There are many things that can be said about self-observation and what it is and what it is not. The whole of the Work starts from a man beginning to observe himself. Self-observation is a means of self-change. Serious and continuous self-observation, if done aright, leads to definite inner changes in a man.
Let us, first of all, consider self-observation in connection with a mistake often made about it. The mistake is the confusing of self-observation with
knowing.
To know and to observe are not the same thing. Speaking superficially, you may
know you are sitting in a chair in your room, but can you say that you are actually
observing it? Speaking more deeply, you may
know you are in a negative state, but that does not mean that you are
observing it.
A person in the Work said to me that he disliked somebody intensely. I said: "Try to observe it." He replied: "Why should I observe it? I don't need to. I
know it already." In such a case, the person is confusing
knowing with
observing; that is, he does not understand what self-observation is. Moreover he has not grasped that
self-observation, which is active, is a means of self-change, whereas merely knowing, which is passive, is not. Knowing is not an act of attention. Self-observation is an act of attention directed inwards - to what is going on in you. The attention must be active; that is, directed. In the case of a person you dislike, you notice what thoughts crowd into your mind, the chorus of voices speaking in you, what they are saying, what unpleasant emotions surge up, and so on. You notice also that you are treating the person you dislike very badly inside. Nothing is too bad to think of him or feel about him.
But to see all this requires directed attention, not passive attention. The attention comes from the observing side, whereas the thoughts and emotions belong to the observed side in your-self. This is dividing yourself into two. There is a saying: "A man is first one, then two, and the one." The observing side, or Observing "I", stands interior to, or above, the observed side, but its power of independent consciousness varies, because it may be submerged at any moment. Then you are completely identified with the negative state.
You do not observe the state but you are the state. You can then say that you know you are negative, but that is not to observe it. If the Observing "I" is supported by other 'I's which value the Work and recall it and wish to become more conscious, then it is not so easily submerged by the flood of negative things. It is then helped by - and is a part of - Deputy Steward. All this is quite different from merely
knowing one is negative.
Passive knowing can be said to be mechanical in contrast to self-observation which is a conscious act and cannot become mechanical. Mechanical self-observation has nothing to do with Work self-observation.
People not only confused knowing with the continuous act of self-observation but they mistake
thinking for observing. To think is quite different from observing oneself.
A man may think about himself all day and never observe himself once. The observation of one's thoughts is not the same as thinking. It should be clear now that
knowing and
thinking are not the same as observation.
The question is often asked: "What must I observe?" First, the Work explains carefully what you must begin to observe. But later a man must attain to fuller observation of himself - for a whole day, or a week - and see himself as an outside person. He must think what he would think if he met himself. He would, of course, cordially dislike this man who is himself. A man must observe
everything in himself and always as if it were not him-self but IT. This means that he must say: "What is IT doing?" not "What am I doing?" He then sees now these thoughts going on in him, now these emotions, now these private plays and inventions, and so on, passing through him; one after the other. Next moment, of course, he goes to sleep again and takes part in them all. That is, he acts in the play he has composed and thinks it is real. He thinks he is the part he invented.
Let us consider this viewpoint further. A man must be able to say: "This is not me" to all his set pieces and his songs, to all the performances going on in him, to all the voices that he takes as his own. You know how sometimes just before going to sleep at night, you hear loud voices in your head. These are 'I's speaking. During the day, they are speaking all the time, only you take them as 'I', as yourself. But just before sleep, a separation takes place naturally, for connections are being broken between centres and between 'I's in order that sleep may be possible. Two or more 'I's can keep you from sleeping. So you hear them, as it were, as voices talking, just for a moment, because they are being separated by natural processes from you.
Inner separation means the power of not merely saying: "This is not I", but ultimately of actually perceiving it for oneself - perceiving that it is true, that "this is not I", not merely thinking it is so or trying to persuade oneself it is, or saying this is what the Work says.
When you are in an unpleasant state, if you observe yourself over some considerable time, you will notice that all sorts of different groups of unpleasant 'I's try to deal with it in succession and make something out of it. This is because negative 'I's live by being negative. Their life consists in negative thinking or negative feeling - that is, in providing you with unpleasant thoughts and feelings. It is their delight to do so for it is their life. In the Work, the enjoyment of negative states must be observed sincerely, especially the secret enjoyment of them. The reason is that if a man enjoys being negative, in whatever forms, and they are legion - he can never separate from them. You cannot separate yourself from what you have a secret affection for. The case actually is that you identify with negative 'I's through secret affection and so
feel their enjoyment, for whatever you identify with you become. A man in himself is constantly transforming himself into different 'I's. He has nothing permanent, but by separation he can make something permanent. The line of separation is between what likes and what hates the Work.
Now we speak once more of observing
talking. All rules are about talking, practically speaking, and how to deal with wrong talking.
It is necessary to observe inner talking and from where it is coming. Wrong inner talking is the breeding-ground not only of many future unpleasant states but also of wrong outer talking. You know that there is in the Work what is called the practise of inner silence. The practise and meaning of inner silence is like this: first, it must be about something quite distinct and definite; and second, it is like not touching it. That is, you cannot practise
inner silence in any vague general way, save perhaps as an experiment for a time. But you can practise it rigidly in regard to some distinct and definite thing, something you know and see quite clearly. Someone once asked: "Is practising inner silence the same as not letting something come into your mind?" The answer is no. It is not the same. What you are practising inner silence about is already in the mind and you must be aware of it, but you must not touch it with your inner speech, your inner tongue.
