(35.) Maurice Nicoll 1 - Psychological Commentary I - p.139-144
This is number (35.) of our sequential postings from Volume 1 of Maurice Nicoll’s Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.
(If you are a subscriber to The Journal of Gurdjieff Studies, you can opt in or out of receiving emails from the Fragments Reading Club category.)
Links to each commentary will be put on the following Contents page, as we progress through the book:
Birdlip, May 21, 1942
This Work is psychological. It consists in making a number of specifically defined psychological efforts designed for a particular end. Everyone has a psychology as well as a body. The object of the Work is to lift a person off the psychological basis he rests upon. Let us try to speak about this.
Everyone admits he has a body, which may be in a better or worse condition. The body is an object of the senses and as you know we are all inclined to take only what the senses shew us as real. But everyone has also a psychology. This people do not so easily admit, for they cannot see or touch their own or another person's psychology via the outer senses. Moreover a person is usually especially unwilling to admit that he himself has a definite kind of psychology. A definite kind of body— yes. A psychology—no. He will agree that his body may be in a wrong state—but not his psychology. One result of this is that it not infrequently occurs that a person in the Work does not know where or in what direction to make any efforts. If the Work consisted in a number of physical exercises, everyone would know where and in what direction
140
efforts had to be made and if anyone did an exercise wrongly, he would be seen doing it wrongly and corrected. A person would then know how he was progressing by the number of physical exercises he could perform correctly, and he could also feel the satisfaction of being able to do more than others could do, and so on. As you know, there are schools of teaching that deal only with the body. They are the schools belonging to the First Way—the Way of Number I Man. The control of the body by the development of will over the body is the object. The Fakir who sits with outstretched arms for years and years is an example. He develops will over the body. But by itself this is useless. In some cases, he may be taken into a school of another kind, and his arms broken down if possible and be given teaching to develop him psychologically. He has will over the body, but no understanding, and will without understanding is useless or even worse than useless. And such a man, quite ignorant and stupid, may "crystallize out" by his incredible efforts—that is, nothing can be altered in him and he will remain permanently ignorant and stupid, whether he is taken into another school or not. But such examples shew us one thing. They shew us the extent of effort on oneself that is possible among Eastern people and this may help us to understand why esoteric teaching has always come from the East. Now this teaching that we are beginning to try to understand here does not belong to the First Way, the Way of the Fakir, nor to the Second Way, which is the Way of the Monk, nor to the Third or Yogi Way. It is called the Fourth Way, and I will mention one of the great characteristics of the Fourth Way soon, but will say here that one of its general objects is to unite the Wisdom of the East with the Science of the West. But its individual starting-point is psychological, not physical, and as said, its object is to lift a person off the psychological basis he rests upon. That is, its object is to change a person, not physically, but psychologically. The efforts that it demands in personal work are not, primarily, physical efforts, although these come in in their place, but psychological efforts, the first of which is self-observation. To observe oneself is a psychological effort, and it is only by self-observation that you become aware that you have a psychology. You all know that this is not an easy effort to make. It is far more difficult than making a physical effort, such as doing some exercises, or cleaning pots and pans, or mixing concrete, or working a typewriter, or indeed doing anything connected with the outer visible world, which lies in space, and to which we must first make a relationship. But remember that each of us lives in two worlds, one outer and visible and lying in space and the other inner and invisible and not lying in space. Our bodies are in space but not our psychology. But, as distinct from animals, we are so made that we can look out, into the visible world in space where our bodies are standing, and in, into the invisible world, where our psychology is standing. And just as we are always somewhere in the outer world, so we are always somewhere in the inner world. Now the idea in the Work is that just as we can change our position in the outer world by physical effort, so we can change our
141
position in the inner world by psychological effort. And just as a man can be in a better or worse place in the outer world, so can he be in a better or worse place in the inner world. But because it is difficult to look into the inner world and see where one is standing in it, people let themselves, as it were, be anywhere inside, although they would not think for a moment of letting themselves be anywhere outside.
