Buddy
The Living Force
The book is: Toward Awakening: An Approach to the Teaching Left by Gurdjieff (Arkana) (Paperback)
~ Jean Vaysse
This particular book has been extremely helpful to me in clarifying some of Gurdjieff's writings, so I would like to recommend it to anyone who would enjoy reading Gurdjieff's work from the writing of someone who is said to be able to explain it from his own personal experiences.
As Vaysse said: "...since time is short for the journey ahead, there is a need..."
So, for the benefit of those who are relatively new to this work (or anyone else interested), I offer the following excerpts:
A SIMPLE OVERALL VIEW OF THE STRUCTURE OF MAN
Ordinary man is, in fact, a totally conditioned machine, but he does not see it, and if he is told so he does not wish to believe it. The play of associations proceeds in him unceasingly, almost always without his knowledge, in the form of automatic reactions to the situations with which life confronts him. The resulting network, woven out of habits and reproduced every time similar circumstances recur, forms those well-established “ways of being,” those masks, which characterize us and which those around us know better than we do.
...
Before real self-observation can begin, and with it the recording of valid impressions, a first step is necessary. In fact, valid self-observation is not possible unless certain data have previously been provided about what we are and about the possibilities inherent in human life. These data can become of real value for us only if afterward we can verify them, step by step, by ourselves; and thus arrive both at a clear enough view of the whole and sufficient practical experience to correctly situate subsequent observations in a soundly based framework, without rejecting out of hand the various suggestions that life offers us, but also without letting ourselves be naively swallowed up or uselessly distracted by them.
Afterward, we shall have to bring all these data into question again, item by item; but since time is short for the journey ahead, there is a need that overall views should be opened up for us at the beginning and remain available to help us through the entire period of our search.
These data relate to man as a whole: what he is made up of, the various functions that are possible for him (that is, the different forms assumed by his life energy), the relationships between these functions, the states or levels at which these functions operate, the existence of fundamental faculties and attributes of every individual life, certain aspects of these faculties characteristic for man of the levels at which he lives or can live, and the most immediate prospects regarding the various possibilities of his becoming or of his transformation. Many ways of envisioning man have been put forward by the various systems and philosophies. Most of these have gaps or restricted points of view and interpretations which rob them of any objectivity, and thus render them useless for the study we wish to undertake.
A very ancient knowledge which Gurdjieff makes use of considers that our everyday life is provided for by five functions, each of which has its own “center” or “brain” in which the vital energy takes its appropriate form and in which the use of this energy is controlled in daily life. Four of these functions are relatively independent and suffice for our daily lives:
The intellectual function, to which all the mental functions belong-formulation of ideas, thinking, and a certain kind of memory, the one with which we are most familiar. It is this function in general which allows us to compare, to judge, to coordinate, to classify and to predict.
The emotional function includes all emotion and feeling. It is this function which in general allows us to appreciate and value everything in relation to ourselves (that is, in relationship to what we see and know about ourselves).
The moving function includes everything that is a form or a support of the organism and its movement. This is the function which in general allows us to have the sensation of our body and permits the body to accomplish whatever tasks are demanded of it.
The instinctive function includes all that regulates and automatically maintains our physical life. It is, in general, by means of this function that we have an instinctive perception of this life’s needs.
To differentiate the instinctive function from the moving function, however, is not indispensable at the start. So far as the usual structure is concerned, it is a good enough approximation to take it that one’s structure normally consists of three parts or three stories-intellectual, emotional and instinctive-moving.
The sex function (the fifth function) differs from the others in the sense that it derives support from and participates with the four of them, takes in their emanations and even goes beyond them to be the support of the creative aspect of the human being at every level, with the proper polarity in each case. All our education leads us to think only of the organic aspect of this function. Even from this point of view, we shall soon see that it cannot be studied in isolation.
Since the sex function relies on the other functions, the study of these functions must come first, and this brings into our study the entire level of organic life. But sexual polarity and its functioning involve the entirety of the human being, and since this includes levels of life other than the organic level, they also participate in this function. Thus a study of the sex function on the organic level only will result in a partial and inadequate view. A balanced study is not possible until the higher levels of the human being are sufficiently known. In fact, all the teachings in their various (and sometimes disguised) forms agree in recognizing the possibility for human beings of two higher levels of life. Moreover, ancient knowledge states that in man two more centers exist-two higher centers whose functioning characterizes these levels. But these centers are usually not operating; and, without making a special work, man comes in touch with them only in flashes or not at all.
They are: the higher emotional center, to which would belong the only real feelings, and the higher intellectual center, to which would belong an objective form of thinking of which ordinary man has not even an inkling.
The same ancient knowledge to which Gurdjieff invites our attention brings much additional material. It shows that the life of man is spent entirely in three degrees of presence, that is, three levels of functioning or three levels of life: sleep, dreaming and waking. Besides these three states, man sometimes knows for a moment a fourth-the state of self-consciousness.
But to these moments of awakening to a state of presence far greater than the one that is usual to him, he practically never gives attention, because he thinks that his presence in the waking state is the fullest and most complete that he is capable of.
...
...there are three fundamental faculties which are met with under various aspects in every form of individual life, where, taken together, they permit a relatively autonomous individuality, and where their quality is an indicator of the level of life, the state of presence and the degree of being; this quality, varying in accordance with the level, characterizes each state of presence and thus allows it to be recognized and placed.
These three faculties, in the case of man, are “attention,” “consciousness” and “will.” Although man usually ascribes them to himself in a highly developed form, they only exist spontaneously in him in their lower forms, which comprise his ordinary way of life. He only knows their more developed forms accidentally by flashes or when, as a result of a long work on himself, he is able to realize the state of being present to himself.
For a man whose states of presence are constantly changing and do not have the permanence that he attributes to them, the fluctuations in the quality of one or another of these three fundamental faculties are important because this makes it possible for him, at each moment, to know the level on which his life is flowing.
These various data are not the only ones that a man can distinguish in himself. In an altogether different order of things, one can recognize that man consists of two parts: one can be called his “essence,” the other his “personality.” Essence is the inheritance given to man at birth: his physical form, his tendencies, his fundamental characteristics. It is his own property, his inheritance, the bearer of his unique traits, what has been given to him that he might make it bear fruit. And the only real growth of a “man” is the growth of his essence.
