(37.) Maurice Nicoll 1 - Psychological Commentary III: On Being (2) - p.149-153
This is number (37.) 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, June 4, 1942 PSYCHOLOGICAL COMMENTARY
Part I.—Everyone who has taken up this Work seriously and reflected upon its meaning, by means of that faculty which we all possess but rarely use—namely, thinking for oneself—should eventually be capable of entering consciously into and understanding the position of others. This is a development of being essential for us in the Work. No one can develop alone. Now relationship is possible only through the contact of inner worlds. We meet through our inner worlds. To understand another you must enter into his inner world, but this is not possible if you have not entered your own inner world. The first step therefore towards entering consciously into and understanding the position of another is attained through entering into and understanding the position of oneself and unless this step is taken, to as full a degree as is possible, there is little or no possibility of entering into and understanding the position of another person. The entry into oneself begins with self-observation and the understanding of oneself comes through long self-study in the light and knowledge of this teaching, whose ultimate aim is the gradual but definite transformation of oneself. For this reason, merely to think that one is capable of entering into and understanding the position of another person, and even giving help, as one is—and this illusion is very common—is to misunderstand entirely the nature of human contact and the universal difficulties that attend this impulse, which so frequently ends in disaster or some sort of compromise which, as often as not, is the breeding-ground of bitterness, mutual criticism, hostility and even worse emotional states and trains of thought. No one as he is mechanically—that is, as formed by life and its influences—can enter into and understand another, and, from that, give help,
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unless he already knows from his own self-observation, self-study and insight and work on himself, what is in the other person. Only through self-knowledge is knowledge of others practically possible. Only by seeing, knowing and understanding what is in yourself can you see, know and understand what is in another person. One of the greatest evils of human relationship is that people make no attempt to enter into one another's position but merely criticize one another without any restraint and do not possess any inner check to this mechanical criticism owing to the absence of any insight into themselves and their own glaring crudities, faults and shortcomings. As a result not only do they not help each other, but the normal balance of things is upset, and by this I mean that an accumulation of wrong or evil psychic material is formed daily in human relationships and, in fact, in everyone's life, which should never exist if people saw themselves and others simultaneously, and in this way could neutralize the effects of their conduct day by day. This lack of psychological responsibility, both to oneself and to others, is perhaps especially characteristic of modern times and is the source of one part of the widespread modern unhappiness that marks the present age, in which, amongst other things, there is a decline in even ordinary human kindness, with a resulting hardness which is among the most dangerous factors in regard to the future, and which effectually stops all possibility of the right development of the emotional life.
People in this Work, who have a chance of emotional development, should particularly observe silent or expressed criticism of others as a continual wrong factor in themselves, which continually is making wrong psychic material in them, and sincerely reflect upon what they are doing. In many cases, stupidity, thick-headedness and ignorance are underlying causes, but many causes exist, as an unusual degree of vanity and self-complacency, of feeling that one is in the right, or self-meritoriousness, feelings of virtue and superiority, and other factors of this kind, which of course bar the way to any inner self-change. I mention here particularly in connection with the mechanical feeling of merit and self-excellence those who expect others to change and do not start from themselves, and who even judge of the Work by its effects on others without apparently realizing that they have very much work to do on themselves before they can pass judgment on others, and also that other people are judging them in precisely the same way as they judge others—a fact which always surprises them. Mechanical criticism of others produces a great many psychological difficulties in the person who criticizes—that is, wrong 'I's which hinder their own inner development and freedom. Perhaps this is not clear. What is meant is that if you allow critical and negative 'I's to develop freely in yourself, they will turn on you in the Work and hinder your own understanding and your own development. What you do to others, you do to yourself. Everything is arranged in this way. Everything wrong gradually reacts on yourself in the Work. After a time you will learn that you cannot afford to sleep too much and to talk and act mechanically and let your life be
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in the hands of wrong 'I's. You will begin to see for yourself that you must really live more consciously in regard to your inner world in which all past accounts must eventually be cancelled. And to live more consciously in your inner world is not to go with bad 'I's, to begin with. Remember that if you are in the Work you are putting yourself under more laws than others—namely, under the laws of the Work. You are putting yourself in a position in which you must obey what the Work teaches.
