(43.) Maurice Nicoll 1 - The Place of Aim - p.177-181
This is number (43.) 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:
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Birdlip, October 31, 1942
THE PLACE OF AIM
INTRODUCTION
Last time we spoke about the necessity of aim. To-night we will try to speak about the place where aim comes from. Last time it was said that to find any real aim in the Work-sense it is necessary to think of oneself in the light of the knowledge taught by the Work. This can only begin after a long period of self-observation, so that one can actually see what one is like in view of the Work. It was also said that a person may be all right in life but all wrong in the Work. For example, a person can enjoy being negative in life if he wants to, but not in the Work. That is, the Work changes our view of ourselves and makes us think in a new way about ourselves. To-night we speak of aim in regard to where it comes from in oneself.
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Part I.—Aim can come from right or wrong places in us. Aim may be right and come from a wrong place, and aim may be wrong and yet come from a right place. In order to understand what this means, we have to turn back to centres and parts of centres and also speak a little about Attention once more. Aim comes from a wrong place when it comes from small mechanical divisions of centres, where attention is at a minimum or passes from one trifle to another—where, in fact, there is zero-attention, or only a number of separate small attentions, and no comprehensive attention. Aim cannot come from these small scattered
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attentions, which belong to mechanical divisions of centres. It must be formed and must come from higher divisions where the quality of attention is different. Ordinary attention is not sufficient. Some time ago, Mr. Ouspensky, in speaking about attention, said that ordinary attention, which goes here and there all the time, is not really attention. He said that only attention that could keep its direction for some time could be called attention. And I remember that he began here to speak of how people gave so much attention to small things and were constantly distracted by them and remarked that if we wasted all the force of our attention on small things we had no attention for bigger things. In that case, it would be a long time before we could increase our attention. He said it was necessary to struggle against giving too much attention to small things. Small things did not need much attention. The moving parts of centres could perform their small daily tasks with little attention. Now unless we have some power of free attention we cannot expect to keep aim or indeed learn what the Work is about because we will be occupied with small things and the Work can never be understood if it is taken either as a small thing or on the level of small things. The reason is that the mind is not one and the same, but has smaller and bigger parts, and the Work belongs to its bigger part and cannot fit into and so cannot be grasped by its smaller parts. Each centre has first of all three divisions corresponding to the three centres themselves, Intellectual, Emotional and Instinct-Moving Centre. Now it is in the moving parts of centres that small things lie, and here, let us notice, in these parts, nothing belongs to us and so we cannot make aim from these parts. This is interesting to think about. What lies in the mechanical or moving parts of your Intellectual Centre, for example, does not belong to you. These small mechanical parts are filled with conversations you have heard, newspapers you have read, all sorts of tittle-tattle, phrases, pictures and words, etc. and these things do not belong to you at all. They come and go. But aim must not come and go. It must belong to you. Now when we take in anything in Emotional or Intellectual parts of centres, then it begins to belong to us and can even create something. And it is here that the ideas of the Work, and all similar ideas, such as those found in the Gospels, must fall, for here they can breathe and live and become one's own. But people in whom only the moving parts of centres are working find it impossible to make aim in the right place in themselves.
We have parts of centres for life and parts of centres for other things. The same thing, passed through different parts of centres, will look quite different. The same idea or the same phrase received in Moving, in Emotional and in Intellectual parts of centres becomes quite different. The ideas of the Work are too big for small parts of centres to take in. They will only see a small bit and will not understand what it means and so will distort it. Only bigger divisions of centres can catch sight of the whole conception of the teaching of this Work. Moving parts of centres which are turned towards external life, towards the senses,
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cannot grasp it, because it is not their function to do so. Not only is each distinct centre in us for a distinct purpose, but every part and sub-division. We have not one mind, but three: and in each are many minds. If we could use the particular right mind for a particular thing—that is, the right centre or part of it—we should be balanced in our centres. But we are nearly always out of our right mind and use the wrong centre or part. And to take this Work with mechanical parts of centres and to let it fall there is exactly an example of being out of one's right mind. To chat about the Work and then about the latest rumour, scandal, etc. is to let the Work fall on and so get mixed up with small mechanical parts of centres and with the small 'I's dwelling in these little uninteresting villas. To listen to the Work without valuation or attention is to take it with these little mechanical life 'I's. That is why the Work says that everything begins with evaluation. Certainly at first we listen to the Work as best we can. But if we have magnetic centre—that is, ears to hear—it begins to fall on emotional parts of centres.