Your outer literal tongue likes to touch sore places, as when a tooth hurts. So does your inner tongue. But if it does, the sore thing in your mind flows into your inner speech and unwraps itself as inner talking in every direction. You have noticed of course that inner talking always goes on in negative states and that it coins many unpleasant phrases, which suddenly find expression in outer talking, perhaps long after. In the Work we are told that it is necessary to be careful about wrong outer talking at first, and, later on, about wrong inner talking. Actually, wrong outer talking is mostly due to wrong inner talking. Wrong inner talking, particularly venomous and evil inner talking, and so on, makes a mess within, like excrement.
They are all different forms of lying and this is why they have such strength and persistence. Lies are always more powerful than truth because they can hurt. If you observe wrong inner talking you will notice it is only half-truths, or truths connected in the wrong order, or with something added or left out. In other words, it is simply lying to oneself. If you say: "Is this quite true?" it may stop it, but it will find another set of lies. Eventually you must dislike it. If you enjoy it, you will never lessen its power. It is not enough to dislike liking it: you must dislike
it.
All this belongs to the purification of the emotional life. Mechanically we only like ourselves, and so we dislike or hate those who do not like us. A development of being is not possible, and quite obviously so, unless the emotions cease to have only this basis of self-liking. External considering, in the Work, is putting oneself in the position of others. This is referred to in the Gospels:
This is one of the definite formulations in the Gospels of what in the Work is called External Considering. But a man must think very deeply what it says and perceive internally what it means, because it has an outer and inner meaning. If you say: "I always think of others," then observe it. It is probably a buffer. You do not notice perhaps that you say things, or you write things, which, if you received, you would not tolerate for a moment. This is one very interesting form of self-observation and it includes observing "inner talking".
In yourself everyone else is helpless. You can, as it were, drag a person into the cave of yourself and do what you like with her or him. You may be polite naturally, but in the Work, which is all about purifying or organising the inner life, it is not enough. It is how you behave internally and invisibly to one another that really counts. This is very difficult to understand. You may think you know this already. But to understand - even to
understand it - takes many years of work. When the inner corresponds with the outer and when the outer obeys the inner, then a man possesses a "second body". As we are, our outer life does not correspond with our inner life, and our outer life controls our inner. The inner grows by seeing the good of something. Recently here we were talking of what the saint, Cassian, says about a man being able to do the same thing for different reasons. A man may act from fear - fear of law, fear of reputation, fear of opinion. Then he acts from outside. Or he may act from ambition - and many other similar forms of self-interest. Or he may act from good - from seeing the good of acting so. This develops the internal man. Now all this can be a subject of self-observation. But even the first stages of self-observation have a certain effect. They let in rays of light into the darkness of our psychic life. It is the psychic life we have to think of in the Work. All the instructions of the Work are about one's psychic life, which is in chaos. In this way, self-observation becomes deeper, and the valuation of the Work becomes more and more internal. So the Work begins to act on Essence - on what is the real part of man.
Work on oneself is always the same.
It does not matter where you are. You are always in contact with the Work if your inner attitude to it is right. If your inner attitude is right, the Work will teach you about what work on yourself means. If your inner attitude is wrong, it cannot, because you block the way. In all self-observation, if it is to become
full self-observation, you must observe IT. That is, you must see all your reactions to life and circumstances as IT in you and not as 'I'. If you say 'I', then nothing can happen. The saying of 'I', the feeling of 'I', makes it impossible to change. If to every negative state you say 'I', then you cannot escape it. At first a man takes himself as one and says 'I' to all that happens in his psychic life. But in order to change he must become two. Then, later on, he may become one - a unity. The instrument of self-observation is like a knife that cuts us away from what is not us. If you begin to see what it means to say: "This is not 'I'", then you begin to use this instrument.
When you can really say: "What is IT doing?" instead of "What am I doing?" you begin to understand the Work. The Work is to make a new set of reactions or rather new ways of taking things. As long as you take ordinary things in a new way you begin to change. You cannot remain the same - and change. If you are always the same it means that you always react to life in the same way. You insist on your pound of flesh. The idea of
change is not to be the same. The idea of the Work is to change oneself. The idea of self-observation is to separate from
what one was by not going with what one observes. In this way self-observation is a means of self-change.
* * *
When you have begun to form in yourself the powerful mental instrument of this Work, you will find that wherever you turn it, you will catch new meanings. The Work forms in us a new instrument of reception, a new apparatus for receiving impressions, both from outside and from inside. The Work lies in parts that have to be joined together by means of
understanding. Each part of the Work, each separate idea, each bit of the teaching, is exactly like the parts of, say, a radio-machine. The parts of a radio are, let us say, lying on a table and you can see them.
If you know enough, if you understand what they are, you can put them together and then the instrument begins to work and you hear all sorts of invisible things that otherwise you could not hear. In the case of the Work, each part is not something physical, an outer object lying on a table, but is psychical - an idea, a thought, a direction, a formulation, a diagram, and so on.
If all these parts fitted together by understanding, and valuation, the Work forms a new and organised apparatus in you. That is, you are newly organised. You have a new psychic organism in you. The Work is actually a whole and complete
organism which is given little by little, part by part, but all these parts are parts of a true whole. If the Work is thus formed in you, you have a new thing, a new organised instrument in you. Even a single part of the Work, if taken in with valuation and understanding, will begin to work a change in you because it will transmit new influences. But the whole of the Work must be formed in a man. This can be thought of as another body - another organised thing in man - if the man lives the Work. Then it will control the man
he was.
[Maurice Nicoll,
Commentaries, pp. 213-217, Vol. 1]
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