and give accidental results, gives
a permanent line of results in time and is the transformation of trinity into quaternity. The
next stage, the transformation of quaternity into quinternity and the construction of the
pentagram has not one but many different meanings even in relation to man. And of these
is learned, first of all, one, which is the most beyond doubt, relating to the work of centers.

"The development of the human machine and the enrichment of being begins with a new
and unaccustomed functioning of this machine. We know that a man has five centers: the
thinking, the emotional, the moving, the instinctive, and the sex. The predominant
development of any one center at the expense of the others produces an extremely one-
sided type of man, incapable of further development. But if a man brings the work of the
five centers within him into harmonious accord, he then 'locks the pentagram within him'
and becomes a finished type of the physically perfect man. The full and proper functioning
of five centers brings them into union with the higher centers which introduce the missing
principle and put man into direct and permanent connection with objective consciousness
and objective knowledge.

"And then man becomes the six pointed star, that is, by becoming locked within a circle of
life independent and complete in itself, he becomes isolated from foreign influences or
accidental shocks; he embodies in himself the Seal of Solomon."

Sincerity

Life is real only then, when I am p136

For an all-round assimilation of both these "assisting" or as might otherwise be called

"helping" exercises for the mastering of the chief exercise, I now, at the very beginning of
the formation of this new group composed of various persons pursuing one and the same
aim, find it necessary to warn you of an indispensable condition for the successful
attainment of this common aim, and that is in your mutual relations to be sincere.
The unconditional requirement of such sincerity among all kinds of other conditions existed,
as it happened to become known to me from various authentic sources, among people of all
past times and of every degree of intellectuality, whenever they gathered together for the
collective attainment of some common aim.
In my opinion, it is only by fulfilling this condition for the given proposed collective work that
it is possible to attain a real result in this aim which one has set oneself, and which has
already become for contemporary people almost impossible.
Each of you having become an equal-rights participant in this group newly formed for the
attainment of one and the same so to say "ideal" must always struggle with such impulses,
inevitably arising in you and unworthy of man, as "self-love," "pride," "conceit" and so on,
and not be ashamed to be sincere in your answers concerning your observations and
constatations on the exercises recommended by me.
Any information expressed by any of you relating to the elucidation of the various details of
this first exercise which is for all of you at the present moment the center of gravity, can be,
in the collective work, of great value in helping one another.
In the present case, you must not be afraid of being sincere among yourselves.
Being occupied with the solution of questions concerning this common great aim, each of
you must always cognize and instinctively feel that you are all in a certain respect similar to
each other, and that the well-being of one of you depends on the well-being of the others.
No one of you separately is capable of doing anything real at all; therefore, even for the
sake of only an egoistic aim, help one another in this newly formed group which might also
be called a brotherhood. The more sincere you are with one another, the more useful you
will be to one another.
Of course, be sincere only here in the group, and in questions concerning the common aim.
Sincerity with everyone in general is weakness, slavery and even a sign of hysteria.
Although the normal man must be able to be sincere, yet he must also know when, where
and for what purpose it is necessary to be sincere.
And in the present case, to be sincere is desirable. Therefore, without restraint, speak of all
the results attained by you from doing this kind of exercise.

from Ouspensky's "The Fourth Way," pp. 159-60

Q. How can one learn to be sincere with oneself?

A. Only by trying to see oneself. Just think about yourself, not in emotional moments, but in
quiet moments, and do not justify yourself because generally we justify and explain
everything by saying that it was inevitable, or that it was somebody else's fault, and so on.
Q. I have been trying to be sincere, but I see now that I do not really know what to be
sincere means.
A. In order to be sincere it is not enough only to wish it. In many cases we do not wish to be
sincere; but even if we wished we could not be. This must be understood. Being able to be
sincere is a science. And even deciding to be sincere is very difficult, for we have many
reservations.
Only sincerity and complete recognition of the fact that we are slaves to mechanicalness
and its inevitable results can help us to find and destroy buffers with the help of which we
deceive ourselves. We can understand what mechanicalness is and all the horror of
mechanicalness only when we do something horrible and fully realize that it was
mechanicalness in us that made us do it. It is necessary to be very sincere with oneself to
be able to see it. If we try to cover it, to find excuses and explanations, we will never realize
it. It may hurt dreadfully, but we must bear it and try to understand that only by fully
confessing it to ourselves can we avoid repeating it again and again. We can even change
results by full and complete understanding and by not trying to hide it.
We can escape from the tentacles of mechanicalness and break its force by big suffering. If
we try to avoid suffering, if we are afraid of it, if we try to persuade ourselves that nothing
bad really happened, that, after all, it is unimportant and that things can go on just as they
were going before, not only shall we never escape, but we shall become more and more
mechanical, and shall very soon come to a state when there will be no possibility for us and
no chance.

from Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous," p. 230

Gurdjieff:
"As I have said already, one of the first demands is sincerity. But there are different kinds of
sincerity. There is clever sincerity and there is stupid sincerity, just as there is clever
insincerity and stupid insincerity. Both stupid sincerity and stupid insincerity are equally
mechanical. But if a man wishes to learn to be cleverly sincere, he must be sincere first of
all with his teacher and with people who are senior to him in the work. This will be 'clever
sincerity.' But here it is necessary to note that sincerity must not become 'lack of
considering.' Lack of considering in relation to the teacher or in relation to those whom the
teacher has appointed, as I have said already, destroys all possibility of any work. If he
wishes to learn to be cleverly insincere he must be insincere about the work and he must
learn to be silent when he ought to be silent with people outside it, who can neither
understand nor appreciate it. But sincerity in the group is an absolute demand, because, if a
man continues to lie in the group in the same way as he lies to himself and to others in life,
he will never learn to distinguish the truth from a lie."

from Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous," p. 249

"You do not understand what it means to be sincere," said G. "You are so used to lying both
to yourselves and to others that you can find neither words nor thoughts when you wish to
speak the truth. To tell the complete truth about oneself is very difficult. But before telling it
one must know it. And you do not even know what the truth about yourselves consists of.
Some day I will tell every one of you his chief feature or chief fault. We shall then see
whether you will understand me or not."

from Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous," p. 153

G:
"Very often a man desires sincerely to express or somehow or other show to another man
what he really thinks of him or feels about him. And if he is a weak man he will of course
give way to this desire and afterwards justify himself and say that he did not want to lie, did
not want to pretend, he wanted to be sincere. Then he convinces himself that it was the
other man's fault. He really wanted to consider him, even to give way to him, not to quarrel,
and so on. But the other man did not at all want to consider him so that nothing could be
done with him. It very often happens that a man begins with a blessing and ends with a
curse. He begins by deciding not to consider and afterwards blames other people for not
considering him. This is an example of how external considering passes into internal
considering. But if a man really remembers himself he understands that another man is a
machine just as he is himself. And then he will enter into his position, he will put himself in
his place, and he will be really able to understand and feel what another man thinks and
feels. If he can do this his work becomes easier for him. But if he approaches a man with his
own requirements nothing except new internal considering can ever be obtained from it."

from G Views, p241

"First you must decide: is the Way necessary for you or not? How are you to begin to find
this out? If you are serious, you must change your point of view, you must think in a new
way, you must find your possible aim. This you cannot do alone, you must call on a friend
who can help youeveryone can helpbut especially two friends can help each other to
revalue the values.
It is very difficult to be sincere all at once, but, if you try, you will improve gradually. When
you can be sincere, I can show you, or help you to see, the things you are afraid of, and you
will find what is necessary and useful for yourself."

