(50.) Maurice Nicoll 1 - Knowledge - Introduction - p.207-9
This is number (50.) 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, December 27, 1942
KNOWLEDGE - INTRODUCTION
To-night I wish first to speak of the "Work Octave". This sounds Do as Evaluation of the Work. This means that nothing can begin unless there is valuation. And this is not anything mysterious. You will not begin anything unless you think it worth while, and the worth of a thing is its value for you. If you regard a thing as worthless you do not value it. Now this note Do is not necessarily sounded just when you come in contact with the Work. It may be. That is, when you hear the ideas of the Work they may fall on some ready-prepared place in you—that is, on Magnetic Centre. You may feel that here is what you have wanted. This valuation is due to the action of the kind of Magnetic
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Centre in you. And in different people Magnetic Centre is different. But it lies in emotional parts of centres—that is, it lies in the places where you feel worth, where you feel valuation, for valuation is emotional. But this, so to speak, first-love will not last. It may be a very beautiful feeling, yet it passes away, having fulfilled its task, and you are left to the task of re-valuation. For Magnetic Centre may bring a person into the Work but it will not keep him in it. No doubt everyone has known the first feelings of love, those extraordinary and unearthly feelings that come in early life, which are not physical but rather devotional, and which seem to be touched by influences coming from the Higher Emotional Centre. And then, later, comes quite a different task—that of practical relationship. It is just the same in regard to the Work. And I have often thought that we repeat the history of our life of love in the Work itself. In my own case I know that when I first met the Work I felt again the same wonder, the same sense of mystery, of the miraculous, that I had felt in my earliest youth—feelings indeed that seemed self-sustaining and only slightly connected with an outer object, a person. But whatever early emotions we may have felt in connection with the ideas of the Work and the discovery that such a thing really exists, whatever extraordinary feelings we may have experienced, they are not enough. Even if we have right Magnetic Centre, the feelings and emotions that spring from it will not last. We must get to know the object of our love and relate ourselves to it practically. This note is called Re in the Work Octave. The note Re is sounded when a person begins to study the ideas of the Work and its teaching, and, begins to apply the Work to himself. This note Re is called "Application of the Work to Oneself". And if the note Do, sounded first by Magnetic Centre, does not change its quality, but remains simply as a feeling of the miraculous, the note Re will not sound strongly. Yet no one will pass into the Work unless there is some initial feeling of the miraculous. That is, a man must feel the difference between life and the Work. Otherwise the Work will fall on the places life falls on in him—that is, on those parts of centres that cannot receive and are not meant to receive the Work. Man has parts of centres for life and parts of centres for the Work. He is constructed for life and for the Work. And, not possessing Magnetic Centre, he will take in the ideas of the Work on his life-parts-of-centres. He will try to add the Work directly to life as if it were the same thing. He will pour new wine into old bottles, patch his old coat with new cloth. It is the function of Magnetic Centre to prevent this. Magnetic Centre is sometimes defined as the capacity of distinguishing between A and B influences, between life-influences, influences created in mechanical life, and influences that come from outside life and are sown into mechanical life. Unless Magnetic Centre existed, nothing would be possible as regards inner evolution. No transformation of the feeling of life or of the feeling of oneself would be possible. Yet, as was said, Magnetic Centre, once its part is played, is no longer of use. It introduces you to a new world. And you must then find your way. That
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is, it may bring a man to the Work and make it possible for him to value the Work, but that is all. A man must then revalue the Work for himself by the application of the ideas of the Work to himself and to his whole standpoint, and this will strengthen Do in him. That is, the note Re will strengthen the note Do in him, and change its quality to a conscious evaluation. Seeing the truth of the Work, a man will value it in a more and more conscious way, and this re-valuation will strengthen Do and make it a real Do. For we must consider whether a Do sounded by Magnetic Centre is really a consciously sounded Do.
The third note in the Work Octave, the note Mi, is called "Realization of Personal Difficulties". You can easily understand that this has many sides to it, many different meanings for each person. There are, for example, personal difficulties that appear in regard to one's being. And there are personal difficulties connected with one's knowledge—that is, in accepting certain sides of the Work as knowledge. For there are many strange ideas that relate to the knowledge side of the Work—ideas that we have heard many times, but have not yet begun to acknowledge. In this Work we have to think in a new way. And this is possible only through new knowledge, for you will always think in the same way unless you have new knowledge. New thinking demands new knowledge, but new knowledge will not make you think in a new way unless it is acknowledged. Yet, you must be able to think in a new way, for otherwise you will never see your life and never see the meaning of the Work. Work on knowledge is as difficult as Work on being. And it is even more difficult. All this belongs to realization of personal difficulties—the note Mi.
There are many difficult things said in the Work. This means that many things are said that strike against our usual forms of knowledge. You will meet with this in every form of esoteric teaching. For instance, Christ many times said to his disciples: "If you can bear it." And this means that knowledge—great knowledge—knowledge about Man and his situation on earth and his possibilities—is not something that you can take in an everyday way, or join up with ordinary knowledge or think about as being foolish because it does not correspond with your opinion. Great knowledge demands great sacrifice and a long struggle with oneself. Now to-night I want to give you the Work teaching on knowledge itself, which is not at all easy to accept and must be thought of for a long time to become part of one's mind.