Self Remembering

[Nević Nenad]

I think that Bud is in the process of explaining that to himself, and it is easier to do it when write it. Bud, maybe it would be easier if you can write simpler? I mean "cognitive framework" is not so easy to understand :)

It's just the deductive, explaining part I have problems with.

Even if you didn’t have problems with the explaining part, it is very difficult, or even impossible, to explain it to someone else. I think that the only way is that everyone must comprehend it for him/her self. Someone else’s writing and experiences can help, but cant "do the job".

or so I think

 

[Courageous Inmate Sort]

Getting back to self-remembering: that is more like a sort of "divided" consciousness where the "watcher within" is fully alert and "on" and the personality is functioning also, under observation by the "watcher."

After much much effort of trying to divide attention between the "watcher within" (I used to call it the Watchtower) and the "personality organism" (I used to call it EVA, from Evangelion - fans of Japanese anime might recognize the reference), I had the experience described in the quote above a few times in the course of a few months. I tried hard to pinpoint what exactly was needed to recreate the experience but unfortunately I "lost it" and I've been unable to recreate the experience since.

This seeing of the personality organism was my marker for being awake. That is, I would consider myself truly awake only in those moments as it gave me a clarity of thought regarding the objective reality of the moment that I had never experienced before.

However, as time went by and I could not see it again, I started to think (or should I say rationalize?) that maybe this was a part of the journey that I should not get too attached to and move on.

Perhaps I was mistaken in this latter assumption and should recommence the exercises of dividing attention under the Doctrine of the Present.



By the way, I can relate to the "walking on air" x heaviness feeling. Those rare and brief moments of clarity were accompanied by a certain "featherweight" feeling.

 

[Buddy]

I think I've got it! Deep down inside somewhere, there is a sense of urgency to "tell this stuff" or to "get it out" while there is still time, or space in this cycle: re: earth changes, cometary comings, the wave, etc., so that people have the option to analyze, criticize, dismiss or whatever, what I'm saying. I don't know if you'd call it a soul quest, passion, obsession, or what. Maybe just total STS b.s. If this is the case, then I probably owe monstrous-sized apologies.

 

[StrangeCaptain]

I think I've got it! Deep down inside somewhere, there is a sense of urgency to "tell this stuff" or to "get it out" while there is still time, or space in this cycle: re: earth changes, cometary comings, the wave, etc., so that people have the option to analyze, criticize, dismiss or whatever, what I'm saying. I don't know if you'd call it a soul quest, passion, obsession, or what. Maybe just total STS b.s. If this is the case, then I probably owe monstrous-sized apologies.

That may be true, but I think the point of some of the posters is that there is a difference at the moment of communication with others between "needing to express yourself" and "expressing yourself in a way your audience can understand." Trying to speak clearly and concisely to your audience might in and of itself be an exercise of self-remembering for you.

 

[Harold]

I would like to describe what I have learned from this thread in my own words, I guess to show that all of you have helped me to think... so here it goes. That is assuming what I'm about to write is accurate at all. Then I guess I have to look at my thinking and the material again with that knowledge.

Look at the whole scene I am in, including myself as one of the characters. Look at it wholly as one. My character is just apart of it. Then too, divide my attention to my character and the roll of it. Thus the indifference. Don`t (when I am awake or aware) look at it from my character`s eye`s first but from watching the whole scene, so to speak. Maybe there is allot more I don`t get but is this what might be called your basic cognitive framework?

I still find it difficult to do this at all time. I do think I try to get into this approach as much as possible, some days are much better than others. I realize there are further steps of really observing the scene and what center`s my character is using or is that no longer my character? This where I get confused. It does not seem to be my character but a more conscious or my conscience maybe? Or this is the Watcher or the Master of the Carriage? Those would be the higher center`s. Ok , but there is 3 lower and 3 higher. So the machine/my physical body has possible control over all center's. Which will have the wrong centers doing the wrong work.

I`ll stop there as I`m not even in that part of the work. I am watching at time's. I would like to identify which center`s are working but I have not even really been able to get the whole framework of that yet, ie. which are emotional, which are mental etc. Still observing...I think I am.... I could be wrong.

Thanx.... I find that I have been making greater efforts to be the Watcher since I have followed this thread. It reminds me of when I was intensely reading ISOTM and the encouragement to remember I got from it.

 

[anart]

If any of this could be the case, we could probably expect the unexpected from somewhere if there is someone or some people who'd rather not see this discussion in a public forum. Who knows?

This 'discussion' takes place in many public places - it is the basis of the Work. You did finally read ISOTM, correct? This isn't really groundbreaking material, for those engaged in the Work, it is the very first steps.