His personality, on the contrary, is everything that a man has learned: what he has learned since his birth, from the events of his life, from his education, moral upbringing, social environment, and religion. None of that comes from him, all these elements are brought to him, or imposed from the outside; the only thing that may be his own is the manner in which he may have received them as a result of specific traits of his own essence. The first elements of this personality are engraved on what is still virgin ground in earliest infancy and are so deeply lodged in a man that they are very difficult to differentiate from his essence, forming, as it were, a second nature.
The future development of an individual depends largely on how these initial data are related to essence. If a fundamental discord has been introduced at this level by the first impressions and the first education received, it becomes deeply buried, and for the individual to be eventually re-harmonized this discord has to be found and corrected, difficult though this may be.
Later on, the external elements are imprinted less and less deeply. But as responses to the demands of life are learned, another phenomenon appears: habits are established. Repetition of the same behavior in analogous circumstances creates in an individual a similar association in all his different functions. As a result, a network of special relationships is set up in him, an aspect of his personality, a “way of manifesting” which is automatically reproduced every time certain analogous outer circumstances reappear. Before long, each of these aspects or ways of manifesting constitutes an entity in itself, a particular small “I”.
An “I” of this kind is formed for each of the habitual circumstances of life, and, as each one is set up independently of the others, there is no connection between them; they are as likely to be in contradiction as in accord, and each is only a partial aspect corresponding to a particular situation.
Finally, in life, instead of manifesting himself with an “individuality” in which the functions always express harmoniously what he is in the depth of his essence, a man manifests differently according to circumstances, behind the masks of diverse personages, multiple little “I’s” which give him an acquired exterior, foreign to his true self. The whole of this together forms his “personality.”
But, without the work of self-observation, properly conducted, man obviously has no knowledge of this state of affairs. He believes in the reality of each of these personages; at the moment he believes very “sincerely” that each of them expresses the whole of himself. He does not see his changes and his passages from one character to another and, in general, he believes altogether in his unity.
These observations point up the importance of the relationships which come into existence within ourselves and the necessity of knowing them well. Attentive observation shows that the five functions on which our everyday life depends are constantly in action but at different degrees of activity; generally, we see that one of them is more active, dominates and leads the others, but this predominance often changes as a result of outer or inner events. There is nevertheless a habitual dominance by one of them, always the same one, according to the type of the individual. Despite our notion to the contrary and our belief in a degree of freedom within ourselves, correct observation also shows that our functionings are linked together. This dependence-in reality this connection-is evidently very different in each case.
Sometimes the connection appears to be so close that it is difficult to separate the functions, owing to our conditionings, our ingrained habits, and, as we have seen, our masks. Sometimes the relationship between different functions is so distant that they appear to be independent of each other and become part of the unconscious, apparently inaccessible to our direct observation. On the whole, a very great mechanicalness prevails throughout the totality of our ordinary lives, without our even realizing it.
...
As simplified and schematic as it may be, and even if at first it seems in a certain sense arbitrary, this first collection of data on oneself is necessary as a preliminary sketch on which self-observation can be based. Each new observation, as it is put in its right place on the canvas, reinforces the pattern; but it cannot be analyzed and understood so long as large gaps remain and enough pieces have not been assembled. Considerable time may be saved if, from the beginning, observation is so directed as to verify the principal and most easily accessible lines of the plan. From this point of view, self-observation must be prepared for by studying the four functions which support our ordinary life, then by studying the different states in which this life is spent, and finally by studying the relationships between the quality of the functions and the different states. Becoming aware of all this as a whole is the first step and real self-observation cannot come till later.
Orientation To Real self-observation, or What we need to know now...
RIGHT OBSERVATION OF ONESELF
THE first step in a study intended to lead to self-knowledge is self-observation. However, this has to be practiced in a way that corresponds to the aim. Thus, the ordinary kind of self-observation which people practice all their lives is almost entirely useless, and, in fact, brings nothing valid for the self-knowledge we need, a knowledge experienced and lived through.
There are actually two methods of self-observation: analysis and a simple recording of impressions. Self-analysis or introspection is the usual method applied in modern psychology, though at the present time there is a movement away from it. In this method each observed fact is taken by itself and serves as the basis for intellectual analysis, in the form of questions about its causes, connections and implications. What caused this, why did it happen? Why did it happen this way and not some other way? The observed fact is taken as the center of gravity of the inquiry, and the other factors are grouped in relation to it and not in relation to the whole man. The man as a whole, although not completely disregarded, is relegated to second place. But the analysis of an isolated phenomenon, taken apart from its context and apart from general laws, makes absolutely no sense and is simply a waste of time. Furthermore, a man who observes himself in this way begins to look for answers to what he sees, then becomes interested in the answers and their consequences and soon loses sight of his original intention which was to observe himself, not to make interpretations for which he does not yet have the necessary material. Thus an entire intellectual process develops around the observation, which becomes of secondary importance and is even forgotten.
A man who analyzes himself like this not only makes no progress toward self-knowledge, but even inflates ideas or fantasies about himself which in some cases become the worst obstacles to attaining this knowledge; and so he goes away from what he was searching for. Another very bad effect of this analytical method is that it makes for arbitrary divisions of the functions of the man who studies himself in this way; whichever function is predominant (almost always the intellectuals stands apart from all the other functions) and looks at them in its own way, and often evaluates or judges all of them as though it understood them. Such an attitude can but increase the predominance of one function over the others and does nothing to redress the balance between them. The inner dissociation and conflict inherent in everyone is thus immediately reinforced. The analytic method may be useful very much later, perhaps to deepen the knowledge of a particular point when a sufficient sense of the whole to which it belongs has been acquired, and this without losing sight of that whole.