External Considering

from Gurdjieff's Views from the Real World Page 94-96

Everyone is in great need of one particular exercise, both if one wants to continue working and
for external life.

We have two lives, inner and outer life, and so we also have two kinds of considering. We
constantly consider.

When she looks at me, I feel inside a dislike of her, I am cross with her, but externally I am
polite because I must be very polite since I need her. Internally I am what I am, but externally
I am different. This is external considering. Now she says that I am a fool. This angers me.
The fact that I am angered is the result, but what takes place in me is internal considering.

This internal and external considering are different. We must learn to be able to control
separately both kinds of considering: the internal and the external. We want to change not only
inside but also outside.

Yesterday, when she gave me an unfriendly look, I was cross. But today I understand that
perhaps the reason why she looked at me like that is that she is a fool; or perhaps she had
learned or heard something about me. And today I want to remain calm. She is a slave and I
should not be angry with her inwardly. From today onward I want to be calm inside.

Outwardly I want today to be polite, but if necessary I can appear angry. Outwardly it must be
what is best for her and for me. I must consider. Internal and external considering must be
different. In an ordinary man the external attitude is the result of the internal. If she is polite, I
am also polite. But these attitudes should be separated.

Internally one should be free from considering, but externally one should do more than one
has been doing so far. An ordinary man lives as he is dictated to from inside.

When we speak of change, we presume the need of inner change. Externally if everything is
all right, there is no need to change. If it is not all right, perhaps there is no need to change
either, because maybe it is original. What is necessary is to change inside.

Until now we did not change anything, but from today we want to change. But how to change?
First, we must separate and then sort out, discard what is useless and build something new.
Man has much that is good and much that is bad. If we discard everything, later it will be
necessary to collect again.
If a man has not enough on the external side, he will need to fill the gaps. Who is not well
educated should be better educated. But this is for life.

The work needs nothing external. Only the internal is needed. Externally, one should play a
role in everything. Externally a man should be an actor, otherwise he does not answer the
requirements of life. One man likes one thing; another, another thing: if you want to be a
friend to both and behave in one way, one of them will not like it; if you behave in another
way, the other will not like it. You should behave with one as he likes it and with the other as
this other likes it. Then your life will be easier.

But inside it must be different: different in relation to the one and the other.

As things are now, especially in our times, every man considers utterly mechanically. We react
to everything affecting us from outside. Now we obey orders. She is good, and I am good; she
is bad, and I am bad. I am as she wants me to be, I am a puppet. But she too is a mechanical
puppet. She also obeys orders mechanically and does what another one wants.

We must cease reacting inside. If someone is rude, we must not react inside. Whoever
manages to do this will be more free. It is very difficult.

Inside us we have a horse; it obeys orders from outside. And our mind is too weak to do
anything inside. Even if the mind gives the order to stop, nothing will stop inside.

We educate nothing but our mind. We know how to behave with such and such. "Goodbye"
"How do you do?" But it is only the driver who knows this. Sitting on his box he has read
about it. But the horse has no education whatever. It has not even been taught the alphabet, it
knows no languages, it never went to school. The horse was also capable of being taught, but
we forgot all about it. . . . And so it grew up a neglected orphan. It only knows two words:
right and left.

What I said about inner change refers only to the need of change in the horse. If the horse
changes, we can change even externally. If the horse does not change, everything will remain
the same, no matter how long we study.

It is easy to decide to change sitting quietly in your room. But as soon as you meet someone,
the horse kicks. Inside us we have a horse.

The horse must change.

If anyone thinks that self-study will help and he will be able to change, he is greatly mistaken.
Even if he reads all the books, studies for a hundred years, masters all knowledge, all
mysteries--nothing will come of it.

Because all this knowledge will belong to the driver. And he, even if he knows, cannot drag
the cart without the horse--it is too heavy.
External Considering

from Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous," pp. 153-54

Gurdjieff:

"The opposite of internal considering and what is in part a means of fighting against it is
external considering. External considering is based upon an entirely different relationship
towards people, to their understanding, to their requirements. By considering externally a
man does that which makes life easy for other people and for himself. External considering
requires a knowledge of men, an understanding of their tastes, habits, and prejudices. At
the same time external considering requires a great power over oneself, a great control over
oneself. Very often a man desires sincerely to express or somehow or other show to another
man what he really thinks of him or feels about him. And if he is a weak man he will of
course give way to this desire and afterwards justify himself and say that he did not want to
lie, did not want to pretend, he wanted to be sincere. Then he convinces himself that it was
the other man's fault. He really wanted to consider him, even to give way to him, not to
quarrel, and so on. But the other man did not at all want to consider him so that nothing
could be done with him. It very often happens that a man begins with a blessing and ends
with a curse. He begins by deciding not to consider and afterwards blames other people for
not considering him. This is an example of how external considering passes into internal
considering. But if a man really remembers himself he understands that another man is a
machine just as he is himself. And then he willenter into his position, he will put himself in
his place, and he will be really able to understand and feel what another man thinks and
feels. If he can do this his work becomes easier for him. But if he approaches a man with his
own requirements nothing except new internal considering can ever be obtained from it.

"Right external considering is very important in the work. It often happens that people who
understand very well the necessity of external considering in life do not understand the
necessity of external considering in the work; they decide that just because they are in the
work they have the right not to consider. Whereas in reality, in the work, that is for a man's
own successful work, ten times more external considering is necessary than in life,
because only external considering on his part shows his valuation of the work and his
understanding of the work; and success in the work is always proportional to the valuation
and understanding of it. Remember that work cannot begin and cannot proceed on a level
lower than that of the obyvatel,* that is, on a level lower than ordinary life. This is a very
important principle which, for some reason or other, is very easily forgotten. But we will
speak about this separately afterwards."

