Shared Wisdom

WHAT THIS WORK IS ABOUT

Maurice Nicoll

“Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky” - Page 398-402

In reply to a question asked by new people: "WHAT IS THIS WORK ABOUT?" the answer is that it is for those who are looking for something, who are not satisfied with what they have found in life, and who feel that there must be something else beside success or failure in life, and beside what they have been taught at school and college and by their upbringing in general, When a person feels that this life cannot be explained in terms of itself, when he or she sees that life taken by itself without any added explanation is largely meaningless, "a tale told by an idiot", a history of crime and bloodshed and frustration, when such a person begins to see that it is very doubtful whether there is any such thing as progress and that everything begins and ends almost before it has begun, then he or she is in a position to search for other meaning and new knowledge, convinced that it must exist And when people begin this research with any sincerity and any real depth of feeling, they will be astonished to find what a great number of memorials exist in the literature of the past which point unmistakably towards another kind of knowledge and meaning, In all this literature the theme is the same. The theme is always that a man can undergo a definite and pre-arranged transformation in himself, that he can undergo a distinct and certain development, a real evolution or re-birth, if he knows and understands gradually what he has to do. That is to say, all this literature, which constitutes a part of what are called "B" influences in this Work, has the same object. A man has to die in some specific and definite way to himself, to certain sides of himself. And if he dies in the right way, he is born again as a new man, another kind of man, called in this Work a Conscious Man as distinct from a mechanical man. He will then know the meaning of his life on this earth-namely, that it is not an end in itself but a means to another end-for it is by means of a certain kind of struggle against what life has laid down in us that the end or purpose of Man’s existence is achieved. If everything were easy, there would be no re-birth, but, as this Work teaches, Man cannot be re-born rightly nor can he die rightly-that is, he cannot see the right things to die to in himself-unless he first awakens.

In many esoteric fragments of the past, you will find references to re-birth and to dying. In the Gospels, for instance, you will find such references, and also references to awakening, You will find the word 'watch' often used: this should be translated as 'awaken’. But you will not find these ideas, which are the central theme of Esoteric Psychology, arranged in the right order. A man must awaken first, before he can die aright. And if he awakens first, and dies in the right way to himself, he may be re-born if there is anything worth while and sufficiently strong and real in him. It will depend upon the quality of the person in the deepest sense. Nothing 'pseudo', nothing false, will be of any use here. But we have not said enough about this process because, although it is necessary that a man should awaken first of all, he must be taught what he must work on in himself and observe in order to awaken, And for this he must find a Teacher and a Teaching-that is, a Teaching that is not arbitrary, invented by ordinary people, but one that comes from those who have awakened and left behind them instructions to those in prison in the sleep of life, who wish to get out, to awaken, Therefore he will have to search, to seek and even if he does find something it will not be at all easy for him to establish contact with it, He may be tested from the very first moment or it may be that he is tested years later, In some schools of awakening, in the past, a person had to keep silence for two or three or even five years, or do the most menial tasks, or perform labours that were always being frustrated., and so on, before he was taught anything, or he would perhaps be treated in some rough way so that his pride and vanity were touched and he might become offended. You know how in the Gospels it is said that. people were continually being offended and how Christ was always attacking vanity, pride, self-esteem, self-complacency, and the idea that one knows what is right and wrong already.

A person must search, seek. I will try to explain to you what seeking means. There is a phrase: "Seek and ye shall find." The meaning of this is that unless you yourself seek, you yourself will not find. Someone may bring you, let us say, to this Work. You may not ever have thought seriously about the meaning of your existence or of life or of anything of that kind, or you may have searched a little and thought that it was too confusing, or you may have been quite unable to distinguish between Truth and Falsity in what you found. Now supposing that you hear something of this teaching and it falls a little on your understanding and not simply on your two ears, then your search for this Work will begin and you may be able to find it, but you may be in the Work for many many years and never have searched for it and so never have found it. Your search means two things. You may have had to spend a long time in trying to find a real teaching in the world and you may have passed through many stages of thought and endeavour and danger before you have made any contact with the object of your search. Or you may have made contact perhaps even accidentally, straightaway, and imagine that your search is at an end instead of realizing that it has only just begun. Reflect for yourselves now on this point: if it is said: "Seek and ye shall find," you will have to lose first. How can you possibly seek, unless you fed you have lost? So we have to go to a still earlier stage, to the feeling that you have lost something, that you have missed something, that something is lacking, or perhaps to the feeling that you, yourself, are lost and that you would like to seek and to find yourself. And this takes us back to the opening of this short paper, to the feeling that this life is inexplicable in terms of itself, and that there must be some other meaning, some other interpretation.

