Source Text
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
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”.
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
AI Summary
Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky by Maurice Nicoll presents key insights from the Gurdjieff tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
This entry was generated from Readwise highlights. Expand with additional context as appropriate.