(5.) Maurice Nicoll 1 - Introductory Note and Commentary I - On Additional Means Of Self-Observation - pp.15-19
This is number 5.) 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, May 29, 1941
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO COMMENTARIES ON WORK IDEAS
In the teaching of the ideas of this system of work, it is necessary to give the work-ideas in pure form—that is, the work-ideas as originally taught must be handed on just as they were taught. This is the task of anyone who is given permission to teach the work to others. Otherwise people begin to alter the ideas a little according to their own level of understanding, with the result that in process of time they become quite different, according to each person's prejudices, buffers, bias, and so on. In the talks about the work itself, the ideas are given in their original form. But the object of the work-ideas is to make people think for themselves by means of them, for none of the ideas of the work can really take hold of a person unless he or she begins to think about them and tries to see what they mean individually, and begins to value them and think about life and its meaning and themselves from the standpoint of these ideas. And it must be added here that no one can be different from what he is now unless he begins to think in a new way. The work is to make us think and awaken our individual minds or what is called in this system the driver in us, which in the vast majority of people is fast asleep and remains fast asleep throughout life in spite of all troubles and disasters, one reason being that man prefers to live in the basement of himself, in the lower part of him—in the instinctive and moving centres—that is, in sensation, appetites, and muscular activity. But since the first object of the work is to make people think for themselves about
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its ideas and from its ideas, what are called commentaries have a place in the work.
Commentaries are reflections about the work, individual thoughts arising out of it through personal observation and application of the work-ideas practically, additional illustrations, and so on. These commentaries form, therefore, an additional side of the work, but they are, so to speak, personal contributions to the general system of ideas of the work and therefore must never be taken as being the actual teaching of the work itself or confused with it, and they can be accepted or not, according to individual choice. The teaching of the work-ideas is one thing: the commentaries are another thing. The teaching of the work-ideas is permanent. The commentaries are of another order and more in the nature of suggestions, possible amplifications, explanations, and so on. But as a body, the commentaries are merely additional and may be changed according to circumstances. The important thing is to be able to remember what is the work itself and what belongs merely to commentaries, as they are called. In this respect, it must be understood that there are several things in the work, as it has been given so far, that are obscure and need some additional thoughts, in order to try to make their meaning more distinct. But such additional thoughts are nothing but commentaries. They are additional material, and nothing more, and as I said, can be accepted or not according to individual choice. If they assist in understanding the work better, they are useful, and if not, they need not be taken as the work itself. The commentaries on the work fall under two headings. The first is: commentaries which contain ideas not definitely found in the work itself. The second is: commentaries which are merely additional reflections and illustrations directly referring to one or another aspect of the work—such as commentaries on self-observation, self-remembering, and so on.
COMMENTARY I - Birdlip, May 29, 1941
ON ADDITIONAL MEANS OF SELF-OBSERVATION
I
Can you observe the difference between your own lives and life in general? What do you mean by the term my life—as when you say: "My life has been a happy life" or "My life has been an unhappy life"? Do you mean that outside things have been pleasant or otherwise, or inside things—that your moods and feelings and so on have been pleasant or otherwise? You will agree with me that sometimes a person who is in a good external situation in life with enough money and with pleasant surroundings, and without any serious trouble, etc., is unhappy and miserable, and on the other hand that a person in very different
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and even adverse circumstances is often quite the reverse. Let us look at this situation more closely. What is one's life—this thing we talk of so glibly without seeing what it is? When people gratuitously wish to tell the history of their lives, what do they speak of? They speak of events, of other people, of external things. But one's life consists of two distinct things, which for the purposes of self-observation must be realized. One's life consists not only of events, but of states. States are inner and events are outer. States are states of oneself, that is, inner states, such as bad moods, habits of worrying, habits of fear and superstition, forebodings, depression, on the one hand, or, on the other hand, better states, states of feeling happy, states of enjoyment, and mercy. They are in oneself—that is, all states are states of oneself. Events are external and come in to us from outside. Now one's inner state may correspond to an external event, or may be caused by it or may have no relation to it. But it is necessary to try to see that states and events are two different things, first of all, before thinking of how they may be connected together. Take, for instance, a pleasant event. Does your inner state correspond with it? Can you say for certain that when the outer event occurs your inner state corresponds to it? Say you know some desirable event is going to happen and you look forward to it. Can you say that when it does come about, your inner state can meet with it in a delightful way? Or will you admit that, though the event happens perhaps even as you hoped, something frequently is lacking? What is lacking? What is lacking is the corresponding inner state to combine, as it were, with the outer event that was so eagerly anticipated. And, as you probably all know, it is usually the entirely unexpected event that affords us our best moments.