But to arrive at self-knowledge and allow a harmonious evolution to take place, self-observation should not, to begin with, under any pretext be an analysis or an attempt to analyze. In the beginning, only the method of recording impressions can lead to the aim we have in view. No observation has any real value for self-knowledge unless it is looked at in relation to the whole structure of the observer, and unless connected with all those elements and laws by which this structure is formed, not only as it is now, but as it is intended to become-that is, in the movement and the life of the whole. While these “constatations” are going on, the whole must never be lost sight of for a moment; it is all that counts and it must remain the center of gravity. For this reason, all results or former experiences of self-observation must be laid aside. It is not that they have to be systematically rejected, for we cannot live without them-and, incidentally, there may be very valuable elements in them. But all this material has been brought together by ideas about oneself, and about various divisions of oneself, which are incomplete or erroneous, so that in its present form it is of no use for the work we are undertaking; whatever may be valid in this material will become available again at the proper time and will be put in its proper place.
Right self-observation directed toward self-knowledge is possible only if precise conditions are first prepared so that it can begin without being destructive; certain pieces of information have first to be provided as a sort of baggage inevitably intellectual at this stage.
The first work for anyone who really wishes to observe himself is to verify this information in his own experience as soon as he can, and not to accept anything as true which he has not authenticated in this way by himself. The necessary pieces of information concern the structure itself of the human being, his way of functioning, and his most immediate possible transformations. They must be presented in a form complete enough to serve as the framework and scaffolding for what will later become real self-knowledge.
While this work of verifying the information is going on, self-study has to begin at the beginning-that is, one starts to observe oneself by simply recording impressions without judging or changing anything, as if one did not know oneself at all and had never observed oneself before, trying only to see to which center or group of centers the observed phenomena belong, with which functions they are connected, and with what level of those functions. As soon as the first steps are taken, one finds that there are considerable obstacles and that there is no hope of eventually overcoming them if they are not first seen just as they are. It is also obvious that energy, time and special conditions are indispensable for such work.
How shall we find the energy unless we first look to see what forces we can count on in ourselves and around ourselves, and then consider how to find the time and the necessary conditions? There is practically no chance for one man alone to resolve so many and such various difficulties no matter how good his original intentions.
He very quickly needs two kinds of help. On the one hand, he needs the inner help that self-observation itself can bring. Besides what it enables him to see about the way we are made, it soon shows him that one part of the whole is functioning wrongly and is taking up all the room for itself. This view of the situation, for a man who is seeking to be fully himself, arouses a wish for certain changes and for transformation. This vision and the wish it awakens are the prime force on which all further work depends. But this inner help, this ally in himself, cannot be enough. Contrary to what he usually believes, one man alone cannot know what needs to be changed nor how to change it. He needs, as soon as possible, help from the outside, and to find a school where the conditions-of which he himself knows nothing-actually exist for allowing this transformation he wishes for to pursue its course. For a man who has become aware of his situation, finding a school becomes the most urgent necessity.
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Where Self-Observation Can Begin
It begins, on the simplest level, by a struggle against the usual fetters (that is, habits) which make us appear as what we seem to be. This struggle, because of its uselessness in the immediate present, because of its inability to change whatever is there-and the mistake of expecting it to-and because of the persistence and energy it calls for, is tedious, difficult and irksome. No man could conceive of undertaking it unless he has understood what it is leading to and unless he remembers constantly why he is undertaking it. But if he has reached such an understanding, or even, at the beginning, if he has understood that it is necessary for him to submit to this discipline, then the struggle against habits becomes at once an obvious means to see himself as he is, and, without his being able to be aware of it, the first instrument for achieving his inner transformation.
It arouses this double attention which he needs and forces him to confront these habits which keep him asleep, automatized, and engulfed in constant self-forgetfulness. Our habits and, when they are more firmly rooted in us, our unconscious conditionings, are innumerable. They are so tightly entangled that they are inextricable, and from this point of view it could be said that ordinary man is not a well-woven cloth (except perhaps in his instinctive part), but a haphazard patchwork of habits and conditionings, both small and large.
To start with, for the struggle with habits to be possible and profitable for self-observation, we need to choose simple habits, directly related to functions which have already been clearly recognized. The study of the moving part is undoubtedly the easiest. While a man cannot make direct observations in the usual way for more than moments at a time, observation can be effectively carried out by going against one after another of the various moving habits which form the substratum of all our activity; the way we walk, write, our gestures at the table or in our profession, postures, and so forth.
Each is made up of many small habits, which if altered intentionally can serve as a support for self-observation. The length of one’s step, the style of walking, the way of holding a pen, the way of using one hand instead of another are examples which can be multiplied indefinitely. At the same time, a man who practices self-observation quickly perceives that he is confined without knowing it in a rather limited number of moving habits; and this in itself is quite important.
The study of intellectual functioning is somewhat more difficult. A man who tries to see this functioning notices that he does have a certain power to direct his thoughts at the start; he can sometimes keep them for a little while in the direction he has chosen. But, sooner or later, often quite soon, they escape him and he is distracted. Besides, in his ordinary life, he seldom makes use of his power to direct his thoughts except in rare moments; his mind never stops working and ideas are always there, arising automatically as a result of outer and inner stimuli about which a man can do nothing. They are automatic reactions of the intellect in various conditions which follow one after another in a chain of associations. And in the same way that we have physical habits, so do we have habits of the mind, habitual ways of thinking which, without knowing it, are also rather few in number.
One of the first lines of study of the intellectual function is the struggle with these habitual ways of thinking. A man can become aware that each particular way in which he thinks is not the only one. He can question them and he can make himself look for other ways of thinking, deepen them, understand them, and understand in what sense they are not his own ways. Proceeding thus, he will make some valuable discoveries about himself and his way of thinking.
Another line of study of intellectual functioning is the observation of ourselves when being distracted. It is a clear indication of the deficiency of our intellectual center. We begin to read, talk, listen, and then suddenly we are distracted. “We do not wish to be constantly distracted from the aims we have decided to pursue; we need to know what takes place in us and how such distraction occurs. Attentive observation-and this is difficult because the process is subtle-shows us two principal causes: imagination and dreaming. Both are examples of the wrong functioning of the intellectual center in any of its laziness, owing to which it tries to spare itself all the efforts which effective work would require, a work that is going in a definite direction toward a well-defined aim.
Imagination exists in each one of our centers in a form peculiar to it. It follows closely on a moment of real work having a definite direction, after which the effort weakens, the attention deviates, the aim is lost sight of, and the functioning continues within the center itself without any connection whatever with the work which was undertaken or any connection with the other centers, except for bringing in useless and aimless-that is, imaginary-impressions of life, made up purely for satisfying the function and not for effective expression in the realm of reality. One center or several centers may take part in elaborations of this nature, which turn a man aside from the tasks imposed on him by life, and act, more or less, as a substitute for them.