The movement of this Work is psychologically inwards, at first. Later it is both inwards and outwards. Everyone has an external and a more internal side. But the more internal side is usually governed by the external side. The external side is acquired by the action of life. This is called "Personality" in this system. The deeper, inner side is called "Essence". In the development we have spoken about above-this possible, pre-arranged, individual evolution or re-birth-it is the Essence that must grow. Unfortunately the Personality and the Essence are under opposite signs. Personality is active and Essence is passive. At least this is our ordinary state in ordinary life. The change that has to take place eventually is a reversal of this customary state so that personality and Essence change signs. This obviously implies a considerable upset of oneself. However, it takes place gradually, up to a certain period, and during this time a person very slowly gets to know himself or herself and realizes that he or she is utterly different from what they imagined. This weakens the Personality or acquired side. As I said, all this means that the movement of the Work is, psychologically, inwards at first, for no one can get to know his level of being unless he goes inwards, through self-observation. One begins to pass into this complex thing called oneself, about which one has so many illusions. But for this purpose several conditions are necessary, one of which is a form of knowledge that will guide one and which must be applied to oneself with sincerity. Some form of "truth", in other words, is necessary, in relation to which one can study oneself. This can be got and lost again quite easily. If you have never really sought for it, you will scarcely be able to say you have lost it. But if you have created a vacuum for it in yourself, if you have felt that you are lost or that you have lost something valuable, then if you eventually find something you will know when you lose it again. As this Work begins to mean something important, something genuine and real, it opens something in the more internal part of a person. This cannot take place if the attitude to the Work is wrong or one's conduct towards it is wrong. The internal side of a person can only grow through what is true. It cannot grow through what is false. The external side, however, can quite easily grow through what is unreal and false.

It is therefore of great importance to notice one's attitude to the Work and those connected with it and also to notice what one is using - .the work for. For example, to use the Work to increase the Personality and its ambitions is to have a wrong attitude. That should be clear enough to anyone who has any power of sincerity and does not justify everything. When the Work forms an emotional point in a person-it actually opens a part of a centre-then that person begins to touch new influences. It is quite easy to know when this has happened. But to keep this point, he must follow and keep to the "truth" of the Work. He must apply it to himself: and if he loses this point, for a time, he must seek for it again. The Work lies in us at first like a piece of silver. In the ancient and lost language of parables, silver represents truth. A person feeling himself asleep, feeling he has lost this point in himself, feeling an emptiness and blankness where he had felt something light, must search for what he has lost all through himself-in every room in every centre, on every floor of the three-storey house called himself. What is he too identified with? What is he internally considering? What is he lying about? What is he expending on pretence? Where is he justifying himself? When did he last remember himself? When has he last made any effort? What has happened to his aim? How many things has he put in front of the Work? When did he last observe himself attentively and go over his mind? When did he last view himself over the past few days? When did he last think clearly about this teaching and search for new meanings? When did he block some important staircase or corridor in his house by leaving a litter of stuff that he should have sorted out and put in place, or slam some door by haste or irritation and forget' to go back and open it again? You can all see what a mess of one's house one can make by behaving in sleep for a short time and how easily one can lose something. Now you will understand some of the meaning contained in the parable of the Lost Piece of Silver: "What woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth together her mends and neighbours, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I had lost . . ." (Luke XV, 8, 9)