Let us try to conceive what it means that each of us has a psychology and that it is necessary to observe it. Our psychology is, from one point of view, where we are and what we frequent in this inner world. Just as we live somewhere and tend to frequent certain places in the outer world, so we live in and tend to frequent certain places in the inner world. The difference is that in this inner world we are not dealing with places in space, but with psychological states. Now just as it is your body that brings you into contact with a physical place, so is it your psychology that brings you into contact with a psychological state. At any moment you are somewhere physically and somewhere psychologically. Outer observation shews you where you are physically; inner observation—that is, self-observation—shews you where you are psychologically. To be in a bad state psychologically is as if you might be in a dark corner of a room, sitting there, morose and gloomy, when you might shift your position easily and stand in the light. Now the practice of self-observation in the Work is to make us aware of where we are psychologically at any moment and eventually to shift our position. It leads to self-awareness which belongs to the third state of consciousness, the state where help can reach us. Where we are psychologically at any moment is what we are at that moment, unless we are aware of it and separate internally from it. If you identify with all your inner states, with your negative emotions and dreary thoughts and so on, as people do in life if they are quite asleep, then where you are psychologically will be what you are at that moment. You will be your state at that time. Now self-observation is not a monotonous exercise that one is supposed to perform because told to do so. It is an act of practical intelligence. It is just as practically intelligent as to notice where you are driving a car to. If you never observe anything in yourself, not only will you never avoid anything in yourself and so repeat your life day by day and always run into the same states, but you will think that your inner states are normal and natural and the only ones possible and take them for granted. You will only expect life to change, not yourself. In this way, you will not be willing to think you have a psychology at all, in any sense of the word, though you will admit that you have a body, which has its own peculiarities. You know what this Work teaches about life—how it happens—what a dark spot in the Universe we live in, and so on. Yet I suppose you all think what is happening now is exceptional.
Nothing is more useful or more interesting than to pull yourself up suddenly and notice where you are inside and where you are going. If you do this, you will begin to see what sort of psychology you have and what tendencies belong to it and what it keeps on connecting you with. You
142
will begin to notice what you are always up to, inside. When you can see all this not as yourself—not as 'I'—but as your psychology, you can begin to separate from it and so change it. But if you cannot admit that you have a psychology at all and say 'I' to every state it leads you into you can get nowhere.
Now let us change the point of view a little. Let us imagine a conversation in the following terms. Let us suppose someone in the Work says to you: "I find it difficult to observe myself and I cannot quite see in what sense I have a psychology." You say to him: "Well, you dislike X, don't you?" He replies: "Yes, of course I do. He is very unfair." You say: "Some people like him." He replies: "I can't help that. I dislike him." You say: "Well, that is a part of your psychology, you know, something to do with your mechanical dislikes." He replies: "I cannot agree with you. I dislike X and that's the end of the matter. It has nothing to do with my psychology. It is a fact." You say: "Well, to speak frankly, some people think you are unfair." He replies: "But that is absurd. If there is anything I can be perfectly certain of, it is that I am always fair. And I always have been." You say: "Perhaps there is, all the same, something to observe here." He replies: "I don't see what there is to observe. It is all as clear as daylight to me.. And I think you are very unfair to suggest that I am unfair. In fact, to tell you the truth, I think you are very often unfair." You say: "I am not unfair. It is the last thing I ever am or wish to be. In fact, people often say how fair I am. I can see that you do not understand me." He replies: "And I can see that you do not understand me." At this point we had better terminate this imaginary conversation. Do you believe that there is no "psychology" here? Both the imaginary persons are becoming indignant and neither of them apparently sees that any personal psychology enters into the situation that has arisen between them and caused it. Neither of them observes he has a cherished picture of himself as being fair. Neither of them sees he is speaking from false personality, and neither of them sees how he is lying. Let us notice one thing at this point: when we know a thing is true about ourselves, and acknowledge it internally, accusation can never make us indignant. It can make us sad perhaps. Indignation is mainly derived from false personality, imaginary 'I' and pictures of oneself—I refer to being indignant about oneself and how people treat one and what they say to one. It comes from ascribing to ourselves what we have not got, of imagining ourselves to be what we actually are not. And in this connection is not the fact that we are so sensitive to criticism or censure of any kind clear evidence that we have a psychology apart from merely having physical bodies? And is not this invisible psychology of ours more real to us and a greater source of suffering than are our visible bodies, save when the latter suffer considerable pain?