Fantasy and daydreaming are the opposite of a useful activity of the mind, that is to say, one linked to a well-determined aim. To observe and know them a man has to undertake to struggle against them by restricting himself to tasks which are precise, concrete and clearly defined. Once he has undertaken this struggle he soon notices that daydreaming is always a useless form of dreaming, understandable at a pinch when it brings pleasant sensations but morbid and self-destructive when it moves to negative and depressing associations of which self-pity is the most usual.
A man also notices that the value usually given to imagination is in no way justified, for it is a destructive faculty which he can never control. It carries him away in unforeseeable directions unrelated to his conscious aims. He begins to imagine something for the pleasure of it, then very soon begins to believe, at least partly, in what he is imagining and allows himself to be carried away. This kind of imagination is in no way that creative faculty rightly regarded as of incalculable worth. It is, in fact, pernicious, merely a degenerate caricature of a higher faculty, that of real creative imagination, or conscious prefiguration in conformity with an objective knowledge of data and laws, which ordinary man does not possess. But with fantasies and daydreaming man deludes himself that he possesses this higher faculty. If he observes himself impartially he becomes aware of this illusion and that he is lying to himself, and he understands that in fact daydreams and imagination are among the principal obstacles to self-observing and seeing himself as he is. Nothing is more painful for a man; it is, symbolically, the fall of Icarus.
A third line of our intellectual functioning, which in this case concerns joint functioning of the intellect and other centers, is observation of our habit of talking for talking’s sake.
Spoken language is intellectual material picked up in social life and inscribed in the moving center, an instrument put by this center at the disposal of all the others so that they can express themselves and communicate through it. It is necessary to speak and express oneself-life is an exchange; but besides responding to this necessity, talking very quickly becomes a habit. It becomes a habit from infancy, when small children are taught to talk for the sake of talking and not to express themselves. Later we are even taught to speak brilliantly about everything and about nothing. And we do not even realize that this is how we are. Little needs to be said, but we speak a lot. Talking can even become a vice. There are people who never stop talking-about anything, everywhere, all the time, even in their sleep, and if nobody else is there they talk to themselves.
To struggle with this habit of talking, which we all have in one degree or another, is also an excellent means of self-observation available to us at all times; the rule of silence is part of certain monastic disciplines. Struggling with the habit of talking and against all unnecessary words forces us to see what it is that arises in us and uses language, and in this way we may collect important observations as to what we are made of.
Study of the emotional function, even arrived at indirectly by way of our habitual emotional habits, is probably even more difficult than study of the intellectual center, for as soon as we try to observe it we have to admit that we have no hold on it. We can change nothing as regards our emotions. Although they are always there, we see them only when they are stronger than usual. Then we call them “feelings.” But a real feeling would be something quite different. We live with nothing but automatic emotional reactions, feelings which follow each other in rapid succession at each instant of our lives and cause something in each circumstance to please us or displease us, attract us or repel us. We no more see this than we know why we experience our attractions and repulsions, our acceptances and refusals; they take place in us automatically.
A man who wishes to observe himself sees this only by flashes, and in such moments of seeing he is, in general, disagreeably surprised. He has no desire whatever to prolong the experience, and if he forces himself to do so, it may give rise to deep repercussions in him, some of which may be dangerous, for we set great store by these automatic emotional reactions. A right observation of our habitual emotional functioning puts in question everything that I am and obliges me to see what the values which I hold to, and in whose name I live, stand for.
This touches on the very possibilities of man’s evolution. To undertake such work without altering or destroying these possibilities forever, a “feeling” of quite another order has first to have been awakened.
There is, however, one area in which a man who wishes to observe himself runs no risk. He can engage in a struggle with emotional habits that will show him a whole side of his habitual emotional functioning-this struggle is the attempt not to express unpleasant emotions. He who observes himself very soon notices that he is unable to observe anything impartially; this is particularly true for what he sees in himself, but also for what he sees outside himself.
About every single thing, he has a personal “feeling”: “I don’t care;” “I like it,” or “I dislike it.” But whereas he can easily refrain from expressing his agreement or indifference, it is almost impossible for him not to express his disapproval in one way or another. This easily becomes a habit and is often even taken as a sign of sincerity. The negative impression received in such a case is expressed in some form of violence, contentiousness or depression anger, jealousy, faultfinding, suspicion, worry, fear, self-pity, and so on. In all these forms some expression of personal negativity replaces the simple expression which flows from just noting the facts as they are.
These forms bear witness to my inability to keep my personal grievances to myself and to a tendency to let them gush out over my surroundings so as not “to feel alone-to make others share them and to try to get rid of them in that way. This is both a sign of my own weakness, my incapacity to accept myself and things as they are and an enormous and useless waste of energy which I impose also on those near me in a chain reaction which spreads around and multiplies the negativity.
Now this is one of the few emotional processes which can be cut short without risk of harmful consequences. Brought to bear on the expression of negative emotions (for it is their outer expression which needs to be restrained and not the emotions themselves), this struggle in no way upsets the inner equilibrium. It only involves the saving of a considerable amount of energy which would have been totally lost if spent externally but which, being saved in this way, can be used for other purposes. At the same time, it allows the observer to discover in himself an entirely new aspect of the emotional process with which he lives.
Toward Awakening: An Approach to the Teaching Left by Gurdjieff (Arkana) (Paperback)
~ Jean Vaysse, (Page 19-31;39-45)
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Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Toward Awakening provides a clear, chapter-by-chapter summation of the major points of Gurdjieff's teachings. In accessible language, author Jean Vaysse first expresses the meaning and possibility of an inner life, then follows a logical exposition of the path to be traveled in order to move in that direction. That process, he explains, begins with an exposition of the key ideas of the structure of humans, the practices of “self-observation” and “self-remembering,” the concept of presence, and the dual roles of essence and personality in determining the overall nature of each individual. The author outlines the obstacles to awakening, as well as the first steps toward awakening. Missing in most books about the Gurdjieff teaching is the key role played by sensation, a topic that Vaysse covers with a clarity based on his personal experience.
