(48.) Maurice Nicoll 1 - On Hydrogens (V) - FIRST CONSCIOUS SHOCK—(continued) - p.200-203
This is number (48.) of our sequential postings from Volume 1 of Maurice Nicoll’s Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.
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Birdlip, December 14, 1942
ON HYDROGENS - V - FIRST CONSCIOUS SHOCK—(continued)
Part I.—It has already been said that when a man tries to remember himself he must also remember his aim. When a man remembers the Work within him and his aim in it and at the same time looks out at life, this act of Self-Remembering brings the Work up to the point of entry of impressions—that is, it enables a man to take incoming life from a Work point of view and notice the reactions he is about to make and prevent impressions from falling on their customary places in him and producing their habitual reactions. All this involves a struggle between "Yes" and "No". A man in such a state can see an impression about to produce a typical response in him and say "Yes" to it, or "No". If the response the impression is about to cause is contrary to the man's aim and the man says "No" to it, then he is keeping his aim. He is working on himself and in that moment he has sacrificed something. What has he sacrificed? The satisfaction of reacting as usual—that is, mechanically—the satisfaction, let us say, of feeling aggrieved, or the satisfaction of some unpleasant thought or some unpleasant manifestation, and so on. All this involves a struggle which is very quick and does not shew itself externally. It takes place within a man and has to do with his inner assent or inner refusal. It takes place where a man should be conscious, where he should be awake—and where, actually, he is asleep. This place can be found. It is the place where the First Conscious Shock is given.
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Part II.—As was said, a man should always remember his aim when he remembers himself. A man cannot develop unless he remembers himself, for his point of development is at the point where he remembers himself. And here is the point where a man can struggle consciously. For a man to develop, a struggle must be set up in him—a struggle between "Yes" and "No", a struggle between aim and not-aim. But everything will depend on the nature of this struggle—that is, upon what a man struggles for and what he remembers as Yes and what as No. Upon this the result of the struggle will depend.
As a rule, there is no struggle in a man's inner life. In a mechanical man, a man who does not remember himself, a man of routine who reacts mechanically to his surroundings, in his own acquired way, who goes with his acquired habits, there is no inner struggle. A struggle only begins when he goes against his routine, his mechanicalness, which he imagines he follows from his will. But if a struggle does begin in him, especially if there is a continued and definite line in this struggle, then gradually more and more permanent traits begin to form in him as a result. But what kind of permanent traits begin to form in him will depend on the nature of the struggle and upon what is "Yes" and what is "No". A man may have a hard life, he may have to deny himself, to struggle with great adversity and hardship and so on, and as a result permanent traits may begin to form in him. But it does not follow that these permanent traits are desirable or useful to his right development in the Work—they may indeed very easily stand in the way of his real inner development. That is, before the man can develop aright, these permanent traits may have to be dissolved and a new starting-point made, and this may be impossible. A fanatical belief may cause permanent traits to form in a man so strongly that what is called in this system crystallization takes place in him. Something crystallizes out in a man—something hard in the sense of its being unyielding, permanent, fixed. This word crystallization is the term used in the Work to describe some degree of inner fusion of qualities.
One meaning of the saying of Christ: "Except ye turn and become as little children ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. XVIII 3) is that a man meeting this Work must always turn back and begin again, owing to the wrong ideas and attitudes and the wrong development life has given him. And this is all the more difficult if there is some degree of crystallization in him. That is so when more or less permanent traits have been formed. Crystallization can take place for different reasons. For example, fear can set up a struggle in a man. He may struggle in order to overcome fear, in order to shew he is not afraid, or he may struggle because he is terrified of failure: or he may struggle because of some punishment he dreads such as fear of sin or fear of hell. In the latter case he may struggle with himself with the greatest violence and as a result "crystallizes out". What is the basis of his crystallization? The basis is fear. The fear of sin, of hell, can evoke a terrible internal struggle between "Yes" and "No"; but if a man crystallizes
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out on this foundation, he crystallizes in a wrong way. Fear is not a right basis for crystallization. It is not only a wrong, but an incomplete crystallization, for in right crystallization all that is useful and capable of growth in a man must be included. Fear is negative. Such a man will not possess any further possibility of development as he is. For a further development to take place, he must first of all be melted down and this can only be accomplished by terrible suffering. All this basis of fear must be removed. What is the result of wrong crystallization? It means that something so permanent and so resistant is formed in a man that it may survive death and may once more enter into the world in another body. This is because a certain inner fusion has taken place, through the friction of the struggle between "Yes" and "No". But, as was said, friction through the struggle between "Yes" and "No" can easily take place on a wrong foundation, and result in a wrong, incomplete crystallization. In other words crystallization is possible on any foundation good or bad, the result being a certain "psychic" permanence capable of resisting and surviving death for a certain time and even of finding another physical body and entering life. For example, a man may crystallize out on the basis of revenge or hatred, and through denying himself everything that does not aid his possibilities of revenge and hatred, he may form something permanent in him that can exist after the death of the physical body—something evil.
Speaking of this possibility of psychic crystallization on any foundation, G. once said: "Take for example a brigand, a really good, genuine brigand. I knew such brigands in the Caucasus. He will stand with a rifle behind a stone by the roadside for eight hours without stirring. Could you do this? All the time, mind you, a struggle is going on in him. He is thirsty and hot, flies are biting him; but he stands still. Another is a monk; he is afraid of the devil; all night long he beats his head on the floor and prays. Thus crystallization is achieved. In such ways people can generate in themselves an enormous inner strength; they can endure torture; they can get what they want. This means that there is now in them something solid, something permanent. Such people can become immortal. But what is the good of it? A man of this kind becomes an 'immortal thing', although a certain amount of consciousness is sometimes preserved in him. But even this, it must be remembered, occurs very rarely."
In the above two examples given by G. you will see how in the first case a man can crystallize wrongly with an ordinary life-aim, and in the second, with a so-called "religious" aim. For right crystallization to take place, the struggle between "Yes" and "No" must be on a higher level of understanding. A man must not crystallize in small parts of centres, or in negative parts. He must first gain possession of right knowledge and then must begin to understand it and apply it to himself. Unless he is given right knowledge and begins to understand and apply it, he will not know what he must struggle with; and he may indeed start to struggle with something that will only do him harm. In this connection, it is
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interesting to notice what the Work teaches us to begin to observe and struggle with.
You will see that what it is here important to grasp is the quality of the struggle of Yes and No. What quality, what kind, of Yes and No does a man remember when he remembers himself? If a man remembers all he understands of the Work and its teaching, then the quality of his Yes and No, in his inner struggle with himself, will be right, and if crystallization begins in him on the foundation of the Work, it will be a right crystallization.
Thank you