I think I've got it! Deep down inside somewhere, there is a sense of urgency to "tell this stuff" or to "get it out" while there is still time, or space in this cycle: re: earth changes, cometary comings, the wave, etc., so that people have the option to analyze, criticize, dismiss or whatever, what I'm saying. I don't know if you'd call it a soul quest, passion, obsession, or what. Maybe just total STS b.s. If this is the case, then I probably owe monstrous-sized apologies.

Try re-reading that and see if you can find any place within it where others come into play - where what is best for others is the driving force. If you can't (and I cannot), then it is STS. That's not unusual, we're all STS - but taking it as some higher impulse is a lie to the self.

There is nothing wrong with a need to 'get things out', as long as it is recognized for what it is. It's not necessary for one to be in a positive state all the time, as long as one knows what state they are in. What is concerning is that time and again, threads are taken off their natural course due to your usually tangential input and it takes group effort to put these threads back on track again. This alone is also not that unusual, though after so many posts and so many years, one would think that the frequency of the occurrence would diminish. Perhaps if you began to recognize this 'need' of yours when it first arises and then carefully - very carefully - examine what you want to contribute to see if it is actually along the same line of force of the thread or not, then you might begin to decrease the frequency of this tendency of yours? Or, perhaps, just ask if it is along the same line of force before writing paragraphs stating that it is? For an example, in this thread, you introduced the idea (very strongly and certainly on your part, as is usual in your writing) that being 'in the flow' is 'self-remembering', when it's not. This took the thread out into left field for a while and it has taken effort to bring it back - can you see how that works?

It will be a great self-observation and internal control exercise for you if you wish to take it on.

 

[Possibility of Being]

Look at the whole scene I am in, including myself as one of the characters. Look at it wholly as one. My character is just apart of it. Then too, divide my attention to my character and the roll of it. Thus the indifference. Don`t (when I am awake or aware) look at it from my character`s eye`s first but from watching the whole scene, so to speak. Maybe there is allot more I don`t get but is this what might be called your basic cognitive framework?

I still find it difficult to do this at all time. I do think I try to get into this approach as much as possible, some days are much better than others. I realize there are further steps of really observing the scene and what center`s my character is using or is that no longer my character? This where I get confused. It does not seem to be my character but a more conscious or my conscience maybe? Or this is the Watcher or the Master of the Carriage? Those would be the higher center`s. Ok , but there is 3 lower and 3 higher. So the machine/my physical body has possible control over all center's. Which will have the wrong centers doing the wrong work.

FWIW, what you have described is pretty close to what I remember from Maurice Nicoll's book "Psychological Commentaries On The Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky." And Nicoll is really good in explaining ideas of the Work in as plain and simple way as possible so let's see what he has to say on this matter.

First, he explains a difference between mechanical and real self-remembering, the first one is being done by any of our many I's, especially a negative one. There is no use of this kind of self-remembering in terms of the Work since what we are actually remembering then is our lower or negative 'I's. It leads nowhere. The 'I' designated for real self-remembering is Real Self /I. The problem is, we have no contact with our Real Self or have it only occasionally; it is there but we can't access it until enough of the Work has been done. However, we can choose the best 'I' of our (False) Personality for the task, the one which remembers our aim, the one which wants to do the Work. It's called Deputy Watcher/Steward.

Here is a relevant quote:

For example, it is said that when you remember yourself, you must try to remember your aim. Your aim must always be connected with something that concerns the ideas of this Work and to form such an aim you must already have had some considerable experience of self-observation from different angles of the Work.

When you make an aim which is the definite result of self-observation, say, that you are always negative in connection with something or other in the past or in the present or both, then you can make a real Work-aim not to express this negative emotion outwardly and eventually not to identify with it internally in your Intellectual and Emotional Centres. This begins to form what is called Deputy-Steward in yourself—i.e. you put some 'I's that begin to understand what this Work is about in charge of you so that although you may constantly forget yourself—fall asleep—you are reminded that something is wrong in regard to your inner state.

Eventually Steward will begin to appear. Steward is a much higher level than Deputy-Steward and comes down from above as help for you. Above Steward lies Real I.

If we could get in touch with Real I directly without having to pay all that is necessary for this inner development, then we should be able to remember ourselves in the Work-sense of that term. But we have to start from where we are and gradually by a process of inner separation and selection learn not to go with certain 'I's and give the preference to other different 'I's which stand on a slightly higher level of our average being. ...