~ Jean Vaysse
This particular book has been extremely helpful to me in clarifying some of Gurdjieff's writings, so I would like to recommend it to anyone who would enjoy reading Gurdjieff's work from the writing of someone who is said to be able to explain it from his own personal experiences.
As Vaysse said: "...since time is short for the journey ahead, there is a need..."
So, for the benefit of those who are relatively new to this work (or anyone else interested), I offer the following excerpts:
A SIMPLE OVERALL VIEW OF THE STRUCTURE OF MAN
Ordinary man is, in fact, a totally conditioned machine, but he does not see it, and if he is told so he does not wish to believe it. The play of associations proceeds in him unceasingly, almost always without his knowledge, in the form of automatic reactions to the situations with which life confronts him. The resulting network, woven out of habits and reproduced every time similar circumstances recur, forms those well-established “ways of being,” those masks, which characterize us and which those around us know better than we do.
...
Before real self-observation can begin, and with it the recording of valid impressions, a first step is necessary. In fact, valid self-observation is not possible unless certain data have previously been provided about what we are and about the possibilities inherent in human life. These data can become of real value for us only if afterward we can verify them, step by step, by ourselves; and thus arrive both at a clear enough view of the whole and sufficient practical experience to correctly situate subsequent observations in a soundly based framework, without rejecting out of hand the various suggestions that life offers us, but also without letting ourselves be naively swallowed up or uselessly distracted by them.
Afterward, we shall have to bring all these data into question again, item by item; but since time is short for the journey ahead, there is a need that overall views should be opened up for us at the beginning and remain available to help us through the entire period of our search.
These data relate to man as a whole: what he is made up of, the various functions that are possible for him (that is, the different forms assumed by his life energy), the relationships between these functions, the states or levels at which these functions operate, the existence of fundamental faculties and attributes of every individual life, certain aspects of these faculties characteristic for man of the levels at which he lives or can live, and the most immediate prospects regarding the various possibilities of his becoming or of his transformation. Many ways of envisioning man have been put forward by the various systems and philosophies. Most of these have gaps or restricted points of view and interpretations which rob them of any objectivity, and thus render them useless for the study we wish to undertake.
A very ancient knowledge which Gurdjieff makes use of considers that our everyday life is provided for by five functions, each of which has its own “center” or “brain” in which the vital energy takes its appropriate form and in which the use of this energy is controlled in daily life. Four of these functions are relatively independent and suffice for our daily lives:
The intellectual function, to which all the mental functions belong-formulation of ideas, thinking, and a certain kind of memory, the one with which we are most familiar. It is this function in general which allows us to compare, to judge, to coordinate, to classify and to predict.
The emotional function includes all emotion and feeling. It is this function which in general allows us to appreciate and value everything in relation to ourselves (that is, in relationship to what we see and know about ourselves).
The moving function includes everything that is a form or a support of the organism and its movement. This is the function which in general allows us to have the sensation of our body and permits the body to accomplish whatever tasks are demanded of it.
The instinctive function includes all that regulates and automatically maintains our physical life. It is, in general, by means of this function that we have an instinctive perception of this life’s needs.
To differentiate the instinctive function from the moving function, however, is not indispensable at the start. So far as the usual structure is concerned, it is a good enough approximation to take it that one’s structure normally consists of three parts or three stories-intellectual, emotional and instinctive-moving.
The sex function (the fifth function) differs from the others in the sense that it derives support from and participates with the four of them, takes in their emanations and even goes beyond them to be the support of the creative aspect of the human being at every level, with the proper polarity in each case. All our education leads us to think only of the organic aspect of this function. Even from this point of view, we shall soon see that it cannot be studied in isolation.
Since the sex function relies on the other functions, the study of these functions must come first, and this brings into our study the entire level of organic life. But sexual polarity and its functioning involve the entirety of the human being, and since this includes levels of life other than the organic level, they also participate in this function. Thus a study of the sex function on the organic level only will result in a partial and inadequate view. A balanced study is not possible until the higher levels of the human being are sufficiently known. In fact, all the teachings in their various (and sometimes disguised) forms agree in recognizing the possibility for human beings of two higher levels of life. Moreover, ancient knowledge states that in man two more centers exist-two higher centers whose functioning characterizes these levels. But these centers are usually not operating; and, without making a special work, man comes in touch with them only in flashes or not at all.
They are: the higher emotional center, to which would belong the only real feelings, and the higher intellectual center, to which would belong an objective form of thinking of which ordinary man has not even an inkling.
The same ancient knowledge to which Gurdjieff invites our attention brings much additional material. It shows that the life of man is spent entirely in three degrees of presence, that is, three levels of functioning or three levels of life: sleep, dreaming and waking. Besides these three states, man sometimes knows for a moment a fourth-the state of self-consciousness.
But to these moments of awakening to a state of presence far greater than the one that is usual to him, he practically never gives attention, because he thinks that his presence in the waking state is the fullest and most complete that he is capable of.
...
...there are three fundamental faculties which are met with under various aspects in every form of individual life, where, taken together, they permit a relatively autonomous individuality, and where their quality is an indicator of the level of life, the state of presence and the degree of being; this quality, varying in accordance with the level, characterizes each state of presence and thus allows it to be recognized and placed.
These three faculties, in the case of man, are “attention,” “consciousness” and “will.” Although man usually ascribes them to himself in a highly developed form, they only exist spontaneously in him in their lower forms, which comprise his ordinary way of life. He only knows their more developed forms accidentally by flashes or when, as a result of a long work on himself, he is able to realize the state of being present to himself.
For a man whose states of presence are constantly changing and do not have the permanence that he attributes to them, the fluctuations in the quality of one or another of these three fundamental faculties are important because this makes it possible for him, at each moment, to know the level on which his life is flowing.
These various data are not the only ones that a man can distinguish in himself. In an altogether different order of things, one can recognize that man consists of two parts: one can be called his “essence,” the other his “personality.” Essence is the inheritance given to man at birth: his physical form, his tendencies, his fundamental characteristics. It is his own property, his inheritance, the bearer of his unique traits, what has been given to him that he might make it bear fruit. And the only real growth of a “man” is the growth of his essence.
