G.I.Gurdjieff

work on ourselves cannot proceed until we begin to be free from this illusion. We must realize that we do not exist, and therefore have nothing to lose. We must realize our “nothingness” in the full sense of the word. It is this consciousness of one’s nothingness that alone can conquer the fear of accepting the conditions of a school of the Fourth Way.

We have to recognize that “schools” are imperative because of the complexity of the human organization. No one is able to keep watch on the whole of himself, on all his different sides. Only school conditions can do this, with methodology and discipline. By ourselves we are too lazy.

In work on oneself the only effort that counts is super-effort, that is, effort which goes beyond what is usual and necessary. Ordinary efforts are not enough.

This means that a given activity of the thinking center is always coordinated with specific activities of the feeling and moving centers—that a certain kind of thought is inevitably coordinated with a certain kind of feeling (or mental state) and with a certain kind of movement (or posture). And one evokes the other; that is, a certain kind of feeling (or mental state) evokes certain movements or postures and certain thoughts, and a certain kind of movement or posture evokes certain emotions or mental states, and so forth. All of these things are coordinated, and none of them can exist without the others.

The formal discipline of a school is the only way to work effectively on the moving center. This is important because its malfunctioning, or its independent or automatic functioning, deprives the other centers of the support needed for working in a new way. They involuntarily follow the moving center, so that this kind of work is often possible only by beginning with the moving center, that is, with the body. A body that is lazy, automatic, and full of stupid habits prevents us from doing any kind of real work.

We see many things in other people that we do not see in ourselves, but we begin to recognize these features as our own and to realize that the other members of the group are like mirrors in which we see ourselves. But, of course, to see oneself in other people’s faults and not merely judge them, one must be on guard and sincere with oneself. We must remember that each of us is divided: a part of us wants to wake up, and the other part, our personality, has no such desire.

Speaking generally, we can say that the thinking function always operates by way of comparison; that is, that intellectual conclusions are the result of comparison. Feeling and sensing, on the other hand, are not rational functions. They do not compare but simply define a given impression by its aspect—by its being pleasant or unpleasant in one way or another, or by its sensory perception, such as its color, taste or smell. Moreover, sensations can be
indifferent—neither pleasant nor unpleasant. In the sensation of “white paper” or “red pencil,” there is nothing based solely on color that is inherently agreeable or disagreeable. But feeling functions or emotions are always pleasant or unpleasant; there is no such thing as an indifferent emotion.

Beyond its usefulness as a method of self-observation, the struggle against expressing unpleasant emotions has another significance. It is one of the few cases where we can actually change ourselves and our habits without in turn creating other undesirable habits. Self-observation and self-study should therefore begin, first and foremost, with the struggle against the expression of unpleasant emotions.

Finally, the moving center working in place of the thinking produces,
for example, mechanical reading or listening, as when we read or listen to words without understanding their meaning. This usually happens when the attention that should be directing the thinking is occupied with something else, and the moving center attempts to replace it. This kind of substitution easily becomes a habit, because the thinking center tends to become distracted not by useful thought or contemplation, but rather by daydreams and the play of the imagination. Observation of these activities is an important part of self-study.

This is particularly difficult because, in order to see and “record” them, we first have to free ourselves from them, if only for a moment. It is impossible to observe a habit while in its grasp, but all it takes to feel and see a habit is to struggle, no matter how ineffectually, against it.