Positive Attitude (“Faith in Verification versus Doubt”)

There is a paradox in this work. When I am in a higher state of consciousness, I know exactly what I must
do in order to “Be”, but I don’t need that knowledge because I already “Am”.

When I am in a lower state of consciousness, I forget what I must do in order to “Be”, precisely when that
knowledge would be most beneficial to me.

In this tutorial, we will explore the role of attitudes in bridging

between these two extremes, a way of retaining some of
the traces of my higher understandings even when my
consciousness has declined.

We will draw from the Biblical story of Moses descending

from Mount Sinai with tablets, as an allegory of retaining
something with us when we descend from a higher state.

And we will set an aim to apply these methods throughout the week, pulling against the wrong attitudes
of negative emotions by applying positive attitudes.

“And yet a person accustomed to self-observation knows for certain that at

different periods of his life, he has understood one and the same idea, one and
the same thought, in totally different ways.
It often seems strange to him that he could have understood so wrongly that
which, in his opinion, he now understands rightly.” – George Gurdjieff

To be conscious – to “Be” – is what this work is all about. If I could be conscious by will then a system, as
structure, a pyramid, wouldn’t be necessary. But because my consciousness fluctuates – now it is present,
then it is absent, and now it returns again – I need a system to remind me of my aims and help me climb
back to where I want to be.

One problem I am up against is that my understanding fluctuates with my consciousness. I may

understand something very clearly right now, but lose that understanding later on, at a moment where it
would particularly be useful to me.

This means that, if I want to become more consistent in this work, I must find ways to leave traces of my
higher understandings, like Hansel and Gretel leaving breadcrumbs to help them find their way back
home. These “breadcrumbs” are our attitudes.

“We do not realize what enormous power lies in thinking. I do not mean that as
a philosophical explanation of power. The power lies in the fact that, if we always
think rightly about certain things, we can make it permanent – it grows into a
permanent attitude.” – Piotr Ouspensky

In last week’s tutorial, we saw that negative emotions were based on wrong attitudes. We focused on
one of these attitudes, namely, “expectation”. We counterbalanced “expectation” with a new attitude
of accepting the present on its own terms, sacrificing inflexibility, becoming hospitable to the unexpected
surprises of the moment.

Now that we know of this new attitude, and have somewhat experimented with it, the challenge still
remains to remember it at the critical moment and to reach out to it especially during a state of negativity,
when my consciousness is low.

This is the big enigma of the work, remembering what we’ve already understood. This “reaching up” from
a lower state to the understandings of a higher state is portrayed in the story of Moses ascending and
descending Mount Sinai.

“And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount … And
Moses went into the midst of the cloud.” – Exodus 24:15-18

Moses ascending Mount Sinai to meet God is an allegorical expression of us ascending the “Be” Pyramid
from a lower to a higher state of consciousness.

In a painting of this scene by Lucas Cranach, Moses is shown

atop the mountain receiving the tablets of the law from
God, who is hidden within a cloud.

The fact that Moses walks into the cloud means he cannot
see where he is going, he is walking into the unknown, which
is exactly our situation.

When we are at the bottom of the pyramid, at a lower state of consciousness, we forget what it is like to
be at the top, at a higher state of consciousness. To ascend the pyramid, we, too, will have to climb into
the unknown.

“Darkness means an absence of knowing, in the sense that everything you do

not know, or have forgotten, is dark to you, because you cannot see it with your
mind’s eye.
And for this reason it is called a cloud of unknowing that is between you and
your God” – From The Cloud of Unknowing

But what is of particular interest to us in this tutorial is what Moses brings down the mountain with him, the
tablets of stone.

These tablets will remain accessible even after he has descended from Mount Sinai, meaning, when
consciousness is no longer there.

They symbolize our memories of higher states of consciousness, documentation that I have been up there
and remember what it was like.

Now that we have these attitudes, we will not be reaching to consciousness out of blind trust. We will be
working out of past verification, working in the dark because we remember the light.
 A Russian icon portrays this “reaching up” to the invisible.
God the Father is shown in the faintest outlines, invisible to
man below, hidden by a “Cloud of Unknowing”.
But his image, God the Son, is visible in physical form.

Although consciousness might not be accessible to us in a

state of negativity, the attitudes we have formed around
negativity remain with us.

These are the “tablets of stone” that are there with us at the
bottom of Mount Sinai. The more we use them, the more
permanent they become, independent of the fluctuations
of our consciousness.

This is why, each week, I encourage you to focus on the success in each exercise, and disregard the
failures. You only need one success, each exercise, to progress in this work.

If you succeeded only once in resisting the expression of negativity last week, you’ve already started
carving your tablets. These “tablets” will increase the likelihood that you will succeed again next time
around.

“If you do even one-tenth of what is suggested, very soon you will have facts,
and then you must base your attitude on these facts, not on theories.
Faith is a passive thing. We have to verify everything, accept nothing on faith” –
Piotr Ouspensky

As we saw in the tutorial on “Knowledge and Being”, the results in this work are proportionate to our
understanding and verification.

We began working with negativity two weeks ago. But since then, our understandings and verifications
have increased. Therefore, our efforts should now be more effective.

Which brings us to this week’s exercise: we will continue working on negative emotions, now that we have
the initial hints of our “tablets” or “attitudes”. When we catch ourselves negative, at the bottom of the
pyramid, so to speak, let us bear in mind this image of reaching up into the unknown, of remembering our
past verifications, of resisting the expression of negativity by using positive attitudes.

“Moses entered the darkness of unknowing, darkness in which all knowledge is

shut up; and, having neither feeling nor thought of any existing thing, nor yet of
himself, he was made to experience in every way the presence of him who is
above all things.” – From The Mystical Theology of Saint Denis