*The definition of obyvatel, from p. 362 et seq.:

Gurdjieff:

"Obyvatel is a strange word in the Russian language. It is used in the sense of 'inhabitant,'
without any particular shade. At the same time it is used to express contempt or
derision--'obyvatel'--as though there could be nothing worse. But those who speak in this
way do not understand that the obyvatel is the healthy kernel of life. And from the point of
view of the possibility of evolution, a good obyvatel has many more chances than a 'lunatic'
or a 'tramp.' Afterwards I will perhaps explain what I mean by these two words. In the
meantime we will talk about the obyvatel. I do not at all wish to say that all obyvatels are
people of the objective way. Nothing of the kind. Among them are thieves, rascals, and
fools; but there are others. I merely wish to say that being a good obyvatel by itself does not
hinder the 'way.' And finally there are different types of obyvatel. Imagine, for example, the
type of obyvatel who lives all his life just as the other people round him, conspicuous in
nothing, perhaps a good master, who makes money, and is perhaps even close-fisted. At the
same time he dreams all his life of monasteries, for instance, and dreams that some time or
other he will leave everything and go into a monastery. And such things happen in the East
and in Russia. A man lives and works, then, when his children or his grandchildren are grown
up, he gives everything to them and goes into a monastery. This is the obyvatel of which I
speak. Perhaps he does not go into a monastery, perhaps he does not need this. His own life
as an obyvatel can be his way.

"People who are definitely thinking about ways, particularly people of intellectual ways, very
often look down on the obyvatel and in general despise the virtues of theobyvatel. But they
only show by this their own personal unsuitability for any way whatever. Because no way
can begin from a level lower than the obyvatel. This is very often lost sight of on people who
are unable to organize their own personal lives, who are too weak to struggle with and
conquer life, dream of the ways, or what they consider are ways, because they think it will
be easier for them than life and because this, so to speak, justifies their weakness and
inadaptability. A man who can be a good obyvatel is much more helpful from the point of
view of the way than a 'tramp' who thinks himself much higher than an obyvatel. I call
'tramps' all the so-called 'intelligentsia'--artists, poets, any kind of 'bohemian' in general,
who despises the obyvatel and who at the same time would be unable to exist without him.
Ability to orientate oneself in life is a very useful quality from the point of view of the work.
A good obyvatel should be able to support at least twenty persons by his own labor. What is
a man worth who is unable to do this?"

"What does obyvatel actually mean?" asked somebody. "Can it be said that an obyvatel is a
good citizen?"

"Ought an obyvatel to be patriotic?" someone else asked. "Let us suppose there is war. What
attitude should an obyvatel have towards war?"

"There can be different wars and there can be different patriots," said G. "You all still believe
in words. An obyvatel, if he is a good obyvatel, does not believe in words. He realizes how
much idle talk is hidden behind them. People who shout about their patriotism are
psychopaths for him and he looks upon them as such."

"And how would an obyvatel look upon pacifists or upon people who refuse to go to the
war?"

"Equally as lunatics! They are probably still worse."

...

"When I say that an obyvatel is more serious than a 'tramp' or a 'lunatic,' I mean by this
that, accustomed to deal with real values, an obyvatel values the possibilities of the 'ways'
and the possibilities of 'liberation' or 'salvation' better and quicker than a man who is
accustomed all his life to a circle of imaginary values, imaginary interests, and imaginary
possibilities.

"People who are not serious for the obyvatel are people who live by fantasies, chiefly by the
fantasy that they are able to do something. The obyvatel knows that they only deceive
people, promise them God knows what, and that actually they are simply arranging affairs
for themselves--or they are lunatics, which is still worse, in other words they believe
everything that people say.

...

"The obyvatel perhaps may not know it in a philosophical way, that is to say, he is not able
to formulate it, but he knows that things 'do themselves' simply through his own practical
shrewdness, therefore, in his heart, he laughs at people who think, or who want to assure
him, that they signify anything, that anything depends on their decisions, that they can
change or, in general, do anything. This for him is not being serious. An understanding of
what is not serious can help him to value that which is serious."

Walking With Momentum

(From Gurdjieff's Views from the Real World Pp 116 & 161)

It is a very interesting thing, and you must try to understand what I am saying about
momentum. When I make a sudden movement, energy flows in, but when I repeat the
movement the momentum no longer takes energy. (He demonstrates.) At the moment when
energy has given the initial push, the flow of energy stops and momentum takes over.

Tension needs energy. If tension is absent, less energy is spent. If my arm is tense, as it is
now, a continuous current is required, which means that it is connected with the
accumulators. If I now move my arm thus, so long as I do it with pauses, I spend energy.

If a man suffers from chronic tension, then, even if he does nothing, even if he is lying down,
he uses more energy than a man who spends a whole day in physical labor. But a man who
does not have these small chronic tensions certainly wastes no energy when he does not
work or move.

Now we must ask ourselves, are there many among us who are free from this terrible
disease? Almost all of us--we are not speaking of people in general but of those present, the
rest do not concern us--almost all of us have this delightful habit.

We must bear in mind that this energy about which we now speak so simply and easily,
which we waste so unnecessarily and involuntarily, this same energy is needed for the work
we intend to do and without which we can achieve nothing.

We cannot get more energy, the inflow of energy will not increase: the machine will remain
such as it is created. If the machine is made to produce ten amperes it will go on producing
ten amperes. The current can be increased only if all the wires and coils are changed. For
instance, one coil represents the nose, another a leg, a third a man's complexion or the size
of his stomach. So the machine cannot be changed--its structure will remain as it is. The
amount of energy produced is constant: even if the machine is put right, this amount will
increase very little.
Sit as I sit, close your fists and take care to tighten your muscles only in your fists, as hard
as you can. You see, everyone does it differently. One has tightened his legs, another his
back.

If you pay attention, you will do it differently from the way you do ordinarily. Learn--when
you sit, when you stand, when you lie down--to tense your right arm or your left. (Speaking
to M.) Get up, tense your arm and keep the rest of your body relaxed. Try it in practice to
understand better. When you pull, try to distinguish strain from resistance.

I now walk without tension, taking care only to keep my balance. If I stand still, I shall rock.
Now I want to walk without spending any force. I only give an initial push, the rest goes by
momentum. In this way I cross the room without having wasted any force. To do this you
must let the movement do itself; it does not depend on you. I said earlier to someone that if
he regulates his speed it shows that he is tensing his muscles.

Try to relax everything except your legs, and walk. Pay particular attention to keeping your
body passive, but the head and face must be alive. The tongue and eyes must speak.

All day long, at every step, we are annoyed at something, like something, hate something,
and so on. Now we are consciously relaxing some parts of our body and consciously tensing
others. As we practice it, we do so with enjoyment. Each of us is able to do it more or less,
and each one is sure that the more he practices it, the better he will be able to do it. All you
need is practice; you must only want to and do it. The desire brings the possibility. I am
speaking of physical things.

From tomorrow on, let each person also begin to practice the following exercise: if you are
touched to the quick, see that it does not spread all over the body. Control your reaction; do
not let it spread.

Stopping Thoughts
(From Ouspensky's "Fourth Way," pp. 115-118 and 380)

En Espaol

Q. What is the distinction in the meaning of attention and consciousness?

A. Attention can be regarded as the elementary beginning of consciousness--the first

degree. It is not full awareness for it is only directed one way. As I said, consciousness needs
double attention.