Let us now trace some results of this typical conversation we have imagined. Both of the people involved are indignant at being called unfair. They have, in fact, reacted just as we would ourselves. We are supposing them to be in the Work, and that both are now negative.
143
What will now happen psychologically? They will both begin to justify themselves. You know that one of the specific efforts we are taught to make in our personal work is the effort against self-justifying. Self- justifying is a complicated and very interesting process of inner and outer lying whereby we put ourselves in the right. It belongs to our psychological level—to our level of being—and it is one of the things that keep us at that level. Negative emotions, self-justifying, identifying, and all the great central things taught in the Work in connection with practical effort on oneself are the things that keep us where we are. They keep us on the psychological basis we rest upon. They prevent any change, any evolution of ourselves. This is why they are specially mentioned and defined as things to be struggled and fought with. You must not think it wrong to self-justify just because the Work says so. It is not wrong in a moral sense, but of no use in work on oneself, just as it is no use mixing bread with concrete. It takes, certainly, some time before we can begin to see for ourselves why the Work mentions certain special things against which efforts must be made. But if you say: "I must not justify myself because the Work says I must not," you will again get nowhere, for you will not be doing anything from yourself, from your understanding—and to work from one's understanding is one of the great characteristics of the Fourth Way. When you see clearly from your own self-observation that self-justifying keeps you where you are and is a process that has this as its object, so that you may always be in the right, at the expense of any change or evolution of yourself, and if at the same time your aim is to change, you will have far greater power to stop it, for then you will understand and want to do so from your own understanding. You will see the good of doing this for yourself. It is then possible to begin to make right effort. For if you are always going to be right, you will never be in the wrong, and if you are never in the wrong, you will never change. To feel one is always right is to block the way to any self-change.
Let us now suppose that the two imaginary people allow the mechanical processes of self-justifying to go on unchecked and that neither of them observes it at work in them, but that both are fully identified with it, fully engaged in it, in fact, fully liking and enjoying it, without a trace of insight into themselves. They will begin to construct what can be called negative systems in themselves, against one another. Once this seriously starts between two people it is very difficult to get matters right again. They will remember only unpleasant things about one another, for when a person feels negative against another, his memory, working by association, calls up only unpleasant things, which the activity of self-justifying makes eager use of. And so it will go on, just as it does in life, quite unchecked internally but checked by outer things, such as the fear of the law, the fear of libel or slander, the fear of losing one's reputation or being laughed at, etc.—in short, by the external restraints that control people and which, if removed, would turn them into quite other kinds of people. You know what happens
144
in war. You know what people can become if external restraints are removed.
Now suppose these two imaginary people have already got some inner checks and inner restraints developed in them by the Work and that each of them, at a certain moment, comes, as it were, to his senses—I mean, wakens a little, becomes more conscious, and passes into Work 'I's and begins to observe himself from the feeling of the Work and its influences, which are quite different from the influences of life. He notices that he is justifying himself. He notices that he is recalling only unpleasant things of the other person and nothing pleasant which, to say the least, is unfair. He thinks of what was said to him and what he said. He searches in that special memory formed in a man by conscious self-observation for examples of himself being unfair in the past and finds several that he has noticed. Suddenly all his indignation falls away from him. He is no longer defending his false idea of himself, his false pictures of himself. He sees the truth—that he is often unfair. Now self-justifying cannot work in the presence of acknowledged truth. It is a process of lying that keeps the great central lie in us alive and well—that is, the false personality. Now let us suppose that these two people meet next day. They will instantly know that each has worked on himself, without saying a word to one another, and the whole thing is over. It is not in the past any more. It is cancelled. They are both free.
All that we have been speaking about is psychology and psychological work on oneself from the point of view of this teaching and its psychological method in regard to the application of it to oneself.