(58.) - Maurice Nicoll 1 - Thinking from Life and Thinking from the Work (II) - p.243-8
This is number (58.) 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, February 8, 1943
THINKING FROM LIFE AND THINKING FROM THE WORK - PAPER II
There are two practical sides to this Work called the line of work on knowledge and the line of work on being. No one can work on the second line—the line of being—unless he has worked on the line of knowledge. That is, a man must know first what he has to work upon in his being.
Knowledge is a matter belonging to the Intellectual Centre. This must change first, before anything else can change. A man must absorb new knowledge before he can change. The knowledge of this Work needs to be thought about. Thinking is the function of the Intellectual Centre. If you do not think about the knowledge the Work is teaching you, then your mind cannot change. And if your mind does not change, you cannot change.
You may believe that it makes no difference how you think. But it is important, in the Work, not to think wrongly. Every time you think, you make a track in the mind. If you think wrongly, you make a wrong track and the mind becomes like a delicate electrical machine which is all wrongly connected. This certainly is the ordinary effect of life on the mind. But the ideas of the Work are to make right connections and so give you a new mind. The Work is rich in ideas and the Work as a whole can form a complete mental organism in the mind. Life does not do this. The ideas you learn from life are confused and contradictory. They cannot form the mind on all its sides. But the Work ideas can. They relate everything rightly in giving the right scale to things. This is because they come from Conscious Man.
Last time the first part of the paper on "Thinking from Life and Thinking from the Work" was read. This followed on the talks about the Four Bodies that exist in a fully conscious man. Now, although the subject is difficult to understand, as you were warned, it is not so difficult to understand the idea of a man being worked from outside or from inside. You remember the diagram with the arrows:
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This is an ordinary man, having one organized body—the physical body, represented by the first room—and nothing organized in the second or third rooms, and no entry into the Fourth Room. Such a man is acted upon from outside, from life, from the body, from the senses, from what he sees, hears and touches. He is undeveloped Man, or Man-Machine, because he is driven like a cog-wheel by the great wheel of life.
Let us take the second diagram, representing a fully conscious man:
In his case Will controls him, acting through his developed bodies in the direction of the arrow. That is, he is not controlled from outside, by life, but from within. Notice the direction of the arrows, in the two cases. The diagrams represent a man controlled from outside and a man controlled from within. Let us simply take this general idea.
Now as long as we think from life we are controlled by life. To create anything mentally in ourselves that can resist life we must think from the Work. We are given in this Work a system of ideas which, if connected rightly, will relate us in a new way to every side of life. When the Work ideas are assimilated and lived they transform the way in which you take life and take yourself. But this cannot happen if you do not think from the Work. Until the Work ideas are rightly connected, the third room will never be properly furnished or organized. But if these ideas become connected rightly in you then your mind will become a receiver, an organized instrument, that can pick up the vibrations of Higher Centres, of finer and finer meaning, and then you will be taught from within. If you think from the Work you will think from inside. The mind, strengthened by receiving the ideas of the Work and thinking from them, will form something organized, something within and independent of outer life.
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Let us continue to study one of the Work-ideas, in the light of what has just been said. We spoke last time of the Work-ideas about evolution. It was pointed out that the Work teaches that the general evolution of Man cannot be taken apart from the general evolution of the part of the Universe in which we live. We spoke of the evolution of
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the planets and the evolution of Mankind and the connection between them. It was said that the evolution of Mankind as a whole cannot go faster than the evolution of the earth with its attendant moon. That is, Mankind's evolution as distinct from one man's evolution is in terms of planetary time, which is prodigious time for us—thousands of millions of years. So for practical purposes, Mankind does not evolve mechanically, and there is no mechanical progress. If a person is told that in, say, a thousand million years, all Mankind may possibly be on a higher level of evolution, it cannot interest him in any genuine way or really alter anything for him in his daily life and his difficulties.
