G.I.Gurdjieff

It is by means of buffers that we can always be in the right. They thus help us not to feel our “conscience.”

the concept “conscience” in the sphere of the feeling is what the concept “consciousness” is in the sphere of the mind.

These moments can become longer if one does not resist or turn away out of fear, but instead accepts and tries to prolong them. Then a certain subtle joy, a foretaste of “clear consciousness,” gradually will enter into the experience. When there are no contradictions, conscience does not involve suffering but brings a wholly new kind of joy that we are unable to understand.

Waking up is possible only for those who want it and seek it, for those who are ready to struggle long and persistently in order to attain it. For this, it is necessary to go out to meet all the inner sufferings that come from feeling our own contradictions, from the awakening of conscience. Because we all have a multitude of contradictory “I’s,” even a momentary awakening of conscience is bound to involve suffering.

Consciousness is a state in which a person knows all at once everything that he in general knows, and sees how little he actually knows and how many contradictions there are in his knowledge. Conscience is a state in which a person feels all at once everything that he in general feels, or can feel.

With us everything gets “done”; we do not “do” anything. We are machines controlled by accidental shocks from outside. Each shock calls one of our “I’s” to the surface. A new shock comes along, and this “I” disappears and a different one takes its place. With every change there is a new “I.”

It is necessary to observe oneself differently than we do in ordinary
life. We need to have a different attitude than before, a different inner posture. We want knowledge—that is, to “know”—but what we have had until now is not “knowing.” It is only mechanical collecting of information in which our cognition is not our own but merely the function of what goes on in us. For example, in a lecture one person listens with his mind and another with his feeling. When asked to repeat what is heard, each retells it in his own way in accordance with his inner state at the moment. If an hour later the first person hears something unpleasant and the second is engaged in solving a mathematical problem, the first will repeat what he heard colored by his feeling and the second will do it in a logical form. All this is because only one center is working—in this case, either mind or feeling.

Understanding, however, is perception not by one but by at least two centers. There exists a more complete perception, but for the moment it is enough if we make one center monitor the other. If one center perceives and the other approves or rejects the perception, this is understanding.

If an argument between centers fails to produce a definite result, it will be half-understanding. Half-understanding is also no good. It is necessary that everything we listen to should be listened to not with one but with at least two centers. Otherwise, it will be, as before, a mere accumulation of new information.

In certain Eastern teachings the body, emotions and mind are incorporated in the analogy of a rig or team with a carriage, horse, driver and master. The carriage is connected with the horse by shafts, the horse with the driver by reins and the driver with the master by the master’s voice. But the driver must be able to hear and understand what the master is saying, and he must know how to drive. The horse must be trained to obey the reins, and be properly harnessed to the carriage. And the carriage must be in good working order.