Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. Volume 2
The doctrine of 'I's is the most important part of the psychological
teaching of this Work. Unless a person begins to see that he is not one
he can never be otherwise than completely identified with himself. Just
think what this means. I repeat that unless a person begins to see that
he is not one but many different 'I's he cannot be otherwise than completely
identified with himself in everything that he does and thinks and
feels. Now such a man cannot evolve. Being fixed to himself as he is,
he cannot separate himself from himself. When you speak to a man like
this he is very surprised when he is told to observe himself and he is
quite incapable of understanding what it means.
Now all evolution in the Work-sense depends on a certain number of
'I's moving into new positions and gradually gaining an increasing
control over the remaining 'I's. If a man were just one and the same
'I' it would be impossible of course for this to happen.
The new position
into which these 'I's, upon which a person's evolution depends, have
to move, is towards a more central position in the person and at the same
time, if it is possible to explain it, they must have a special place, they
cannot be on the same level as the other 'I's, they must be given a
certain rank, a certain distinction, or, as the Work puts it, a certain
valuation—otherwise immediately a man gets immersed in the affairs
of life, making money, etc. these 'I's will all get scattered and in a short
time a man will not know what on earth this Work is about, even if he
caught some glimpse of it before. Of course this depends on the kind
of man he is.
If a man has Magnetic Centre, if he has always felt that
there is more in things than appears on the surface, if he has noticed that certain kinds of teaching very similar in nature have always existed which are quite different from those referring to the affairs of life,
then it will be possible for him to understand what it means to keep
certain 'I's in him away from the street, from the level of the ordinary
traffic. For a man who is purely material, to whom everything real is
merely what he can see and touch, this will be impossible, And so for
the same reason individual evolution will be impossible. For a long
time we can observe the struggle going on in ourselves with regard to
the above situation.
Sometimes individual evolution is defined in the Work as a new
growth of Essence. Taking Essence simply as, something more internal
than Personality, it means that Essense is a growth of something internal,
rather than external in Personality. Personality surrounds Essence and
so is external. As we know, Personality—that is, the acquired side of us
—may so surround Essence that a person becomes dead. He is completely
cut off from Essence. He may appear to be a very highly organized
being or have a strong Personality and so on, and yet he is dead.
Now when a man is held by Personality there is no real man inside him.
I would ask you to pay attention to what is going to be said. If a man
is held by Personality and by nothing deeper he is not a man at all and
there can be no individual evolution of him.
When, however, a man
is held by something internal to Personality he begins to be a man and
is capable of an individual evolution into a conscious being. We are,
of course, mere outlines, experiments. We are experiments in the
creation of a self-developing being. At the same time we have to be
able to live in ordinary life. For this reason Personality is acquired,
which enables us to make contact with outer life and to do our work and
so on. But this is only an external development. You can talk, if you
like, about the evolution of the Personality, but this is not what the
Work means by individual evolution. Certainly this is a preliminary
step, and the richer the Personality, the more material, the more
inscribed rolls in centres, the more experiences, the more knowledge,
the better. But this does not make Essence grow. Essence can only
grow through the weakening of the Personality.
From the ordinary
state of an adult person where the Personality is active and the Essence
is passive a new state must be eventually reached in which the Essence
is active and the Personality passive. You can understand that this is a
very long journey and you can also understand that you cannot
understand it right away. But it is very useful to remember it very
often, especially in moments of struggle.