His personality, on the contrary, is everything that a man has learned: what he has learned since his birth, from the events of his life, from his education, moral upbringing, social environment, and religion. None of that comes from him, all these elements are brought to him, or imposed from the outside; the only thing that may be his own is the manner in which he may have received them as a result of specific traits of his own essence. The first elements of this personality are engraved on what is still virgin ground in earliest infancy and are so deeply lodged in a man that they are very difficult to differentiate from his essence, forming, as it were, a second nature.
The future development of an individual depends largely on how these initial data are related to essence. If a fundamental discord has been introduced at this level by the first impressions and the first education received, it becomes deeply buried, and for the individual to be eventually re-harmonized this discord has to be found and corrected, difficult though this may be.
Later on, the external elements are imprinted less and less deeply. But as responses to the demands of life are learned, another phenomenon appears: habits are established. Repetition of the same behavior in analogous circumstances creates in an individual a similar association in all his different functions. As a result, a network of special relationships is set up in him, an aspect of his personality, a “way of manifesting” which is automatically reproduced every time certain analogous outer circumstances reappear. Before long, each of these aspects or ways of manifesting constitutes an entity in itself, a particular small “I”.
An “I” of this kind is formed for each of the habitual circumstances of life, and, as each one is set up independently of the others, there is no connection between them; they are as likely to be in contradiction as in accord, and each is only a partial aspect corresponding to a particular situation.
Finally, in life, instead of manifesting himself with an “individuality” in which the functions always express harmoniously what he is in the depth of his essence, a man manifests differently according to circumstances, behind the masks of diverse personages, multiple little “I’s” which give him an acquired exterior, foreign to his true self. The whole of this together forms his “personality.”
But, without the work of self-observation, properly conducted, man obviously has no knowledge of this state of affairs. He believes in the reality of each of these personages; at the moment he believes very “sincerely” that each of them expresses the whole of himself. He does not see his changes and his passages from one character to another and, in general, he believes altogether in his unity.
These observations point up the importance of the relationships which come into existence within ourselves and the necessity of knowing them well. Attentive observation shows that the five functions on which our everyday life depends are constantly in action but at different degrees of activity; generally, we see that one of them is more active, dominates and leads the others, but this predominance often changes as a result of outer or inner events. There is nevertheless a habitual dominance by one of them, always the same one, according to the type of the individual. Despite our notion to the contrary and our belief in a degree of freedom within ourselves, correct observation also shows that our functionings are linked together. This dependence-in reality this connection-is evidently very different in each case.
Sometimes the connection appears to be so close that it is difficult to separate the functions, owing to our conditionings, our ingrained habits, and, as we have seen, our masks. Sometimes the relationship between different functions is so distant that they appear to be independent of each other and become part of the unconscious, apparently inaccessible to our direct observation. On the whole, a very great mechanicalness prevails throughout the totality of our ordinary lives, without our even realizing it.
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As simplified and schematic as it may be, and even if at first it seems in a certain sense arbitrary, this first collection of data on oneself is necessary as a preliminary sketch on which self-observation can be based. Each new observation, as it is put in its right place on the canvas, reinforces the pattern; but it cannot be analyzed and understood so long as large gaps remain and enough pieces have not been assembled. Considerable time may be saved if, from the beginning, observation is so directed as to verify the principal and most easily accessible lines of the plan. From this point of view, self-observation must be prepared for by studying the four functions which support our ordinary life, then by studying the different states in which this life is spent, and finally by studying the relationships between the quality of the functions and the different states. Becoming aware of all this as a whole is the first step and real self-observation cannot come till later.
Orientation To Real self-observation, or What we need to know now...
RIGHT OBSERVATION OF ONESELF
THE first step in a study intended to lead to self-knowledge is self-observation. However, this has to be practiced in a way that corresponds to the aim. Thus, the ordinary kind of self-observation which people practice all their lives is almost entirely useless, and, in fact, brings nothing valid for the self-knowledge we need, a knowledge experienced and lived through.
There are actually two methods of self-observation: analysis and a simple recording of impressions. Self-analysis or introspection is the usual method applied in modern psychology, though at the present time there is a movement away from it. In this method each observed fact is taken by itself and serves as the basis for intellectual analysis, in the form of questions about its causes, connections and implications. What caused this, why did it happen? Why did it happen this way and not some other way? The observed fact is taken as the center of gravity of the inquiry, and the other factors are grouped in relation to it and not in relation to the whole man. The man as a whole, although not completely disregarded, is relegated to second place. But the analysis of an isolated phenomenon, taken apart from its context and apart from general laws, makes absolutely no sense and is simply a waste of time. Furthermore, a man who observes himself in this way begins to look for answers to what he sees, then becomes interested in the answers and their consequences and soon loses sight of his original intention which was to observe himself, not to make interpretations for which he does not yet have the necessary material. Thus an entire intellectual process develops around the observation, which becomes of secondary importance and is even forgotten.
A man who analyzes himself like this not only makes no progress toward self-knowledge, but even inflates ideas or fantasies about himself which in some cases become the worst obstacles to attaining this knowledge; and so he goes away from what he was searching for. Another very bad effect of this analytical method is that it makes for arbitrary divisions of the functions of the man who studies himself in this way; whichever function is predominant (almost always the intellectuals stands apart from all the other functions) and looks at them in its own way, and often evaluates or judges all of them as though it understood them. Such an attitude can but increase the predominance of one function over the others and does nothing to redress the balance between them. The inner dissociation and conflict inherent in everyone is thus immediately reinforced. The analytic method may be useful very much later, perhaps to deepen the knowledge of a particular point when a sufficient sense of the whole to which it belongs has been acquired, and this without losing sight of that whole.
But to arrive at self-knowledge and allow a harmonious evolution to take place, self-observation should not, to begin with, under any pretext be an analysis or an attempt to analyze. In the beginning, only the method of recording impressions can lead to the aim we have in view. No observation has any real value for self-knowledge unless it is looked at in relation to the whole structure of the observer, and unless connected with all those elements and laws by which this structure is formed, not only as it is now, but as it is intended to become-that is, in the movement and the life of the whole. While these “constatations” are going on, the whole must never be lost sight of for a moment; it is all that counts and it must remain the center of gravity. For this reason, all results or former experiences of self-observation must be laid aside. It is not that they have to be systematically rejected, for we cannot live without them-and, incidentally, there may be very valuable elements in them. But all this material has been brought together by ideas about oneself, and about various divisions of oneself, which are incomplete or erroneous, so that in its present form it is of no use for the work we are undertaking; whatever may be valid in this material will become available again at the proper time and will be put in its proper place.
