(13.) Maurice Nicoll 1 - THE IDEA OF TRANSFORMATION IN THE WORK - Part I - pp.50-53
This is number (13.) of our sequential postings from Volume 1 of Maurice Nicoll’s Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.
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Links to each commentary will be put on the following Contents page, as we progress through the book:
Birdlip, July 30, 1941
THE IDEA OF TRANSFORMATION IN THE WORK - Part I
Part I.—As some of you know, it has been suggested by Mr. Ouspensky that this work might be called by the name Psycho-transformism. The idea of the work is psychological transformation—the transformation of oneself.
Transformation means the changing of a thing into a different thing. Chemistry studies the possible transformation of matter. There are well known transformations of matter. For example, sugar can be transformed into alcohol, and alcohol into vinegar by the action of ferments: this is the transformation of one molecular substance into another molecular substance. In the new chemistry of the atoms and elements, radium slowly transforms itself into lead. As you know, the transformation of base metal into gold has always been dreamed of as possible by the alchemists of the past. But this idea did not always have a literal meaning, because the language of alchemy was sometimes used by secret schools of teaching as referring to the possibility of the transformation of man into a new kind of man. Man as he is—that is, mechanical man serving nature and grounded in violence—was represented as base metal and the transformation of base metal into gold referred to this possible transformation latent in him. In the Gospels, the idea of mechanical man as a seed capable of growing has the same significance, as has also the idea of re-birth, of a man being born again.
As you know, in this system of teaching, man is regarded as a three-storey factory, taking in three foods—ordinary food on the lower floor of the factory, air on the second floor, and impressions on the third floor.
The food we eat undergoes successive transformations. The process of life is transformation. Every living thing lives by transforming one thing into another. A plant transforms air, water and salts from the earth into new substances—into what we call potatoes, beans, peas, nuts, fruit, and so on—by the action of sunlight and ferments. The sensitive living film spread over the earth, which conducts force from the universe—that is, organic life—is a vast transforming organ.
When we eat food it is transformed successively, stage by stage, into all the substances necessary for our existence. This is done by that
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mind called instinctive centre, which controls the inner work of the organism and of course knows far more than we do about it. We can understand that when food is taken, digestion begins. Digestion is transformation. The food is changed into something different in the stomach. This is only the first stage of the transformation of food and is designated in the work as the passage of Do 768 to Re 384. It will be sufficient to use this first stage as an example without going further. It is a stage everyone can understand without difficulty. Everyone can see that the food taken into the lowest compartment of the three-storey factory—namely, the meals we eat—undergoes transformation. Now suppose the food passed into the stomach and nothing happened: what then? The body, which is like a huge town, will make no contact with it. How can an undigested piece of meat or a potato enter the blood stream and supply the necessary fine substance, say, to the brain?
This situation is more or less the case, however, in regard to the third food, the food of impressions. They enter and remain undigested —that is, there is no transformation here. Impressions come in as Do 48 and stop. Save for a very small amount of transformation, nothing takes place. There is no adequate transformation of impressions. It is not necessary for the purpose of nature that man should transform impressions. But a man can transform his impressions himself, if he has sufficient knowledge and understands why it is necessary.
Most people think that external life will give them what they crave and seek. Life comes in as impressions, as Do 48. The first realization of the meaning of this work is to understand that life, coming in as impressions, must be transformed. There is no such thing as "external life". What all the time you are receiving is impressions. You see a person you dislike—that is, you get impressions of this nature. You see a person you like—that is, you get impressions once more. Life is impressions, not a solid material thing such as you suppose and believe is reality. Your reality is your impressions. I know this idea is very difficult to grasp. It forms a very difficult crossing-place. You are, perhaps, sure that life exists as such, and not as your impressions. The person you see sitting in a chair wearing a blue suit, smiling and talking, you think is real. No, it is your impressions of him that are real for you. If you had no sight, you would not see him. If you had no ears, you would not hear him. Life comes in as impressions and it is here that it is possible to work on oneself—but only if you realize that what you are working on is not external life but the impressions you are receiving. Unless you can grasp this, you will never understand the meaning of what in the work is called the First Conscious Shock. This shock relates to these impressions which are all we know of the outer world, that we are taking in, that we take as actual things, actual people. No one can transform external life. But everyone can transform his impressions, namely, the third and highest food taken in by the three-storey factory. For this reason this system of teaching says that it is necessary to create a transforming agency at the point of intake of impressions. This is the meaning
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of the work regarded in the light of psychological transformation and this is the point at which work begins. It is called the First Conscious Shock because it is something not done mechanically. It does not happen mechanically—that is, it needs a conscious effort. A man who begins to understand what this means, at the same time begins to be no longer a mechanical man, serving nature, a man asleep and merely used by nature for its own purposes, which are not in the interests of man. If you now think of the meaning of all you are taught to do in the way of effort, beginning with self-observation, you will see beyond any doubt that everything on the practical side of this work relates to transforming impressions and the results of impressions. Work on negative emotions, work on heavy moods, work on identifying, work on considering, work on inner lying, work on imagination, work on difficult 'I's, work on self-justifying, work on states of sleep, and so on, is all connected with transforming impressions and the results of them. So you will agree that in a sense work on oneself is comparable to digestion in the sense that digestion is transformation. Some transforming agency must be formed at the place of the intake of impressions. This is the First Conscious Shock and it is given the general description remembering oneself. If you can, through the understanding of the work, take life as work, then you are in a state of self-remembering. This state of consciousness leads to the transformation of impressions—and so of life as regards yourself. That is, life no longer acts on you in the old way. You begin to think, and to understand, in a new way. And this is the beginning of your own transformation. For as long as we think in the same way we take in life in the same way and nothing changes in us. To transform the impressions of life is to transform oneself, and only an entirely new way of thinking can effect this. All this work is to give you an entirely new way of thinking. Let me give you one example. You tare told in the work that if you are negative it is always your own fault. The whole situation as recorded by the senses must be transformed. But to understand this, it is necessary to begin to think in an entirely new way.
You all can understand that life is continually causing us to react to it. All these reactions form our life—our own personal life. To change one's life is not to change outer circumstances: it is to change one's reactions. But unless we can see that outer life comes in as impressions which cause us to react in stereotyped ways, we cannot see where the point of possible change comes in, where it is possible to work. If the reactions that form your own personal life are mainly negative, then that is your life. Your life is chiefly a mass of negative reactions to the impressions that have come in every day. The transformation of impressions so that they do not always provoke negative reactions is then one's task, if one wishes to work on oneself. But for this, self-observation at the point where impressions enter us is necessary. Then one can let the impressions fall in a negative mechanical way, or not. If not, then that is to begin to live more consciously. If one fails to transform impressions at the moment of their entry, one can always work on the results of these
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impressions and prevent them from having their full mechanical effect. All this requires a definite feeling, a definite evaluation of the work, for it means that the work must be brought forward, as it were, to that point where impressions enter and are being distributed mechanically to their customary place in personality to evoke the old reactions. We will speak later much more about transformation, but it can be added that no higher level is possible of attainment unless there is transformation, and the very idea of transformation is based on the fact that different levels exist, and refers to the passage from one level to another level of being. No one can reach a higher level of development without transformation.