Now, in connection with "thinking from the Work", let us take the phrase: "Mankind on earth is an experiment of the Solar Laboratory". It may easily prove that this experiment will be useless and be set aside as a failure. That is, in a thousand million years, Mankind may not be in any higher state, but perhaps may have been made like the ants, discarded as being of no importance and made to follow a useless cycle of toil that leads in no direction, and from which there is no way out. But this can only happen if the primary reason for Man's creation on earth is not fulfilled. The primary reason is individual evolution. If the conditions for the individual evolution of an individual man are destroyed, then the experiment of Man on earth will prove a failure. And if Man tampers with himself, with his body, with his glands, and so on, as the ants appear to have done, then one of the conditions of evolution will be destroyed. If the experiment of Man on earth proves a failure, this will mean also that there will be no evolution for Mankind in general in terms of planetary time and planetary evolution. Everything depends upon the primary reason for Man's creation on earth—namely, individual evolution. Man is created a self-developing organism and if the conditions for his self-development are destroyed, then Mankind, as an experiment, becomes useless. The Sun sows Man on earth primarily as a being capable of a definite inner development and secondarily to serve nature, to serve the necessities of the Ray of Creation. That is, Man taken individually has quite a different meaning from Man taken collectively. Evolution is possible for a man: but it is not possible for Mankind. A single individual can come under the influences descending from the level of the Divine Intelligence of the Sun. But Mankind as a mass has a cosmic function and is under the influences of the earth and the moon. Mankind as a mass serves the Ray together with the rest of Organic Life at the point where a sensitive transmitter or shock is required between the notes Fa and Mi. This is the teaching of the Work about evolution. Unless the mind grasps it and thinks from it, a person will think wrongly—that is, he will not think from the ideas of the Work. Of course we are only taking one example here. But if a man does not think from the ideas of the Work, the Work will be faint and weak in him.
One difficulty in thinking in this way, in the above example, is due to the fact that people think that the masses do things. They do not realize that only individuals do anything. Cultures have been founded by
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individual men, never by the masses. Humanity, the masses, never do anything save that they destroy often enough what individual men have built. All progress in the sciences is the work of individual men, not of the masses. All art, architecture, music, is due to the work of individual men. The explanation is that a mass of people is on a lower level than a single individual and so, from this point of view, evolution is only possible for individuals and not for the masses.
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Now if you are going to think from the Work, you must grasp the meaning of esoteric teaching. You have been told that unless the Sun receives a sufficient quantity of evolving beings rising from the earth, the primary object of Man's creation will not be fulfilled. The chief conditions under which an individual man can evolve depends upon the existence of esoteric teaching on the earth and its reception by those capable of understanding it. Esoteric teaching is about inner evolution. It comes from the level of the Sun. That is, it comes from the circle of Conscious Humanity. Fully-developed man, fully-evolved man, is at the level of the intelligence of the Sun. From this level, teaching is sown on the earth. If the conditions of life are such that esoteric teaching, whether in religious form or otherwise, cannot exist on the earth, then Man is doomed to failure, and another experiment will have to be made. Now since the evolution of Man depends on contact with the Conscious Circle of Humanity, let us try to understand what takes place when a teaching is sown on the earth. All real teaching begins with the formation of a school. A school is not open to life as is an ordinary school, but it has some similarities. For instance, no one can enter a real school without long preliminary training. Everyone has to reach a certain level of understanding, just as, to enter, let us say, a University, a man must be able to pass certain examinations. Speaking very briefly, a school only lasts for a certain time, just as does a religion. That is, it dies in so far as it no longer conducts any force. Everything on earth has its period of life. A religion can become mechanical and no longer capable of awaking the inner side of a man. Its inner meaning is lost, and ritual and outer form only remain. The meaning has been lost —that is, the force. But esoteric teaching does not die. When a particular school on earth, or a religion, dies, then there is always another school, another form of teaching arising. Esoteric teaching continues. It preserves itself. The Ark riding on the flood of evil refers to this idea. Christ's parables about the vineyard that might be destroyed refer to an esoteric school of teaching, not to esotericism itself. But all these matters must be spoken of later. The point is that if Man loses touch with esoteric teaching, he is cut off and must degenerate. We cannot speak fully about schools in this paper. The main thing to grasp is that any real teaching coming from the Conscious Circle of Humanity can only exist in a school and be transmitted orally. When it passes into life, when it is written down, it becomes changed. One reason for the
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change is that the mind of Conscious Man thinks in a way in which ordinary minds cannot think. Conscious Man thinks psychologically: mechanical man thinks logically. This change is expressed in the Work by the diagram of the three influences called C, B and A. C influences are directly from Conscious Humanity. When they enter the circle of mechanical life they are changed into B influences. A influences are the influences created in life, by wars, money, politics, science, business, and so on.