Q. What is the object of attaining this higher consciousness--to live more fully?

A. One thing depends on another. If we want to have will, if we want to be free instead of
being marionettes, if we want to awake, we must develop consciousness. If we realize that
we are asleep and that all people are asleep, and what it means, then all the absurdities of
life are explained. It is quite clear that people cannot do anything differently from what they
do now if they are asleep.

Q. As we are, would we ever be able to be conscious when we want to be, or does it always
come accidentally?
A. Nothing comes in its full state at once. The first step is to be more conscious, the second
step is to be still more conscious. If, with effort, you can now make yourself be conscious for
a minute, then, if you work on it and do all that is possible to help, after some time you will
be able to be conscious for five minutes.

Q. Is it wrong when it is accidental?

A. You cannot rely on it. As we are, higher states cannot last; they are just flashes, and if
they last, then it is imagination. This is a definite fact because we have no energy for lasting
higher states. Flashes are possible, only again you must judge and classify them by what
material they bring.

Q. Cannot they last in memory even?

A. The memory that we can command, control and use is only intellectual, and intellectual
memory cannot keep them.

Q. It seems to me quite impossible to self-remember at will, although it seems not quite so

difficult to observe myself.

A. You must try methods that will produce it. Try this method of stopping your thoughts, to
see for how long you can keep your thoughts down, to think about nothing--if you know
about self-remembering. But suppose a man who does not know about self-remembering
tries this--he will not come to the idea of self-remembering in this way. If you already know,
that will create a moment of self-remembering; for how long will depend on your efforts. It is
a very good way. This method is described, for instance, in some books on Yoga, but people
who try it do not know why they are doing it, so it cannot produce good results. Quite the
opposite, it may produce a kind of trance state.

Q. When you said 'knowing about self-remembering', did you mean if you have it in your
head as an aim, or if you had a taste of it?

A. There are different degrees. You see, we speak about self-remembering all the time; we
always come back to it; so you cannot say you do not know about self-remembering. But if
you take a man who has studied ordinary psychology or philosophy, he does not know about
it.

Q. Is it possible to have done self-remembering before one met this system? I ask because I
have tried to self-remember and the results seem to correspond to what I used to do before,
without knowing what I was doing.

A. That's the thing. You can study it to understand the principle that if you do a certain thing
knowing what it is, it gives one result, and if you do almost the same thing without knowing
what it is, it gives a different result. Many people came very near to self-remembering in
practice, others came very near to it in theory but without practice--either theory without
practice, or practice without theory--and neither from the one nor from the other did they
come to the real truth. For instance, in the so-called Yoga literature there are many near
approaches to self-remembering. For example, they speak about 'I am' consciousness, but
they are so theoretical that you cannot get anything out of it.

Self-remembering was never mentioned in any literature in an exact, concrete form,

although in a disguised form it is spoken about in the New Testament and in Buddhist
writings. For instance, when it is said, 'Watch, do not sleep', this is self-remembering. But
people interpret it differently.

Q. Is emotional centre the chief centre that works in self-remembering?

A. You cannot control emotions. You simply decide to remember yourself. I have given you a
very simple, practical method. Try to stop your thoughts but, at the same time, do not forget
your aim--that you do it in order to remember yourself. That may help. What prevents self-
remembering? This constant turning of thoughts. Stop this turning, and perhaps you will
have a taste of it.

Q. What centres work in self-remembering?

A. Self-remembering needs the best work you can produce, so the more centres that take
part in it the better the result. Self-remembering cannot be produced by slow, weak work--
the work of one or two centres. You may begin with two centres, but it is not sufficient,
because other centres can interrupt your self-remembering and stop it. But if you put all
centres to the work there is nothing that can stop it. You must always remember that self-
remembering needs the best work you are capable of.

Q. You said real self-remembering needs emotion, but when I think of it I do not experience
any emotion. Can one remember oneself without emotional experience?

A. The idea is to remember oneself, to be aware of oneself. And what comes with it you just
notice, you must not put any definite demands upon it. If you make it a regular practice to
try and remember yourself three or four times a day, self-remembering will come by itself in
the intervals, when you need it. But that you will notice later. You must make it a regular
practice to try and remember yourself, if possible at the same times of the day. And, as I
said, the practice of stopping thoughts will produce the same effect. So, if you cannot
remember yourself, try stopping thoughts. You can stop thoughts, but you must not be
disappointed if at first you cannot. Stopping thoughts is a very difficult thing. You cannot say
to yourself 'I will stop thoughts', and they stop. You have to use effort all the time. So you
must not do it for long. If you do it for a few minutes it is quite sufficient, otherwise you will
persuade yourself that you are doing it when instead you will just sit quietly and think and
be very happy about it. As much as you can you must keep only one thought, 'I do not want
to think about anything', and throw all other thoughts out. It is a very good exercise, but
only an exercise.

Q. Is it bad to stop breathing when one tries to stop thoughts?

A.. This question was asked once in our old groups and Mr. Gurdjieff asked: 'For how long?'
The man said for ten minutes. Mr. Gurdjieff answered: 'If you can stop breathing for ten
minutes it is very good, because after four minutes you die!'

Q. Are self-remembering and stopping thoughts the same thing?

A. Not exactly; they are two different methods. In the first you bring in a certain definite
thought--the realization that you do not remember yourself. You must always start with that.
And stopping thought is simply creating a right atmosphere, right surroundings, for self-
remembering. So they are not the same thing, but they bring the same results.

Q. Is one's work more accurate if one is remembering oneself and the work one is doing?
A. Yes, when you are awake you can do everything better, but a long time is necessary for
that. When you get accustomed to self-remembering you will not be able to understand how
you ever worked without it. But in the beginning it is difficult to work and to remember
oneself at the same time. Still, efforts in this direction give very interesting results; of that
there can be no doubt. All experience of all times shows that these efforts are always
rewarded. Besides, if you make these efforts you will understand that certain things one can
only do in sleep and cannot do when one is awake, because some things can only be
mechanical. For instance, suppose you forget or lose things: you cannot lose things on
purpose, you can lose them only mechanically.

Q. While performing on the piano, when I thought 'I am here' I did not know what I was
doing.

A. Because this is not being conscious, it is thinking about self-remembering. Then it

interferes with what you are doing; just as when you are writing and suddenly think 'How is
this word spelt?'--you cannot remember. This is one function interfering with another. But
real self-remembering is not in centres, it is above centres. It cannot interfere with the work
of centres, only one will see more, one will see one's mistakes.