If you really come to think about the whole question, you will see that all real Self-Remembering is simply forgetting yourself, your ordinary self, your ordinary negative 'I's, your ordinary forms of internal considering, and all the rest of it and feeling certain that some further state of yourself exists above all this personal uproar that takes place all day long in each one of you, with which you keep on identifying, and when the Work says that we have Real I above us you must understand that this act, so to speak, of separating from False Personality, deliberately at some moment every day, is designed to make it possible for us to come in contact with the first traces of Real I which is already there and which is our real goal.

That's elementary school, of course, but it cannot be skipped. Over time and with practice, first Steward and later on Real Self can be in charge more and more often. Then, self-remembering means that our Real Self leads Personality in its role it has to play in this (ordinary) life while we are constantly aware that our real role is to be conductors for higher energies and all that.

Does this help a little bit?

 

[Buddy]

Thank you, anart. I understand you perfectly now for some reason. In fact, today the posts in this thread seem so much clearer for some reason. I do see where others come in and I appreciate your patience with me. I'm going to take on that exercise you mentioned. You're most awesome, BTW. :)

I woke up this morning feeling clear as a bell and no longer feel any impulse or need to say anything to anybody, except to thank everyone for providing the only place in the world where people are truly supported.

I think that obsessive need to get something across to somebody is related to childhood trauma. All I recognized was the pattern of a desperate, survival-related attempt to get somebody to realize how I see something (because I wasn't 'getting it' perhaps). In that situation I simply wasn't understanding and needed to know why they wouldn't explain it to me so that I could understand, but they never did.

At that age, I could only conclude that I was hated. It must have been a pretty serious incident, but it feels like it has somehow resolved itself or somehow played out.


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Edit: addition to a sentence for a bit more clarity.

 

[cubbex]

Does this help a little bit?

It helped a lot thanks . Now I know what this means, and how I was doing it not so long from today. I knew I was doing something different, yeah, its like forgetting, you forget what shaped yourself, so you remember your self, your essence, and discern between " the real you" and the "you made by the context". HEhehe and then you began to change, to know what is wrong and what is right, dependently on the pole you want to fallow STO or STS, and the nature of yourself, what are you serving.

Thanks too, to the mod that wrote the post about conscience.

Edit:redaction

 

[Buddy]

Oh. Self-Remembering. The 'Self' doing the remembering. The Self 'is doing' the remembering. The Self doing 'the remembering'. How could I have been so dumb?

I see now that of course it would require Will and control of attention or the Self doesn't have the tools for the job (thanks Ana!)

So, you can have a "Watcher" that can see things others don't and the person with his "Watcher" can even have a sense of 'elite-ism'. Heck, this "Watcher" with its personality and sense of elite-ism can even be unbeatable in a logical argument, giving the impression that his state is the end-all and be-all goal to achieve (I know people like this :)), when actually all of that means zilch (or is a stop along the way) in terms of having a unified personality Self that is stable and can exist on its own because Self owns the tools needed to do so.

If this is so, then I see that I had stopped questioning the understanding I previously had and stopped learning as a consequence. Am I now seeing this right?


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Edit: sentence restructure for clarity of meaning

 

[Nević Nenad]

Oh. Self-Remembering. The 'Self' doing the remembering. The Self 'is doing' the remembering. The Self doing 'the remembering'. How could I have been so dumb?

I see now that of course it would require Will and control of attention or the Self doesn't have the tools for the job (thanks Ana!)

So, you can have a "Watcher" that can see things others don't and the person with his "Watcher" can even have a sense of 'elite-ism'. Heck, this "Watcher" with its personality and sense of elite-ism can even be unbeatable in a logical argument, giving the impression that his state is the end-all and be-all goal to achieve (I know people like this :)), when actually all of that means zilch (or is a stop along the way) in terms of having a unified personality Self that is stable and can exist on its own because Self owns the tools needed to do so.

If this is so, then I see that I had stopped questioning the understanding I previously had and stopped learning as a consequence. Am I now seeing this right?


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Edit: sentence restructure for clarity of meaning

I think that that could be false personality which imagines for himself that it is "inner watcher". Inner watcher can’t have sense of elitism because it sees it's own personalities and other people's personalities, and sees them as tools for functioning in this world. Inner watcher don’t have identification with any of it's personalities (you can’t identify with the hammer or screwdriver), so no reason for elitism. But “inner watcher” can recognize when someone else’s horses are not under control basing that on previous watching of it's own horses.



It is there for observing, and if need be correcting it's personalities and/or "emotional states", and in that way learning by drawing conclusions from this world by observing it's "front facade", which are personalities and their various states. That’s why it is "inner" because it is behind, observing world and him (or her) at the same time. Of course the point is to eliminate various false personalities as much as possible and manifest the “inner watcher” itself in the world as much as possible. This sounds little bit schizophrenic, but “watcher” don’t sees “personalities” as a true “different persons”, more like "at the moment" manifestations of it's own whole complex (complicated to say what I want)


And I'm puting "it" when talking of "watcher" and him/her when talking about personalities.


