The most important thing is self-remembering. You must try to remember yourselves at least once a day, and you must do it willingly, from yourselves. All other work on oneself ultimately depends on self-remembering. Only half a minute is necessary, and even if it consists in nothing else than stopping your thoughts and trying to relax everything, it is better than nothing. Don’t think about self-remembering, but do it. At first it is best to do it at some definite time that you decide upon. The first sign that you are doing it rightly is that you have a distinct feeling of force entering you, as if something had opened in you. Immediately you feel this, stop. You must stop instantly, and forget about the whole thing.
Another form of self-remembering is called making ‘inner stop’ in oneself. This is done in connection with self-observation. For example you observe that you are beginning to talk in a certain mechanical way, or that you are getting annoyed with somebody, etc. You then make ‘inner stop’, as it is called, but this must be made completely, as if something were cut off. It does not matter if later on the things you are trying to stop come back. Let me say before going on that all self-observation should be accompanied by some degree of self-remembering. Remembering why you are observing yourself and feeling the presence of the work in your mind while observing yourself is a degree of self-remembering.
Maurice Nicoll, “A Note on Self-Remembering” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 38-39)
Working Note: For Today’s Inner Effort
Orientation: Bring a brief act of self-remembering into a fixed moment.
What to Notice:
Forgetting yourself completely in activity.
Mechanical talking that runs on without awareness.
A moment of irritation beginning to rise.
The sense of being carried by thoughts without choice.
Missing the moment you intended to remember.
Work Effort for Today:
At a chosen time, stop for 30 seconds and relax everything.
Do not follow thoughts—cut them.
Sense the body and the fact of “I am here.”
When a reaction starts, make a short inner stop.
Drop it completely for a moment.
Remember: Stop thought, relax, feel yourself, then leave it at once.
