I do not know myself

 The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff 

~Jeanne de Salzmann 

Who am I? I need to know. If I do not know, what meaning does my life have? And what in me responds to life? So, I must try to answer, to see who I am. First, my thought steps back and brings suggestions about myself: I am a man or woman who can do this, who has done that, who possesses this and that. 

My thinking volunteers possible answers from all that it knows. But it does not know what I am, does not really know me in this moment. Then I turn to my feeling. It is among the centers most capable o f knowing. Can it answer? My feeling is not free. It has to obey the "me” who wants to be the greatest, the most powerful and who suffers all the time from not being first. So, my feeling does not dare. It is afraid, or doubts. How can it know? Then, o f course, there is my body, the capacity to sense my body. But am I my body? 

The Life Force

 The Reality of Being / The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff 

~Jeanne de Salzmann 

We wish to live, to be in life. From the moment we are born, something in us seeks to affirm itself in the outside world. I want to be heard and seen, to devour the world. At the same time, I do not want to be devoured. I want to be first, always. But all too soon I encounter the resistance of the world, and the basic impulse of self-affirmation has to take others into account. 

My affirming often assumes curious, even though common, forms such as self-pity or a refusal to express oneself. I wish to live, I agree with life. I do everything to live, and this same force maintains the life of my body. I wish for something or to do something, and when the wish appears, this force is here. It impels me toward manifestation. Throughout my life, in everything I do, I seek to affirm this force. There is no act, however small, that is not an affirmation. 

Non-Identifying

 ~Maurice Nicoll

Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky

In reply to some questions asked on the last paper, you will remember that it was said that it was a very marvellous thing to experience a moment of not being identified. When you are in such a state you seem to live in a quiet central place in yourself although you are aware that on all sides things are trying to advance on you and seize hold of you. 

It is like a crowd being kept at bay by some invisible policemen. In such a state you can see what one of the main objects of self-observation is. It is to separate oneself from so much that is continually going on inside the heart and mind and laying hold of oneself continually and in fact often dragging oneself down. All this is, from another angle the "house in disorder" in us. Now we can establish in this house a certain amount of order. 

Self-Observation [2]

 ~Maurice Nicoll

Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky

The object of this Work is to make us conscious in ourselves and to ourselves, to what is going on in us, to the vast inner traffic of thoughts and feelings that lies within, in the psychic invisible realm as distinct from the vast outer physical world of things and people that the senses reveal to us. Here, in this inner world, and in what we select and reject in it, lies the key to the Work, and so to evolution. 

You all know how to reject and select things in the outer world. You discard useless things from your business and cling to useful things. It is the same idea. Suppose, by long observation, you notice that 'I's create moods, thoughts and feelings, that depress you, that eat you, that make you despondent, or negative, or suspicious, or evil-minded. Then what are you going to do? 

Self Observation [1]

Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky 

~Maurice Nicoll 

Let me ask you all this question: How do you touch life? Well, how do you? It is necessary to realize that each one of you touches life in your own way. 

Suppose that you have some old-fashioned attitude, then you touch this so-called modern life partly through it and therefore will judge it as if you knew better. But do you see yet that each one of you touches life according to implanted attitudes?

Recently someone asked me why he disliked a certain person. That I could not answer. How could I know why he disliked this person? Later on he said that he now liked the person. One of the most interesting things in self-observation is to begin to realize that you are always touching life in a certain ingrained way—through attitudes and buffers, etc. It is an extraordinary experience to become even a little freer from this acquired way of taking life and taking others: Everyone, tightly wrapped up in his or her acquired Personality, takes things just as he or she does every day. However, with insight into oneself it is possible to take things in a new way. 

Wartime Meeting Two and Three

~Gurdjieff

Questioner:

I am not able to stop associations while I work.

Gurdjieff:

It is necessary to prepare before the exercise of trying to see with three parts.

Questioner:

At the beginning when I was working, I felt in myself an emotion. Now I cannot find it any more. I have a constant sensation of dryness. Yesterday this warmer feeling came back, but much weaker.

Gurdjieff:

It is the sign of a crisis. It is because you have arrived at [the note] mi. You must pass this interval by yourself and find in yourself the necessary strength. Your head, which is as though separated from you, must help you.

First Questioner:

How?

Gurdjieff:

It must convince you. It must allow you to see yesterday and tomorrow.

Questioner:

But my head is weak.

Gurdjieff:

Yes, but without your head you also would be weak. It is necessary to use it in this way.

Questioner:

A little while ago I started to read again, but I find in myself that which has always prevented me from working, a sort of avidity which leaves me at the end of a short time tired and having retained nothing. My time has been wasted.

Gurdjieff:

It is because you only read with your head. Do an exercise. Read only a little—a page at a time. At first you must try to understand with your head, then to feel, then to experience. And then come back and think. Exercise yourself to read with your three centers. In each book there is material for enriching oneself. It doesn't matter what you read and it doesn't matter the quantity, but the quality of the way of reading.

Wartime Meeting One

~Gurdjieff

Questioner: Something intolerable happens in my work. In spite of my efforts I cannot remember myself; to get a better quality. It's useless to set myself hours of work by the clock. I get no result. Why?

Gurdjieff: That comes from your egoism. Particularly big egoism in which you have lived till now. You are enclosed in it; you must get out of it. To get out, you must learn to work. Not only for yourself alone, but for others. You began with work on your parents. You must change your task. Take a new one, the same one [but] with the neighbor, no matter who, all beings, or choose from the people amongst you. You must work for yourself through the aim of being able to help them. This alone will struggle against egoism. I see that you both have a very bad past, a particular egoism. All the old material comes to the fore. That is why you can do nothing. It is normal; according to order; according to law. Before attaining the aim, there are many ascents and descents. This should reassure you. I could reassure you completely, but you must work for yourself.

Questioner: To get out of this state of suffering, so vivid and so negative. (Two kinds of suffering, one objective, one subjective.) Can I make use of exterior means, take opium, for instance?

Gurdjieff: No, you must work on yourself. Destroy the egoism in which you have always lived. Try what I say. Change your task. It is necessary now to reach a new stage. Both of you are on the way to the Gare de Lyon, but you go by different routes, one by London and one by the Opera. You are both at about the same distance.

Questioner: I see my powerlessness and my cowardice. I can say nothing and do nothing for another. Because my head is not clear. I have a sensation of whether a thing is right or not, but I cannot explain why clearly.

Gurdjieff: You cannot say anything or do anything for another. You do not know what you need for yourself; you cannot know what he needs. Work with purpose for him. But play your role. Be apart internally: See. Externally speak as he does, so as not to hurt him. You must acquire the force to do this. Play a role. Become double. For the present you work as overseer. Do what I tell you, you cannot do more. Love of your neighbor; that is the Way. Bring to everyone that which you felt for your parents.