Now if you have cleared a portico, a hall, a space in yourself by self-observation so that you can see a negative impression coming in and are able not to let it enter freely, not to identify with it, not let it go where it wishes, not say ‘I’ to it, then you keep clear of the mechanical result of that impression. This is magic. This place is what all must make in their inner world. It is just as if we open the physical door in the external world and find an evil man and let him in—or shut the door and lock it. It is just the same thing in the internal world.
But if we may not have made this clearing, this portico, not made doors and locks, we are at the mercy of outer life, having nothing in us to prevent its continual effect. But when you realize that outer life and people and things come in only as impressions, via the senses, then if you have made this inner space or clearing in yourself, you can allow to enter and accept some of these impressions and reject others. This is taking impressions in consciously. This is called the First Conscious Shock—when a man, a woman, begins to be a man, or woman, for the first time—whatever they are mechanically in life. This is the beginning of being Conscious Man, Conscious Woman. Now if you take in and accept the endless, jealous, envious, unhappy, and so negative impressions of events of daily life and other people, you are just a mechanical person.
Maurice Nicoll, “Note on Taking in Negative Impressions” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 3, p. 1002).
Working Note
Make the smallest inner pause before an impression becomes your reaction, and quietly see whether you will admit it or leave it outside.
Today’s Aim
To receive impressions consciously instead of mechanically.
Notice
The first moment something disturbs you.
The impulse to say “I” to a passing reaction.
How quickly an impression asks for your agreement.
The difference between seeing an impression and becoming it.
A moment of inner space before responding.
Practice
Several times today, especially when a negative impression arrives, do not struggle with it or argue against it. Simply let it remain at the threshold for a moment.
Ask inwardly: Must this enter?
If you can remain present without immediately identifying, even for a few seconds, let your action come from that quiet space rather than from the impression itself.
Remember
Not every impression that knocks at the door must be welcomed inside.
The Weekly Aim
“I will observe my first inner reaction before I explain or express it.”