We must realize that the capacity for remembering oneself is our right. We do not have it,
but we can have it; we have all the necessary organs for it, so to speak, but we are not
trained, not accustomed to using them. It is necessary to create a certain particular energy
or point, using this word in an ordinary sense, and this can be created only at a moment of a
serious emotional stress. Everything before that is only preparation of the method. But if
you find yourself in a moment of very strong emotional stress and try to remember yourself
then, it will remain after the stress is over, and then you will be able to remember yourself.
So only with very intense emotion is it possible to create this foundation for self-
remembering. But it cannot be done if you do not prepare yourself beforehand. Moments
may come, but you will get nothing from them. These emotional moments come from time
to time, but we do not use them, because we do not know how to use them. If you try
sufficiently hard to remember yourself during a moment of intense emotion, and if the
emotional stress is strong enough, it will leave a certain trace, and this will help you to
remember yourself in the future.

Q. So what we are doing now is a sort of practising?

A. Now you are only studying yourselves, you can do nothing else.

Q. What is this preparation you are speaking about?

A. Self-study, self-observation, self-understanding. We can change nothing yet, nor make a

single thing different. It all happens in the same way as before. But there is a difference
already, for you see many things you could not have seen before, and many things 'happen'
differently. It does not mean you have changed anything: they happen differently.

Q. Is our life long enough to attain results?

A. You come to the understanding of this point through self-remembering. When you reach
certain results in it, if it comes often--like seeing oneself in a mirror--then there comes
another form of self-remembering, remembering one's life, the time-body. This increases
possibilities. There are also other steps, but we can only speak of one step ahead, otherwise
it would be imagination. We must understand that we must not touch certain questions
without self-remembering. It is a question of perfecting our instrument of cognition. Our
mind is very limited by our state of consciousness. We can hope that certain things will
become comprehensible if our state of consciousness changes.

Page 380:

Q. Sometimes when I have tried to self-remember I have a strange feeling about inanimate
objects, as if they had a sort of awareness that was them.

A. Discount the possibility of imagination. Let us say simply that you feel something new in
things. But when you begin to explain it, you begin to imagine. Do not try to explain, just
leave it. Sometimes you can feel strange things in that way, but explanations are always
wrong, because you feel with one very good apparatus and explain with another, a very
clumsy machine that cannot really explain.

Q. It all seems to come back to the same question--how to be more emotional.

A. You cannot try to be emotional--the more you try, the less emotional you will be. You can
try to be conscious, and if you become more conscious, you will become more emotional.
You must think about how to get more energy to be conscious. That would be a right
question, and the answer would be that first you must stop leaks and try to get more energy
by following all the indications you get from the work--all of them. Do not only concentrate
on one; you can always find something that you did not do.

Q. Sometimes I feel that I have the capacity to concentrate, but I do not know what to do. I
only think about small things and it disappears again.

A. You have always more than enough material for work on yourself; you can never be at a
loss as to what to do. Try to stop thoughts--that is easy and useful. If you have no energy to
do that, you must accumulate energy by struggle with mechanical habits and things like
that. That will accumulate enough energy for this effort to remember yourself or the effort
to stop thoughts.

Hermetically Sealed

Nicoll Commentaries, p1306

Now notice when you become negative. It is quite a different state of yourself that can
observe after some time in the Work. What does it mean? Hermes was an actual teacher
that taught this Work. He taught sealing yourself from the effects of life on yourself. In one
of the teachings of Hermes, it is said that before you get up in the morning, you should seal
every center from being negative, your thoughts, your emotions and your movements, for a
man can only attain his individuality by sealing himself off from the effect of the events of
life upon him.

p. 803

Most people, about five minutes after they get up in the morning, begin to identify with
negative emotions--i.e. they identify with their habitual personal reactions to life. They do
not observe what happens to them simply because they have no self-observation in the
Work-sense. They let themselves go. The do not remember themselves. They do not hold
themselves together internally. In other words, they fall asleep on rising. They pass the day
in attracting to themselves situations and things that would not come to them if they
remembered themselves. Half an hour's work in the morning can make a great difference all
day long. You can all see for yourselves what it means to be under the Law of Accident and
the Law of Destiny or Fate. But people have to find this out for themselves. People often
open letters the moment they get up. I wonder why. Is it necessary to be plunged
immediately into the accidents of life without having formed in yourself a certain resistance
to life, without having a certain sacred moment with yourself of Self-Remembering, so that
life and all its accidents do not instantly rush in and occupy the whole psychology?"

p. 138

If you notice, you will see that little forms of worrying start very early in the morning. It is a
very good thing, which is worth doing, to work on oneself in the early morning, before, as it
were, descending into life and duty. A little conscious work at that time, noticing the small
beginnings of worrying or negative thoughts or self-pity, etc., etc. and saying no to them--
lifting oneself out of them--not taking them as you--all this work on non-identifying with
certain machines, certain Is, in the early morning, can alter the whole day. And to this, of
course, belongs the idea of cancelling debts, letting go all inner accounts--if possible. Then
something fresh and new begins the day, and the staleness of life is prevented which is
really the staleness of oneself always reacting in the same way to everything, always having
the same views, always taking others in the same way, and so on.

Uncomfortable Posture

from Gurdjieff's "Views from the Real World," pages 167 & 231(sb)/239-241(hb)

page 167:

You ask about the aim of the movements. To each position of the body corresponds a certain
inner state and, on the other hand, to each inner state corresponds a certain posture. A
man, in his life, has a certain number of habitual postures and he passes from one to
another without stopping at those between.

Taking new, unaccustomed postures enables you to observe yourself inside differently from
the way you usually do in ordinary conditions. This becomes especially clear when on the
command "Stop!" you have to freeze at once. At this command you have to freeze not only
externally but also to stop all your inner movements. Muscles that were tense must remain
in the same state of tension, and the muscles that were relaxed must remain relaxed. You
must make the effort to keep thoughts and feelings as they were, and at the same time to
observe yourself.

For instance, you wish to become an actress. Your habitual postures are suited to acting a
certain part--for instance, a maid--yet you have to act the part of a countess. A countess has
quite different postures.

pages 231/239-241(hb):

The time will come when we shall endeavor to shut off artificially one, or two, or several
[inner states] together, to learn their real nature.
At present we must have an idea of two different experi-ences, one of which we shall agree
to call "feeling" and the other "sensation." We shall call "feeling" the one whose place of
origin is what we call the emotional center; while "sensations" are those so-called feelings
whose place of origin is in what we call the moving center. Now, of course, each one must
understand and examine his sensations and feelings and learn approximately the difference
between them.

For primary exercises in self-remembering the participation of all three centers is necessary,
and we began to speak of the difference between feelings and sensations because it is
necessary to have simultaneously both feeling and sensation.

We can come to this exercise only with the participation of thought. The first thing is
thought. We already know this. We desire, we wish; therefore our thoughts can be more or
less easily adapted to this work, because we have already had practical experience of them.

At the beginning all three need to be evoked artificially. In the case of our thoughts the
means of artificially evoking them is conversations, lectures and so on. For example, if
nothing is said, nothing is evoked. Readings, talks have served as an artificial shock. I call it
artificial because I was not born with these desires, they are not natural, they are not an
organic necessity. These desires are artificial and their consequences will be equally
artificial.

