Now if we observe that we are about to identify with, say, some negative state and at the same time remember the Work and our aim not to identify, we may separate from this state completely. We will then probably experience a moment of Self-Remembering either then or later on. What has happened? I will try to explain. When you have practiced self-observation for a certain time, you are more conscious of your inner state and in consequence you have, as it were, a moment of choice. You can see what is going on before it takes place. Self-Observation clears a space in your mind so that you can see things coming in and going out. If the energy which was about to go into a negative emotion is prevented from doing so, it may pass on and may create a moment of Self-Remembering.
All this means that you have brought the Work up to the point of incoming impressions. Ordinarily impressions do not pass on because at the point where impressions enter the human machine, they fall on a network of long-established associations. After a time, at a certain age, people no longer experience new impressions. This is not because impressions are not new, for they are always new every moment but because they always ‘ring up’, as it were, the same associations and produce the same reactions. People then live only in their associations and this makes their inner life almost empty, almost dead. If you wish to keep young in yourself you must take in the food of new impressions. That means, you must actually work on impressions as they enter and prevent certain of them from falling on the old places. Life is impressions coming in. You cannot change life. But you can change the way impressions fall on you.
Maurice Nicoll, “Self-Remembering” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 198).
Working Note
Notice the moment before an old reaction takes hold, and allow that small space to receive the impression in a new way.
Today’s Aim
To let fresh impressions reach you without immediately becoming old reactions.
Notice
The first pull toward a familiar reaction.
The same inner story beginning again.
A brief pause before you agree with it.
Something ordinary that appears new when you are present.
A quiet moment of Self-Remembering.
Practice
When a negative state begins to form, do not follow it at once. Remember your aim and remain with the impression for a moment before it falls into its usual association.
Ask inwardly: Can this be received differently?
Then continue with whatever is before you without forcing an answer.
Remember
Life is always new; it is my reactions that grow old.
The Weekly Aim
“I will observe my first inner reaction before I explain or express it.”