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Part II.—Once you understand that mind, in this teaching, is regarded as being on different levels, just as is the Universe, and the lowest level is called the moving or mechanical part of a centre, you will understand the psychological reason for many things. You will understand, for example, why you must not talk too much of this Work, because it tends to put it into moving parts of centres. It is better for people in the Work to talk of other things rather than do this—or if they have spoken seriously of the Work, to get into some other kind of talk as soon as possible and notice the difference. You will also understand in quite a practical way why it is said you must not take the name of God in vain. Things belonging to higher and so more conscious parts of centres must not be allowed to mix themselves up with what belongs to lower mechanical parts. This is the real meaning of profanity. Profanity is mixing higher and lower. It destroys the proper order of parts of centres. It messes up and destroys the very complex and delicate machine in a man, each of whose parts has a definite and distinct function. You will also understand why so much importance is attached to the possession of magnetic centre. In life there are two kinds of influences, called A and B in this system. A influences belong to life and are created by life—by politics, war, sport, money, and so on. B influences are of a different order and come from outside life. The Gospels are an example. They come from conscious mankind, not mechanical humanity. Now notice this carefully: Moving parts of centres can only take in A influences and are only meant to do so; B influences fall on emotional parts of centres; and C influences, if you meet with them, which come directly from Conscious Man, fall on intellectual parts.
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By treating the matter in this way, you see how things all fall into their right places.
To get into higher—that is, more conscious—parts of centres, the act of attention is necessary. It is easier to remain in moving or mechanical parts and it is interesting to notice how we avoid the effort. To become more conscious of our lives and of what we are like, it is necessary to be in more conscious parts of centres—that is, in those parts that can see several things together and not only one at a time. Self-observation leads to an increase of the consciousness of oneself, of one's life, and from this aim becomes clearer. You begin to see what is wrong, not just at the moment, but what runs through your life. This is not possible to see from moving parts of centres. Here the life cannot be seen but only the moment. So to make aim from mechanical 'I's in moving parts of centres is quite wrong. They only see through narrow chinks. So it becomes important to think of where you make aim from, as well as what your aim is. You cannot, of course, make a permanent aim suddenly. You cannot exclaim suddenly: "I swear I will never identify again, or never be negative," and so on. Larger and more permanent aim in the Work must be based on self-knowledge gained through practical self-observation. Take negative emotions. They are a big question. You cannot suddenly make an aim about them. You can and should begin by making the temporary aim of not expressing them, as the Work suggests. This helps you to observe them better. Then you can see gradually that if you waste so much force on being negative you have no force for anything else, such as happiness, for instance. Then you may see you cannot get into attention and so cannot get into better parts of centres if all your force, is drawn into this useless direction. After you have seen all this for yourself and many other things, then you may begin to make a more permanent and real aim about some of your negative states, and one that comes from the right place in you. For you will understand better what you are doing and so will be doing it more from yourself, and what belongs to you. But if, hearing that one must struggle against negative states, you make an aim from a little imitative 'I', in the moving part of a centre, just because you heard it was the thing to do, and jotted it down in your note-book like a good scholar, you will not understand anything about your aim. It will not belong to you. Aim will be perhaps right, but will come from an utterly wrong place. So it is important to think of where aim comes from and not only what your aim is. Or to take another example, suppose you aim at getting over your unwanted associations about people. If you do this simply from moving parts of centres—from small mechanical 'I's—these 'I's will see no reason why you should, because these unwanted mechanical associations are their special work. You are telling a factory not to do its special job. The unwanted associations lie in mechanical parts, in mechanical 'I's. But if in this case you think about the people in connection with the Work, you will be lifted out of mechanical parts of centres and mechanical associations.
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You will take them on another level. All the chances we have depend on the existence of another level. Your aim will then come from the right place and may have results. That is, you may be able to get quite a new way of taking people whom mechanically you dislike, and so on, and you may see their mechanicalness in terms of what you see in your own mechanicalness. So you see again that aim may be right, but it is where it comes from in you that is so important. You can do many things quite easily or more easily from the level of the Work, which are impossible if you try to do them from the level of life. The explanation lies in these different parts of centres and from what part your aim comes. For this reason it is necessary to know, by observation, where you are in yourself—in what part of the large psychological house you are, and not to try to do things when you are in the basement that belong to another floor, and vice versa. It is quite a practical question to ask yourself: "Where am I?" You may be close to a very bad and narrow and evil 'I' or in very small parts of centres, where your powers of attention are zero. Then you must not expect to make important decisions successfully, or, if you are looking forward to something, expect it to go very well. You will spoil it without doubt. The mere act of attention, due to self-observation, may change your position in yourself, and get you into a better place. You know you can be in a place in outer space and not be in the right place in inner space. We know a lot about being in the wrong or right place externally, in space, but very little about being in the wrong or right place internally, in ourselves—and the latter is far more important. Of course, as long as you take yourself as one, you cannot understand what this means. But once, by observation, you see you are many and that you have many places in you, it becomes easier to grasp. And bear in mind that the Work teaches, as a practical thing, that by means of directed attention we can change our inner position.