In the mechanical circle of life, A and B influences exist. A man who possesses Magnetic Centre is aware of this. But a man who does not, cannot perceive it. A influences drive life and produce the ordinary history of the world. Now the Conscious Circle of Humanity cannot communicate directly with the mechanical circle of humanity, for they would not be understood. The Conscious Circle of Humanity understand one another, but mechanical men would understand in quite different ways and begin to quarrel and break one another's heads. And this actually does take place. If all Mankind were developing, if all were overcoming their violence, their state of sleep, their negative emotions, their internal considering—in fact—doing this Work—then it would be possible. But for this understanding to begin to be possible, men would have to speak a common language. But there is no common language, and so people do not and cannot possibly understand one another. Only the Conscious Circle of Humanity—that is, No. 5, No. 6 and No. 7 Man—can understand one another. No. 4 men begin to understand one another—that is, people developed in all 3 centres and so balanced men. But the circle of mechanical humanity—No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 Man—cannot understand one another. They are respectively one-centre men, one-sided, and so unbalanced. In the study of this Work, we are learning a common language by means of which we can begin to understand one another. You have only to realize the difference between talking to a person who knows this Work and a person who knows nothing to realize a little what this means. It makes no difference whether you learn this Work in Russian or French or English. You are, just the same, learning a common language. And, in a sense, it can be said that we are studying the language of Conscious
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Humanity. And that is why it is important to learn it and understand it and think in terms of it—that is, think from the Work. If everyone on earth began to study and speak a common language, in this respect, then it might be possible for Mankind to take a step forward. It would be possible for something universally agreed upon to develop. It would be possible for everyone to make the necessary sacrifices and efforts at the right time, when shocks were necessary, so as to fulfil the demands of the Law of the Octave. And the Work teaches that a step forward is now possible and that Man need not "serve the Moon" as formerly. But look what is happening. Is there any less servitude on earth even though there is less servitude needed by the moon?
Now if you will leave the world of If, the world of phantasy and imagination, and think practically, you will realize the difficulty of any step forward. You have only to notice how difficult it is for yourself to learn the common language of the Work and how difficult it is to keep awake and make the necessary efforts that this Work teaches. Habit is so strong. And do not blame the Conscious Circle of Humanity. Man has been given many things to ease his life, but he misuses them all. Look at to-day—all the world turning to making weapons as never before. Yet everything that can be done to make men evolve individually has been done and is done. But there can be no mass-evolution, no forced evolution, no evolution by command or by compulsion. For all evolution is a matter of the individual understanding—of a man seeing for himself. The right inner development of a man and his right crystallization depend upon understanding. And you know that from the esoteric point of view a man is his understanding: and a man's understanding is what he is. But you cannot make a man understand. You cannot force him to understand why he should not act as he does, or compel him to understand that he should not speak as he does. There can be no violence, no collective coercion and above all no physical fear used—for fear does not develop the understanding. You cannot make a dog understand what you want him to do by fear. You can only teach him what he must not do by that method and he will never understand why. Our case is the same. The Esoteric Circle of Humanity cannot force Man to understand. It cannot appear visibly in some supernatural or terrible way to Man—for then Man would be forced by the evidence of his senses and also forced by fear. He would be forced from outside. But that is not understanding, which depends on your seeing the meaning of something for yourself. And to see the meaning of something is internal and develops the internal side of a man, so that it becomes stronger than the outer, life-driven side. It is necessary to see the difference between seeing something with the senses and understanding something with the mind. A man's evolution is inner. His possibilities, as a created being, lie in a development of the mind and emotions—of his knowledge and being. And these form his understanding. Only through understanding is development possible. This is the basis of the Fourth Way—understanding.