(The Conscious Circle of Humanity as the ventilation system keeping humanity alive)
We might imagine human life on Earth as comparable to some vast hotel into which air has to be blown to keep people alive. This ventilating-system can be compared with the Conscious Circle of Humanity trying to introduce air or spirit into the people in this enormous hotel – otherwise the people in this hotel would gradually die.
Now False Personality never admits anything. It is always right. If it pretends to confess its sins, it does so out of vanity, as a pose, to shew off, to gain merit and applause. This absurd thing composed of selfevident lies and false imagination you might think easily seen and destroyed. On the contrary its existence is most difficult to see and its strength is extraordinary.
house. A man, a woman, should learn after a time what it means to work on themselves and not to remain just a function of external conditions – that is, upset, bored, unhappy, when external conditions are not agreeable to them, and excited and enthusiastic when external conditions are favourable. This is to live in the opposites. Then one is certainly a helpless machine changing from misery to happiness and from happiness to misery.
Yes, it is really like that. You come to a typical jump and fall. But if you remember yourself you need not – especially if you can say to yourself: “This is a typical situation that millions of others are in at this moment.” That deprives it of its unique taste. Now to
(False personality must be shaken to its depths to be released)
He added that the whole question lay in the emotional reactions of False Personality in a man or woman. He said man, or woman, must be shaken to their depths to get rid of False Personality.
The keeping up of the False Personality takes a great deal of force. It makes us internally consider: it exhausts us. Mr. Ouspensky said that the False Personality always justifies itself in order to maintain its existence. This wastes force.
I asked him to speak about the stages of emotional development – that is, the development of the Emotional Centre to its highest receptive powers – as it was formulated in the Gospels – namely, “love of oneself, love of one’s neighbour, and love of God”.
(Greater emotions dissolve the small self-emotions of false personality)
These meanings destroy False Personality because when they begin to be understood by a man or a woman then the sense of the smallness of themselves in comparison with the great mystery of Creation begins to affect them emotionally. All greater emotions destroy the small self-emotions which arise from the narrow contracted sphere of the False Personality and its own minute self-liking and selfimportance.”
They must give up completely the idea that they are their own creators, realize practically, by blow after blow, that something infinitely greater than themselves exists and that they are nothing.
But a man who reaches the highest state of consciousness is in a quite different state. While in that state he sees what everything really is. He is no longer in personal subjective meanings. He is objective and so universal. He can include all things in himself. This happens when a man becomes conscious in the highest or most real part of him – that is, in “Real I” in him. Such a man would understand what love of God
Quaremead, Ugley, July 20, 1946 INNER SEPARATION The technique of inner separation must be developed by practice.
sighs. You identify with this acquired machinery and weep and wail just because this is how your particular machine reacts. But you think it is you – that is, ‘I’ – sobbing and sighing. This is not the case. It is your machinery sobbing and sighing to which you say
(The mystery of development is unique to each person; understanding is the greatest force)
You may be sure that once your evaluation of the Work is strong enough and you hear it enough and reflect upon it enough, you will see gradually unfolding the mystery of your own development. This mystery is different in each person. That is why it is so important not to compare yourself with other people. A great deal of negative emotion arises from comparison. Remember always that the Work is equally difficult for everyone and that it does not become easier. It is always difficult. And yet it is not too difficult if one will remember enough and maintain a certain inner strength of will in regard to it: The greatest force that we can create in the Work is understanding.