And if thoughts are artificial, then I can create in myself for this purpose sensations which
are also artificial.

New People

from Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous," pp. 241-43; Ouspensky's "The Fourth Way,"
pp. 298-302; and Nicoll's "Commentaries," pp. 1456-1458

from Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous," pp. 241-43:

Gurdjieff:

"...you ought by now to have some understanding as to the nature of the system and its
principal methods, and you ought to be able to pass these ideas on to others. You will
remember that at the beginning I was against your talking about the ideas of the system
outside the groups. On the contrary there was a definite rule that none of you, excepting
those whom I specially instructed to do so, should talk to anyone either about the groups or
the lectures or the ideas. And I explained then why this was necessary. You would not have
been able to give a correct picture, a correct impression. Instead of giving people the
possibility of coming to these ideas you would have repelled them for ever; you would have
even deprived them of the possibility of coming to them at a later time. But now the
situation is different. You have already heard enough. And if you really have made efforts to
understand what you have heard, then you should be able to pass it on to others. Therefore
I will give you a definite task.

"Try to lead conversations with your friends and acquaintances up to these subjects, try to
prepare those who show interest and, if they ask you to, bring them to the meetings. But
everyone must realize that this is his own task and not expect others to do it for him. The
proper performance of this task by each of you will show first, that you have already
assimilated something, understood something, and second, that you are able to appraise
people, to understand with whom it is worth while talking and with whom it is not worth
while, because the majority of people cannot take in any of these ideas and it is perfectly
useless to talk to them. But at the same time there are people who are able to take in these
ideas and with whom it is worth while talking."

The next meeting after this was very interesting. Everyone was full of impressions of talks
with friends; everyone had a great many questions; everyone was somewhat discouraged
and disappointed.

It proved that friends and acquaintances asked very shrewd questions to which most of our
people had no answers. They asked for instance what we had got from the work and openly
expressed doubts as to our "remembering ourselves." On the other hand others had
themselves no doubt whatever that they "remembered themselves." Others found the "ray
of creation" and the "seven cosmoses" ridiculous and useless; ... others asked who had seen
the centers and how they could be seen; others found absurd the idea that we could not
"do." ...

G. laughed when we recounted to him our conversations with our friends.

"This is nothing," he said. "If you were to put together everything that people are able to say
about this system, you would not believe in it yourselves. This system has a wonderful
property: even a mere contact with it calls forth either the best or the worst in people. You
may know a man all your life and think that he is not a bad fellow, that he is even rather
intelligent. Try speaking to him about these ideas and you will see at once that he is an utter
fool. Another man, on the other hand, might appear to have nothing in him, but speak to
him on these subjects and you find that he thinks, and thinks very seriously."

"How can we recognize people who are able to come to the work?" asked on of those
present.

"How to recognize them is another question," said G. "To do this it is necessary to a certain
extent 'to be.' But before speaking of this we must establish what kind of people are able to
come to the work and what kind are not able.

"You must understand that a man should have, first, a certain preparation, certain luggage.
He should know what it is possible to know through ordinary channelsabout the ideas of
esotericism, about hidden knowledge, about possibilities of the inner evolution of man, and
so on. What I mean is that these ideas ought not to appear to him as something entirely
new. Otherwise it is difficult to speak to him. It is useful also if he has at least some scientific
or philosophical preparation. If a man has a good knowledge of religion, this can also be
useful. But if he is tied to religious forms and has no understanding of their essence, he will
find it very difficult. In general, if a man knows but little, has read but little, has thought but
little, it is difficult to talk to him. If he has a good essence there is another way for him
without any talks at all, but in this case he has to be obedient, he has to give up his will. And
he has to come to this also in some way or other. It can be said that there is one general
rule for everybody. In order to approach this system seriously, people must
be disappointed, first of all in themselves, that is to say, in their powers, and secondly in all
the old ways. A man cannot feel what is most valuable in the system unless he is
disappointed in what he has been doing, disappointed in what he has been searching for. If
he is a scientist he should be disappointed in his science. If he is a religious man he should
be disappointed in his religion. If he is a politician he should be disappointed in politics. If he
is a philosopher he should be disappointed in philosophy. If he is a theosophist he should be
disappointed in theosophy. If he is an occultist he should be disappointed in occultism. And
so on. But you must understand what this means. I say for instance that a religious man
should be disappointed in religion. This does not mean that he should lose his faith. On the
contrary, it means being 'disappointed' in the teaching and the methods only, realizing that
the religious teaching he knows is not enough for him, can lead him nowhere. All religious
teachings, excepting of course the completely degenerated religions of savages and the
invented religions and sects of modern times, consist of two parts, the visible and the
hidden. To be disappointed in religion means being disappointed in the visible, and to feel
the necessity for finding the hidden and unknown part of religion. To be disappointed in
science does not mean losing interest in knowledge. It means being convinced that the
usual scientific methods are not only useless but lead to the construction of absurd and self-
contradictory theories, and, having become convinced of this, to begin to search for others.
To be disappointed in philosophy means being convinced that ordinary philosophy is
merely--as it is said in the Russian proverb--pouring from one empty vessel into another,
and that people do not even know what philosophy means although true philosophy also
can and should exist. To be disappointed in occultism does not mean losing faith in the
miraculous, it is merely being convinced that ordinary, accessible, and even advertised
occultism, under whatever name it may pass, is simply charlatanism and self-deception and
that, although somewhere something does exist, everything that man knows or is able to
learn in the ordinary way is not what he needs.

"So that, no matter what he used to do before, no matter what used to interest him, if a
man has arrived at this state of disappointment in ways that are possible and accessible, it
is worth while speaking to him about our system and then he may come to the work. But if
he continues to think that he is able to find anything on his former way, or that he has not
as yet tried all the ways, or that he can, by himself, find anything or do anything, it means
that he is not ready. I do not mean that he must throw up everything he used to do before.
This is entirely unnecessary. On the contrary, it is often even better if he continues to do
what he used to do. But he must realize that it is only a profession, or a habit, or a necessity.
In this case it is another matter; he will then be able not to 'identify.'

"There is only one thing incompatible with work and that is 'professional occultism,' in other
words, professional charlatanism. All these spiritualists, healers, clairvoyants, and so on, or
even people closely connected with them, are none of them any good to us. And you must
always remember this and take care not to tell them much because everything they learn
from you they might use for their own purposes, that is, to make fools of other people.

"There are still other categories which are no good but we will speak of them later. In the
meantime remember one thing only: A man must be sufficiently disappointed in ordinary
ways and he must at the same time think or be able to accept the idea that there may be
something--somewhere. If you should speak to such a man, he might discern the flavor of
truth in what you say no matter how clumsily you might speak. But if you should speak to a
man who is convinced about something else, everything you say will sound absurd to him
and he will never even listen to you seriously. It is not worth while wasting time on him. This
system is for those who have already sought and have burned themselves. Those who have
not sought and who are not seeking do not need it. And those who have not yet burned
themselves do not need it either."