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Part II.—The purification of the emotional life in this Work can perhaps artificially be divided into two sides for the purposes of practical self-observation. We will deal first with the emotions arising from False Personality or Imaginary 'I', this imaginary oneself to which this Work is constantly calling your attention and which should be a matter of daily self-study and work, in view of the fact that it is the source of so much daily misunderstanding and unhappiness and offence. This thing, formed by ourselves and by the environmental influences of our upbringing, and resting, as it were, like a coloured bubble on the surface of our psychic life, confuses and distorts the whole of our inner world. It forms a part of our acquired being. The fundamental causes of almost all the misunderstandings arising in the inner world of Man, as well as in the sphere of the common life of people and any possible human relationship between them, is this psychic factor called the False Personality, which is formed in the preparatory period of life. The stimulation of this psychic factor in a person, both before and during the period of responsible life, gives rise to the emotions of vanity and self-conceit. These emotions, arising from the stimulation of the False Personality, stand in the way of the normal development of the Emotional Centre. And it can be said that they stand in the way of any development of consciousness as well. They prevent the Third State of Consciousness—the State of Self-Awareness. That degree of happiness and of self-consciousness which should exist in a real person, a real man, as well as in a peaceful common human existence, depends almost entirely on the absence in one of vanity and self-conceit. But these emotions can take very subtle forms and require long and sincere inner observation and a great deal of insight and gradual self-realization. But often people even imagine they have not got them, and although they are constantly being offended and upset by what others say or by the way they are treated, they do not see that this has any connection with their vanity or self-conceit. After a time, when buried conscience begins to awaken, these emotions can be felt by inner taste. They are impure emotions. This, indeed, is what is chiefly meant in religious writings, by impurity, and what in the Gospels is so much attacked as in the case of the Pharisees, who do everything to "be seen of men"—that is, out of vanity and self-conceit. You know that when you are doing good to others and feel merit, it is your self-
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love that you are doing good to. This is impurity in the emotions. But if you do a thing out of the love of it, it is pure. Unfortunately, this happens as a rule only in connection with satisfying our appetites. The second factor, in regard to the purification of the emotional life, is, as you all know, the factor of negative emotions. I will not speak of them now except to remind you that they take many subtle forms. After a time they can be recognized through inner taste. They all smell badly. Remember also that at birth there is no False Personality. But, born amongst sleeping people, who enjoy their negative emotions, the child acquires them, as by infection. The pleasure people take in being negative is imitated by the child, and at the same time the formation of False Personality in the child assists the process because through the emotions of vanity and self-conceit the means of being easily offended are formed in all their endless diversity.
Now our level of being is characterized by the impure state of the emotional life described above. Work on being, in regard to the Emotional Centre, demands therefore, among other things, efforts to observe and realize the existence of these emotions in oneself, noticing their origin, and the course they take, and the effects they give rise to. When we are properly conscious of something in ourselves, we are on the way to changing it. The consciousness of it, alone, if it is full enough, will begin to change it. Once you have seen something in yourself, in your being, clearly, it will lead to your seeing something else. Understand that being must change and change definitely in everyone without exception and it must change now and here. Religious people often suppose they will be changed in some hereafter: or they imagine that, just as they are, with the level of being they have, and all their negative emotions, vanity, self-conceit, malicious talking, jealousies, unpleasant curiosities, and so on, they can reach God. And there are many other similar illusions, all of which are due to not seeing one's level of being, which actually determines where we are situated in the scale or ladder of all kinds of being, reaching up to the Divine Being. Everyone is at some place in this ladder. Now in this Work, on the psychological side, you are given knowledge about how to change being, and this knowledge must be applied to your own being through observing yourself in accordance with what that knowledge tells you to observe. From this, you get knowledge of your being and can begin to work on your being. If you begin to possess some real knowledge of your own being and have worked on it, then you will be able to enter into and understand the position of another person and so help him—but only in so far as your own knowledge of yourself and your own difficulties goes. And among other things, you will be able to know when you are speaking from vanity or a sense of superiority, or from a negative feeling, from the desire to hurt, or merely criticize, and so on. In short, you will be able to distinguish between the pure and impure in yourself better and from this be able to speak more purely to one another. If while you are speaking, you are seeing in yourself what you are seeing in the other, you will speak purely
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or more purely, and what is pure in this sense cannot hurt another or offend him but will help him. And if you do not know at the time when you are speaking to another whether you spoke rightly, yet you have spoken with the double consciousness of yourself and the other person, which is speaking in a State of Self-Remembering, namely, looking in and out simultaneously, then you will know later by after-taste. That is, the Work will shew you, for everything done sincerely, from the feeling of the Work, will be preserved for you and shewn you in its right light, if you listen and do not fall asleep.
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Part III.—In the paper that was read last time, it was said that in religious writings many things are said about being. People are divided according to their state of being—into saints and sinners, bad and good men, and so on. Many things are said in the Gospels that refer to being. In the Parable of the Sower sowing the Seed of the Word of God in mankind, the different categories of men mentioned are divided according to their being in relation to the Seed of the Word, to their reception of it. In another place, men with wrong being are called "thorns" or "thistles", in the passage where Christ says: "Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles?" Men are then compared by Christ, in regard to their level of being, with trees, and it is said: "Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit." All this means that the level of being of a man is of the greatest importance. As you know, it is necessary to think about a person's level of being before you bring him into this Work. Something very serious is meant here and by now you will begin to understand what it is. The tendency to-day to make criminals heroes is entirely wrong. There are two signs of being in regard to people that you might wish to bring into the Work. They must be responsible people and they must have some magnetic centre. Other things have been said in the past on this question and I will try to recall some of them now. Apart from the idea of Good Householder and magnetic centre, a person entering the Work should have a natural sense of shame. You know that many so-called "moral defectives" have no sense of shame, and this is a very bad sign. And notice here that by being hard and never feeling shame you arrest the development of your own being. Again people entering the Work should have some sense of religion, some trace in their lives of a religious impulse—that is, of course, connected with magnetic centre, and with past influences and education. Then they should feel something of mortality, have some awareness of their own mortality. All these factors and several others form starting-points in their being from which ideas and teachings of the Work can develop.