The method of the Work is to withdraw the feeling of I from the 'I' which for the moment is using your telephone and shouting irritably at the whole world. Let us suppose you have just returned from lunch at the delightful house of Mrs X. Before you were there you were having a domestic row and your telephone was uttering the most appalling statements. Having arrived you got into your social 'I's. You were exceedingly entertaining. You then returned home and you continued to have your row. If you are going to tell me that this is one and the same 'I' at work in you, I cannot believe you.
As you know, through the action of buffers in us, the 'I's are shut off from each other so that we do not see the inner contradictions going on. Somebody who knows Mrs X. comes in and you begin to speak about Mrs X. 'I's that love scandal have got much to say here; so then you are in different 'I's. Now all this takes place quite smoothly and you see no contradictions, and yet quite different 'I's have used your telephone—that is, your mouthpiece. Just seeing these contradictions begins to weaken buffers. Some people have such strong contradictions in them, which they are unaware of, that they can never hope to get near any unity of Being, and, not observing these contradictions, they remain without any power of Self-Observation. That is to say, they cannot alter themselves because they take everything as I.
They do not draw the feeling of I little by little out of these things that the Work urgently stresses they should do, as, for example, from negative emotions. They ignore far too much what the Work teaches them to observe, and are afraid to look into themselves, possibly through early religious fears which hold their understanding captive and thus impede their development. They know nothing of inner separation.
In full Self-Remembering the feeling of I is taken out of the machinery of 'I's. When you are in that state you can see the working of the machinery of 'I's going on like printing presses beneath you. You wonder how you ever took it for yourself. Then you identify— and become it all again.
The final thing that I will briefly remind you of is that if your name is John Smith you have got to observe John Smith and be less and less John Smith. At present John Smith is your greatest enemy even though he is covered with medals and surrounded by the applause of the world.
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The external side of a man—turned towards life—the outer man composed of little 'I's, teeming and talking, in the small parts of centres—cannot possibly draw force from both ends of the pendulum swing. These 'I's swing with it. They have no anchor that holds. It is only Observing I that does not swing with the pendulum; and that has to be strengthened. I explained elsewhere that this means that one's relationship to the Observing I must be strengthened for it is not anchored to the waves.
In short, one must practise, and daily at least, the exercise of observing oneself impartially without the soapy foam of self-justifying. As we are talking of the emotional pendulum, and taking it as one pendulum for the sake of simplification, it must now be pointed out that the observation of one's emotional state must not be limited to the emotional state of the moment.
[...]
...in self-study by means of self-observation we find it very difficult to observe that any particular emotional state is connected with its opposite, or what its opposite is.
A particular emotional state appears to be a thing in itself that has nothing to do with any other state.
Now the inability to realize that it has, is one factor in rendering us so peculiarly helpless in face of our emotional life and so much under its sway. We are unconscious just where the pendulum, in its return journey, gains momentum, and, passing the mid-point, swings into the sphere of influence of the opposite emotional state—apparently, indeed, into another country. We fail to see any connection. There is, in fact, no logical connection. The two countries seem totally dissimilar.
That is exactly why the Work tells us that we have to observe the whole swing from one extreme to the other in order to discover our particular opposites. This means an increase in consciousness of which we have often spoken before. An increase in consciousness in regard to our emotional life through the making of the opposites conscious by following the swing in Time, and so seeing how they are connected, shifts consciousness gradually towards the middle zone of the pendulum, to a third place lying between the opposites which becomes receptive of new emotions not on the pendulum. We acquire a middle. Let me add one thing.
If you can observe the pendulum through a full swing you will be sometimes astonished at what the opposite of any particular state turns out to be and so realize why you could not get released.