"But this is not what people begin with," said one of our company. "They ask: Do we admit
the existence of the ether? Or how do we look on evolution? Or why do we not believe in
progress? Or why do we not think that people can and should organize life on the basis of
justice and the common good? And things of this sort."
"All questions are good," said G., "and you can begin from any question if only it is
sincere. You understand that what I mean is that this very question about either or about
progress or about the common good could be asked by a man simply in order to say
something, or to repeat what someone else has said or what he has read in some book, and
on the other hand he could ask it because this is the question with which he aches. If it is an
aching question for him you can give him an answer and you can bring him to the system
through any question whatever. But it is necessary for the question to be an aching one."

from Ouspensky's "The Fourth Way," pp. 298-302

What is interesting in this connection, and what I would like to speak about, is the division of
men from the point of view of the possibility of changing being. There is such a division.

It is particularly connected with the idea of the Path or Way. You remember it was said that
from the moment one becomes connected with influence C a staircase begins and only
when a man gets to the top of it is the Path or Way reached? A question was asked about
who is able to come up to this staircase, climb it and reach the Way. Mr Gurdjieff answered
by using a Russian word which can be translated as 'Householder'. In Indian and Buddhist
literature this is a very well-defined type of man and type of life which can bring one to
change of being. 'Snataka' or 'Householder' simply means a man who leads an ordinary life.
Such a man can have doubts about the value of ordinary things; he can have dreams about
possibilities of development; he can come to a school, either after a long life or at the
beginning of life, and he can work in a school. Only from among such men come people who
are able to climb the staircase and reach the Path.

Other people he divided into two categories: first, 'tramps', and second, 'lunatics'. Tramps
do not necessarily mean poor people; they may be rich and may still be 'tramps' in their
attitude to life. And a 'lunatic' does not mean a man deprived of ordinary mind; he may be a
statesman or a professor.

These two categories are no good for a school and will not be interested in it; tramps
because they are not really interested in anything; lunatics because they have false values.
So if they attempt to climb up the staircase they only fall down and break their necks.

First it is necessary to understand these three categories from the point of view of the
possibility of changing being, possibility of school-work. This division means only one thing--
that people are not in exactly the same position in relation to possibilities of work. There are
people for whom the possibility of changing their being exists; there are many people for
whom it is practically impossible, because they brought their being to such a state that
there is no starting-point in them; and there are people belonging to yet a fourth category
who, by different means, have already destroyed all possibility of changing their being. This
division is not parallel to any other division. Belonging to one of the first three categories is
not permanent and can be changed, but one can come to the work only from the first
category, not from the second or the third; the fourth category excludes all possibilities. So,
though people may be born with the same rights, so to speak, they lose their rights very
easily.

...
Q. What is it that determines which category a man belongs to?

A. A certain attitude to life, to people, and certain possibilities that one has. It is the same
for all the three categories. The fourth category is separate.

About this fourth category, I will give you just a few definitions. In the system this category
has a special name, consisting of two Turkish words. It is 'Hasnamuss'. One of the first things
about a 'Hasnamuss' is that he never hesitates to sacrifice people or to create an enormous
amount of suffering, just for his own personal ambitions. How a 'Hasnamuss' is created is
another question. It begins with formatory thinking, with being a tramp and a lunatic at the
same time. Another definition of a 'Hasnamuss' is that he is crystalllized in the wrong
hydrogens. This category cannot interest you practically, because you have nothing to do
with such people; but you meet with the results of their existence.

...

As to the characteristics of a man in the first category, that is the householder--to begin with
he is a practical man; he is not formatory; he must have a certain amount of discipline,
otherwise he would not be what he is. So practical thinking and self-discipline are
characteristics of the first category. Such a man has enough of these for ordinary life but not
enough for work, so in the work these two characteristics must increase and grow. A
householder is a normal man, and a normal man, given favorable conditions, has the
possibility of development.

from Nicoll's "Commentaries," p. 1456-1457

Let us review again how the Work defines Man. As you know, the definition of Man takes
various forms in the Work, such as Moving Centre Man, Emotional Man, and Intellectual Man.
But to-day we will recall another way of looking at Man from the Work point of view. Man as
he is on Earth is divided into Good Householder, Tramp, Lunatic and Hasnamous. You have
heard many times that people must be at the level of Good Householder, if they are brought
into this Work. I will give you some actual words of Mr. Ouspensky in this respect. He said:
"Good Householder really means in the Work sense a man well orientated to life, who does
not believe in life but sees the real value of things. Such a Good Householder has Magnetic
Centre." We see therefore from these definitions that Good Householder can be of two kinds.
There is the householder who believes in life and can deal with his affairs reasonably and
again there is the Householder in the Work sense who is well orientated to live and knows
his job, but does not believe in life. That is, he does not believe that life will get him
anywhere in the direction in which he wishes to go and has the feeling that life is not real
although he continues to do his duty--that is, he sees the real value of things. In other
words, he sees how false the aims of life are and how, in so many cases, nothing is attained.

Now we will talk about the next definition: Man as being a Tramp. This man is quite different
from Good Householder, whether we think of Good Householder as a man who believes in
life or as a man who does not believe in life, and yet in both cases does his job. Mr.
Ouspensky said: "Amongst Tramps, you will find many artists and poets, etc., who despise
Good Householder, but who are really at a much lower level and have no feeling of
responsibility towards anything and do not understand what a fool is in themselves. We all
have a fool in us."
Now let us take the third definition--i.e. people who are called, from the Work point of view,
Lunatics. "These", said Mr. Ouspensky, on this particular occasion, "are like politicians,
people who think they can do, people who think that they can change life by means of
themselves, people who, if they put their theories into practice, create greater disorder
because they do not calculate Second Force. This means that they think they can change
everyone by some new enactment and do not realize that to change a person is a very
difficult thing. These are the Lunatics, and again, they do not see the fool in themselves."
The fool in you is what does not calculate Second Force, or the force of resistance to what
you want to attain.

Then lastly we have this strange word Hasnamous. A man who is Hasnamous (which is a
word invented by Mr. G. based on some Persian or Turkish language) is a man who is clever
enough to see that he can gain power by means of tricks over ordinary people. Mr.
Ouspensky said: "Hasnamous men are people whose well-being depends on the non-well-
being of other people." At the time when G. was there he pointed out some dictators who
were really Hasnamous people. On the other hand, he said that they have always existed--
that is, people whose well-being depends on the ill-being of other people. Someone once
said to Mr. Ouspensky: "Was Napoleon a Hasnamous man?" He smiled and said: "I did not
know Napoleon personally." So we have to think of the answer for ourselves. You remember
that Voltaire once said that history is a history of crime, and I fancy if some of you read a
little more history than you do, you would easily see what Hasnamous means historically. Of
course you must understand that Hasnamous is built on a big scale or a small scale.

