The realization of one’s own mechanicalness is a form of Self-Remembering. In this kind of Self-Remembering you are aware that what you are doing and saying and thinking is not really you. You become a spectator of yourself and you see that all that you have called you and your life is an illusion in the sense that it is all happening, and in that sense it is not real—it is not Reality. When I see that an event is entangling me and that I am reacting to this event quite mechanically, the whole business becomes unreal to me because where I thought before that I was doing, I was acting, I was seeing, I see it now as IT that is acting.
In the same way in separating from one’s inner fantasies and thoughts that spring from False Personality, from vanity, and so on, a person may have a moment of Self-Remembering in which they escape from their hypnotic power and see that they are trying to get hold of them and that that is their real object—namely, to put them to sleep again. You must remember that everything in life seeks to keep us asleep. Remember that the Work teaches that we live in a world of sleeping people in which everything happens, and that we are also asleep. The only difference is that we are trying to wake up.”
Maurice Nicoll, “On Self-Remembering” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 2, p. 739).
Working Note: For Today’s Inner Effort
Orientation: Observe your mechanicalness without identifying.
What to Notice:
A reaction taking over by itself.
Inner fantasy beginning.
Vanity asking for agreement.
The feeling that “I” am the reaction.
Work Effort for Today:
Separate from one mechanical “I.”
Do not follow the next inner movement.
Remember yourself for a brief moment.
Let the reaction continue without taking it as yourself.
Remember: It is happening. Do not identify. Remember yourself now.
For Your Reflection:
What if noticing your sleep is already the beginning of waking up?
It’s easy to believe our thoughts and reactions are simply who we are. But there are moments when we glimpse them as passing movements rather than our deepest identity.
That brief shift can loosen their hold and make room for a different quality of attention. Carry this question through the day: “Can I remember myself before the next reaction takes over?”
How does this show up in your own experience? Join the conversation in the comments below.