Now let us take this idea—namely, the correspondence of inner states and outer events. Unless we have in ourselves the right state we cannot combine rightly with the happy event—that is to say, something in us must exist to engage with and so enjoy the outer event. Yet people are very much inclined, in thinking of their lives, as I said, to believe that their lives are only outer events and that if a certain number of outer events of one kind or another have or have not happened to them, their lives have been unfortunate. But a person's capacity for life depends on his inner development—that is, on the quality of his inner states. For internally, in regard to our states, lies the apparatus for living, and if this apparatus is, for example, swamped by self-pity and worries and other negative emotions, no matter how delightful the outer events, nothing can happen rightly, simply because the apparatus for living—that is, the person in himself—is quite unable to combine in a fortunate way with such events that come from external life that might give him some pleasure and delight. A person may look forward to a trip abroad and when it comes about, it is an event. But he may be so mean, so careful about small unimportant things, etc., that the whole trip is nothing but a disaster. And in such a case it will be the man's inner state that is at fault. So if we ask ourselves what our life consists of, we cannot say
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merely of events, but that it consists far more of states. Suppose that a man, whose chief love is to be pessimistic and melancholy and gloomy, complains to you that life is a bad business and not worth living, will you suppose that this is caused by a lack of suitable events or by the man's inner states, and will you be so silly as to think by arranging a nice party for him he will change? The disease is in the man himself—and how many people do you not observe every day who make their own life and the lives of others miserable owing to their wicked inner states—and who, in fact, deserve imprisonment because they have not begun to see what their own inner lives really are and imagine life, as it is called, as being something altogether outside them?
Now in self-observation, try to distinguish between outer events and inner states and notice where you are standing both in relation to your inner state and to the nature of the outer event. Outer events are of any kind. Outer life is not a smooth sheet of paper that we are crawling over like ants. It is full of hills and valleys, of good weather and bad weather. This is the nature of life—but, as a rule, all events we take as exceptional, or at least unpleasant ones, as illness, war, etc. Life is a series of different events coming along, on larger and smaller scales, to meet you, and each event has its special nature. And inner states are again of every kind. All personal work is about inner states and you have all heard of what wrong states one must work on and try not to identify with. If you work on these wrong states and try to separate yourselves from them, then the unpleasant events of life will not catch you, as it were, so easily, and draw force from you. Events are influences changing at every moment in their various combinations, and some are better than others, but all have to be taken consciously, even good ones—at this low level, where we are in the universe—namely, on the earth—and some of them are very dangerous and must not be identified with at all costs. From what has been said, it will become clearer that one's life is more to be thought of as one's inner states and a true history of one's life would be a history of one's inner states and negative emotions especially. To live anyhow in oneself—in this internal vast world accessible only to each person through individual self-observation and always invisible to others—is the worst crime we can commit. So this work begins with self-observation and noticing wrong states in oneself and working against them. In this way the inner life becomes purified and since our inner life attracts our outer life, by changing our inner states, starving some and nourishing others, we also alter not only our relation to events coming from outside but even the nature of the events that come to us day by day. Only in this way can we change the nature of events that happen to us. We cannot change them directly, but only through changing states—that is, through beginning to put this disorderly house we live in into some order. It is not the events of to-day that happened to you that matter—such as that you lost something or something went wrong or someone forgot you or spoke to you harshly, etc., etc.—but how you reacted to it all—
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that is, what states of yourself you were in—for it is here that your real life lies and if our inner states were right nothing in the nature of external states could overcome us. Try therefore to distinguish, as an exercise in living more consciously, between inner states and outer events, and try to meet any outer event, after noticing its nature, with the right inner attitude—that is, with the right state. And if you cannot, think afterwards about it—first try to define the nature of the event and notice if this kind of event often comes to you and try to see it more clearly in terms such as "This is called being late" or "This is called losing things" or "This is called receiving bad news" or "This is called unpleasant surprises" or "This is called hard work" or "This is called being ill". Begin in this very simple way and you will soon see how different personal events, and so how in this respect one's outer life, are changing all the time, and what you could not do at one moment, you can at another. For events as it were are like the opening and shutting of doors. Then you will be able to see, in regard to the small events of daily life, what events are partly due to your own cause, and what are accidental, and so on. And then think about your state and with what state you usually meet some rather typical event and whether the state is, as it were, the right tool to use, the right ticket to offer, the right method to employ for that event. Towards very many events one has to learn to be passive—i.e., not react at all, not do anything. But to be passive demands a great inner activity of consciousness, to prevent any mechanical reaction taking place when the event, coming in as a mechanical impression, touches the purely associative machinery of mind and feeling which we mistakenly take as ourselves.