And so we have five definitions of Man from this Work point of view: Good Householder with
Magnetic Centre, Good Householder without Magnetic Centre, Tramp, Lunatic and
Hasnamous.

Now what happens to the Good Householder with Magnetic Centre who is well orientated to
his Work in life but does not believe in life? What do you understand yourself by this strange
definition and why do you think that such a man has a better being than all the rest
mentioned so far? Mr. Ouspensky said in this connection at the time of which I am speaking:
"He often disappears after having done his duty." He said: "Such a man often vanishes.
People do not hear of him. He may have gone into a monastery or he might have gone
elsewhere to find out something different from life. Such a man, if he does this, may find
something that makes it possible for him to develop." On the other hand, he said in so many
words, that we can take it like this--the Way of Good Householder is a very long way. It will
take a very long time and many lives for him to separate from himself and develop himself
in the way he should by creation. Now let us talk about this Good Householder and again
remind ourselves that no one must come into this Work who is not in some degree Good
Householder. This Work is not for Tramps or Lunatics. People who are no good at life, people
who are mad in their theories about how life should be run and imagine that by rules and
laws people can be changed, are not Good Householders and are not suitable for this Work.
Lunatics do not come much into the Fourth Way Work because they are perfectly contented
with their own ideas and theories, but unfortunately Tramps come in very often imagining
that this Work will make everything easier for them. But the quality of such people is not
right for the inner discipline of this Work. Immediately they find any difficulties they are like
those people spoken of in the Parable of the Sower and the Seed who, sown on rocky
ground, wither away, because they have no root.

Finally, may I point out to some of you that this place here, this Group that we are gradually
forming, has nothing to do with a hospital or a charitable institution. I want people who are
some good already and who know something about the difficulty of meeting Second Force
and seeing that the fault is in themselves. The fool in us never sees Second Force and lives
in phantasies and imagination.
I am, I can, I wish

from Gurdjieff's "Life is real only then, when 'I am,' " pp. 110-111

For an approximate definition of the first of these three human impulses which must arise
and manifest themselves in a real man, one might employ the English word "can," yet not in
the sense in which this word is used in the contemporary English language but in the sense
in which Englishmen used it before what is called the "Shakespearean epoch."

Although for the exact definition of the second of these human impulses in the
contemporary English language there is a word, namely "wish," it is nevertheless employed
by you Americans, as well as by the English people themselves, only in order to vary, of
course unconsciously, the degree of the expression of that so to say "slavish impulse" for
which there are, particularly in this language, a multitude of words as, for example, "like,"
"want," "need," "desire" and so on.

And as regards a word for the expression and understanding of the third definite
aforementioned human impulse, in the whole lexicon of words in the English language there
cannot be found one even approximately corresponding.

This impulse, proper exclusively to man, can be defined in the English language only
descriptively, that is, with many words. I should define it for now in the following words: "the
entire sensing of the whole of oneself."

This third impulse, which should be sometimes in the waking state of man, one of certain
definite manifestations in the general presence of every normal man, is of all the seven
exclusively-proper-to-man impulses the most important, because its association with the
first two, namely, those which I have already said can be approximately expressed in
English by the words "can" and "wish," almost composes and represents the genuine I of a
man who has reached responsible age.

It is only in a man with such an I that these three impulses, two of which are approximately
defined in English by the words "I can" and "I wish," acquire in their turn that significance
which I presume; which significance, and the corresponding force of action from their
manifestation, is obtained only in a man who by his intentional efforts obtains the arising in
himself of data for engendering these impulses sacred for man.

Only such a man, when he consciously says "I am"--he really is; "I can"--he really can; "I
wish"--he really wishes.

When "I wish"--I feel with my whole being that I wish, and can wish. This does not mean that
I want, that I need, that I like or, lastly, that I desire. No. "I wish." I never like, never want, I
do not desire anything and I do not need anything--all this is slavery; if "I wish" something, I
must like it, even if I do not like it. I can wish to like it, because "I can."

I wish--I feel with my whole body that I wish.

I wish--because I can wish.

Opposite Attitudes
from Nicoll Commentaries , pp. 1263-4

On one occasion I asked Gurdjieff, through an interpreter, whether it was necessary for
everything to be overcome in oneself. He said: "No" and seemed then to speak in an indirect
way more of the necessity of creating new attitudes to things so that, so to speak, it was
comparable to crossing from one side to the other, as when crossing the road. I understood
him to mean that if we remain with our present attitudes we are on one side but if we
change attitudes we can go to the other side of ourselves. So I gathered that an attitude is
always one-sided. He indicated that this was only possible if you took photographs of
yourself. I head at different times later on that taking photographs of oneself was different
from merely observing oneself at any particular moment. If your quality of self-observation
is sincere and if it is not merely done out of a sense of being told to do it, these observations
become liked, collect together, and form gradually a photograph of yourself over a
considerable period of time. I think that Ouspensky called this a Time-Photograph or
possibly one photograph of your Time-Body. When you have a photograph of yourself in this
sense you see yourself as a certain kind of person over many years, perhaps back to
childhood, governed by certain attitudes. This increase of consciousness shews the
possibility of taking everything in another way, so it could be compared to crossing over to
the other side of yourself from that side that has hitherto governed you by means of typical
one-sided attitudes. Ouspensky once gave us an example of the following description. He
said: "Try to notice what you object to in people, in politics, and so on, and try deliberately
to think and talk from the opposite attitude." You must understand that if we have fixed,
acquired attitudes we will judge from those attitudes, in a mechanical, even automatic way,
everything that happens. One should be able to read the papers without constantly saying
"tut-tut" or feeling angry or depressed. Now, as mechanical people we study how to become
more conscious. Amongst other things we have to try to become more conscious of our
attitudes which have been laid down in us from early life from imitation of our elders or the
romances of the period. Now, the difference between mechanical man and conscious man is
that a mechanical man is in the prison of himself, and in this particular case he is
imprisoned y his acquired mechanical attitudes, so that he can only see everything from one
point of view, and a conscious man is one who is freed from these limiting one-sided
attitudes. We understand that a conscious man can see things from different angles and, in
fact, he can be conscious in the full swing of the opposites, so that neither one side nor the
other side of the opposites governs him exclusively. You all know what it means to meet a
man who has very strong and fixed attitudes, who rises to the top of life--that is, a man of
limited one-sided being. He is called a strong man. He will judge, he will condemn, he will
not forgive, a while side of life which a conscious man will never think of judging,
condemning, of so violently not forgiving. All this arises from a lack of consciousness of
oneself. One does not realize that one is much the same as the people one is condemning
and judging and not forgiving because one is not conscious that one does the same things
oneself. One has not observed it. So one can say such a man cannot cross the road and do
things from the other side.