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Author: [[Maurice Nicoll]] Full Title: Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky Category: #books “This situation is intolerable.” The event has got you. You are incapable either of observing yourself in relation to the particular event, or of remembering yourself in its presence – that is, not identifying with it. Birdlip, June 10, 1944 STAGES OF AWAKENING IN THE WORK We are accustomed to our own smells. Now as long as we live comfortably in the thick and nauseating atmosphere of ourselves, taking everything for granted, including ourselves, we cannot awaken. We simply eat and sleep, fight and quarrel, talk and hear, see and touch, move and feel. We take it all for granted, not having the slightest idea that it is extraordinary. Life contains many natural shocks of which one is death. Being confronted with death can sometimes make us begin to think in a real way. But the torrent of the senses, and the screaming note of modern life, dulls and deafens this thinking-point, so that it rarely emerges and becomes felt. However, this takes a long time, and nothing is worse than to pretend we know already. A person who pretends to have or to know what he or she does not have or know – such a person has a picture of himself or herself. This stops everything real in every direction of development.

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Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky-2 by Maurice Nicoll presents wisdom from the contemplative traditions.

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