At least that’s how I see it :) :P

edit: change one "his" into "it's".

 

[thevenusian]

Oh. Self-Remembering. The 'Self' doing the remembering. The Self 'is doing' the remembering. The Self doing 'the remembering'. How could I have been so dumb?

My impression is more that it is training the parts of the personality to remember that there is a Self. The Self doesn't need to remember anything.

[quote author=Bud]
I see now that of course it would require Will and control of attention or the Self doesn't have the tools for the job (thanks Ana!)
[/quote]

I hope I am corrected if I'm off here, but I think development of will and the ability to direct attention are also in the domain of the personality, and that developing them is necessary if the aim is to become more conscious of Self.

[quote author=Bud]
So, you can have a "Watcher" that can see things others don't and the person with his "Watcher" can even have a sense of 'elite-ism'. Heck, this "Watcher" with its personality and sense of elite-ism can even be unbeatable in a logical argument, giving the impression that his state is the end-all and be-all goal to achieve (I know people like this :)), when actually all of that means zilch (or is a stop along the way) in terms of having a unified personality Self that is stable and can exist on its own because Self owns the tools needed to do so.
[/quote]

I really don't understand what you are saying. I think the idea of the 'watcher' is that it is a construct for putting attention on part of us that is not of the personality. We have to 'grow' our awareness of it with constant practice and eventually that can lead to an ability to 'grow' awareness of the Self.

 

[Buddy]

I thought I'd somehow lost the picture I had before, because something got mixed up somewhere.

I think that that could be false personality which imagines for himself that it is "inner watcher". Inner watcher can’t have sense of elitism because it sees it's own personalities and other people's personalities, and sees them as tools for functioning in this world. Inner watcher don’t have identification with any of it's personalities (you can’t identify with the hammer or screwdriver), so no reason for elitism. But “inner watcher” can recognize when someone else’s horses are not under control basing that on previous watching of it's own horses.



It is there for observing, and if need be correcting it's personalities and/or "emotional states", and in that way learning by drawing conclusions from this world by observing it's "front facade", which are personalities and their various states. That’s why it is "inner" because it is behind, observing world and him (or her) at the same time. Of course the point is to eliminate various false personalities as much as possible and manifest the “inner watcher” itself in the world as much as possible. This sounds little bit schizophrenic, but “watcher” don’t sees “personalities” as a true “different persons”, more like "at the moment" manifestations of it's own whole complex (complicated to say what I want)


And I'm puting "it" when talking of "watcher" and him/her when talking about personalities.


At least that’s how I see it :) :P

edit: change one "his" into "it's".

Thanks :). That's along the lines of what I was expressing (or trying to express) a bit earlier in the thread as my understanding.

[quote author=Bud]
So, you can have a "Watcher" that can see things others don't and the person with his "Watcher" can even have a sense of 'elite-ism'. Heck, this "Watcher" with its personality and sense of elite-ism can even be unbeatable in a logical argument, giving the impression that his state is the end-all and be-all goal to achieve (I know people like this :)), when actually all of that means zilch (or is a stop along the way) in terms of having a unified personality Self that is stable and can exist on its own because Self owns the tools needed to do so.

I really don't understand what you are saying.[/quote]

Me either. For some reason I wanted to start blurring definitions like: the definition of Self as a unified I and the Watcher, or blurring the definition of Self and Watcher, or something else. I think I've got it straight now. What I was talking about above are other people who have a self-monitor (or seem to) like we are describing. Some of which can be very narcissistic and downright nasty, but very good at keeping themselves out of trouble at work (previous job).

 

[StrangeCaptain]

There is nothing wrong with a need to 'get things out', as long as it is recognized for what it is. It's not necessary for one to be in a positive state all the time, as long as one knows what state they are in.

Needleman said in "Lost Christianity" that perhaps the ONLY thing a human can know is which state he or she is in. I am looking for the exact quote, but it could take a while because I don't remember exactly where I found it.

 

[Keit]

There is nothing wrong with a need to 'get things out', as long as it is recognized for what it is. It's not necessary for one to be in a positive state all the time, as long as one knows what state they are in.

Needleman said in "Lost Christianity" that perhaps the ONLY thing a human can know is which state he or she is in. I am looking for the exact quote, but it could take a while because I don't remember exactly where I found it.

Don't have the book on me at the moment, but don't remember him mentioning that it was the only thing a human can know. Just remember him noting that although we are not required to be in a "higher state" at all times, it is necessary to know what state we are in at any given time. But maybe remember incorrectly.