Right self-observation directed toward self-knowledge is possible only if precise conditions are first prepared so that it can begin without being destructive; certain pieces of information have first to be provided as a sort of baggage inevitably intellectual at this stage.
The first work for anyone who really wishes to observe himself is to verify this information in his own experience as soon as he can, and not to accept anything as true which he has not authenticated in this way by himself. The necessary pieces of information concern the structure itself of the human being, his way of functioning, and his most immediate possible transformations. They must be presented in a form complete enough to serve as the framework and scaffolding for what will later become real self-knowledge.
While this work of verifying the information is going on, self-study has to begin at the beginning-that is, one starts to observe oneself by simply recording impressions without judging or changing anything, as if one did not know oneself at all and had never observed oneself before, trying only to see to which center or group of centers the observed phenomena belong, with which functions they are connected, and with what level of those functions. As soon as the first steps are taken, one finds that there are considerable obstacles and that there is no hope of eventually overcoming them if they are not first seen just as they are. It is also obvious that energy, time and special conditions are indispensable for such work.
How shall we find the energy unless we first look to see what forces we can count on in ourselves and around ourselves, and then consider how to find the time and the necessary conditions? There is practically no chance for one man alone to resolve so many and such various difficulties no matter how good his original intentions.
He very quickly needs two kinds of help. On the one hand, he needs the inner help that self-observation itself can bring. Besides what it enables him to see about the way we are made, it soon shows him that one part of the whole is functioning wrongly and is taking up all the room for itself. This view of the situation, for a man who is seeking to be fully himself, arouses a wish for certain changes and for transformation. This vision and the wish it awakens are the prime force on which all further work depends. But this inner help, this ally in himself, cannot be enough. Contrary to what he usually believes, one man alone cannot know what needs to be changed nor how to change it. He needs, as soon as possible, help from the outside, and to find a school where the conditions-of which he himself knows nothing-actually exist for allowing this transformation he wishes for to pursue its course. For a man who has become aware of his situation, finding a school becomes the most urgent necessity.
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Where Self-Observation Can Begin
It begins, on the simplest level, by a struggle against the usual fetters (that is, habits) which make us appear as what we seem to be. This struggle, because of its uselessness in the immediate present, because of its inability to change whatever is there-and the mistake of expecting it to-and because of the persistence and energy it calls for, is tedious, difficult and irksome. No man could conceive of undertaking it unless he has understood what it is leading to and unless he remembers constantly why he is undertaking it. But if he has reached such an understanding, or even, at the beginning, if he has understood that it is necessary for him to submit to this discipline, then the struggle against habits becomes at once an obvious means to see himself as he is, and, without his being able to be aware of it, the first instrument for achieving his inner transformation.
It arouses this double attention which he needs and forces him to confront these habits which keep him asleep, automatized, and engulfed in constant self-forgetfulness. Our habits and, when they are more firmly rooted in us, our unconscious conditionings, are innumerable. They are so tightly entangled that they are inextricable, and from this point of view it could be said that ordinary man is not a well-woven cloth (except perhaps in his instinctive part), but a haphazard patchwork of habits and conditionings, both small and large.
To start with, for the struggle with habits to be possible and profitable for self-observation, we need to choose simple habits, directly related to functions which have already been clearly recognized. The study of the moving part is undoubtedly the easiest. While a man cannot make direct observations in the usual way for more than moments at a time, observation can be effectively carried out by going against one after another of the various moving habits which form the substratum of all our activity; the way we walk, write, our gestures at the table or in our profession, postures, and so forth.
Each is made up of many small habits, which if altered intentionally can serve as a support for self-observation. The length of one’s step, the style of walking, the way of holding a pen, the way of using one hand instead of another are examples which can be multiplied indefinitely. At the same time, a man who practices self-observation quickly perceives that he is confined without knowing it in a rather limited number of moving habits; and this in itself is quite important.
The study of intellectual functioning is somewhat more difficult. A man who tries to see this functioning notices that he does have a certain power to direct his thoughts at the start; he can sometimes keep them for a little while in the direction he has chosen. But, sooner or later, often quite soon, they escape him and he is distracted. Besides, in his ordinary life, he seldom makes use of his power to direct his thoughts except in rare moments; his mind never stops working and ideas are always there, arising automatically as a result of outer and inner stimuli about which a man can do nothing. They are automatic reactions of the intellect in various conditions which follow one after another in a chain of associations. And in the same way that we have physical habits, so do we have habits of the mind, habitual ways of thinking which, without knowing it, are also rather few in number.
One of the first lines of study of the intellectual function is the struggle with these habitual ways of thinking. A man can become aware that each particular way in which he thinks is not the only one. He can question them and he can make himself look for other ways of thinking, deepen them, understand them, and understand in what sense they are not his own ways. Proceeding thus, he will make some valuable discoveries about himself and his way of thinking.
Another line of study of intellectual functioning is the observation of ourselves when being distracted. It is a clear indication of the deficiency of our intellectual center. We begin to read, talk, listen, and then suddenly we are distracted. “We do not wish to be constantly distracted from the aims we have decided to pursue; we need to know what takes place in us and how such distraction occurs. Attentive observation-and this is difficult because the process is subtle-shows us two principal causes: imagination and dreaming. Both are examples of the wrong functioning of the intellectual center in any of its laziness, owing to which it tries to spare itself all the efforts which effective work would require, a work that is going in a definite direction toward a well-defined aim.
Imagination exists in each one of our centers in a form peculiar to it. It follows closely on a moment of real work having a definite direction, after which the effort weakens, the attention deviates, the aim is lost sight of, and the functioning continues within the center itself without any connection whatever with the work which was undertaken or any connection with the other centers, except for bringing in useless and aimless-that is, imaginary-impressions of life, made up purely for satisfying the function and not for effective expression in the realm of reality. One center or several centers may take part in elaborations of this nature, which turn a man aside from the tasks imposed on him by life, and act, more or less, as a substitute for them.
Fantasy and daydreaming are the opposite of a useful activity of the mind, that is to say, one linked to a well-determined aim. To observe and know them a man has to undertake to struggle against them by restricting himself to tasks which are precise, concrete and clearly defined. Once he has undertaken this struggle he soon notices that daydreaming is always a useless form of dreaming, understandable at a pinch when it brings pleasant sensations but morbid and self-destructive when it moves to negative and depressing associations of which self-pity is the most usual.
A man also notices that the value usually given to imagination is in no way justified, for it is a destructive faculty which he can never control. It carries him away in unforeseeable directions unrelated to his conscious aims. He begins to imagine something for the pleasure of it, then very soon begins to believe, at least partly, in what he is imagining and allows himself to be carried away. This kind of imagination is in no way that creative faculty rightly regarded as of incalculable worth. It is, in fact, pernicious, merely a degenerate caricature of a higher faculty, that of real creative imagination, or conscious prefiguration in conformity with an objective knowledge of data and laws, which ordinary man does not possess. But with fantasies and daydreaming man deludes himself that he possesses this higher faculty. If he observes himself impartially he becomes aware of this illusion and that he is lying to himself, and he understands that in fact daydreams and imagination are among the principal obstacles to self-observing and seeing himself as he is. Nothing is more painful for a man; it is, symbolically, the fall of Icarus.
A third line of our intellectual functioning, which in this case concerns joint functioning of the intellect and other centers, is observation of our habit of talking for talking’s sake.
Spoken language is intellectual material picked up in social life and inscribed in the moving center, an instrument put by this center at the disposal of all the others so that they can express themselves and communicate through it. It is necessary to speak and express oneself-life is an exchange; but besides responding to this necessity, talking very quickly becomes a habit. It becomes a habit from infancy, when small children are taught to talk for the sake of talking and not to express themselves. Later we are even taught to speak brilliantly about everything and about nothing. And we do not even realize that this is how we are. Little needs to be said, but we speak a lot. Talking can even become a vice. There are people who never stop talking-about anything, everywhere, all the time, even in their sleep, and if nobody else is there they talk to themselves.
To struggle with this habit of talking, which we all have in one degree or another, is also an excellent means of self-observation available to us at all times; the rule of silence is part of certain monastic disciplines. Struggling with the habit of talking and against all unnecessary words forces us to see what it is that arises in us and uses language, and in this way we may collect important observations as to what we are made of.
Study of the emotional function, even arrived at indirectly by way of our habitual emotional habits, is probably even more difficult than study of the intellectual center, for as soon as we try to observe it we have to admit that we have no hold on it. We can change nothing as regards our emotions. Although they are always there, we see them only when they are stronger than usual. Then we call them “feelings.” But a real feeling would be something quite different. We live with nothing but automatic emotional reactions, feelings which follow each other in rapid succession at each instant of our lives and cause something in each circumstance to please us or displease us, attract us or repel us. We no more see this than we know why we experience our attractions and repulsions, our acceptances and refusals; they take place in us automatically.
A man who wishes to observe himself sees this only by flashes, and in such moments of seeing he is, in general, disagreeably surprised. He has no desire whatever to prolong the experience, and if he forces himself to do so, it may give rise to deep repercussions in him, some of which may be dangerous, for we set great store by these automatic emotional reactions. A right observation of our habitual emotional functioning puts in question everything that I am and obliges me to see what the values which I hold to, and in whose name I live, stand for.
This touches on the very possibilities of man’s evolution. To undertake such work without altering or destroying these possibilities forever, a “feeling” of quite another order has first to have been awakened.
There is, however, one area in which a man who wishes to observe himself runs no risk. He can engage in a struggle with emotional habits that will show him a whole side of his habitual emotional functioning-this struggle is the attempt not to express unpleasant emotions. He who observes himself very soon notices that he is unable to observe anything impartially; this is particularly true for what he sees in himself, but also for what he sees outside himself.
About every single thing, he has a personal “feeling”: “I don’t care;” “I like it,” or “I dislike it.” But whereas he can easily refrain from expressing his agreement or indifference, it is almost impossible for him not to express his disapproval in one way or another. This easily becomes a habit and is often even taken as a sign of sincerity. The negative impression received in such a case is expressed in some form of violence, contentiousness or depression anger, jealousy, faultfinding, suspicion, worry, fear, self-pity, and so on. In all these forms some expression of personal negativity replaces the simple expression which flows from just noting the facts as they are.
These forms bear witness to my inability to keep my personal grievances to myself and to a tendency to let them gush out over my surroundings so as not “to feel alone-to make others share them and to try to get rid of them in that way. This is both a sign of my own weakness, my incapacity to accept myself and things as they are and an enormous and useless waste of energy which I impose also on those near me in a chain reaction which spreads around and multiplies the negativity.
Now this is one of the few emotional processes which can be cut short without risk of harmful consequences. Brought to bear on the expression of negative emotions (for it is their outer expression which needs to be restrained and not the emotions themselves), this struggle in no way upsets the inner equilibrium. It only involves the saving of a considerable amount of energy which would have been totally lost if spent externally but which, being saved in this way, can be used for other purposes. At the same time, it allows the observer to discover in himself an entirely new aspect of the emotional process with which he lives.
Toward Awakening: An Approach to the Teaching Left by Gurdjieff (Arkana) (Paperback)
~ Jean Vaysse, (Page 19-31;39-45)
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Product Description
Toward Awakening provides a clear, chapter-by-chapter summation of the major points of Gurdjieff's teachings. In accessible language, author Jean Vaysse first expresses the meaning and possibility of an inner life, then follows a logical exposition of the path to be traveled in order to move in that direction. That process, he explains, begins with an exposition of the key ideas of the structure of humans, the practices of “self-observation” and “self-remembering,” the concept of presence, and the dual roles of essence and personality in determining the overall nature of each individual. The author outlines the obstacles to awakening, as well as the first steps toward awakening. Missing in most books about the Gurdjieff teaching is the key role played by sensation, a topic that Vaysse covers with a clarity based on his personal experience.
