Now a person with many fixed attitudes, acquired from upbringing, laid down in the mind, cannot think in a new way. He or she will continue to think in the old way. They will think from their ingrained fixed attitudes. As a minor example, a person has an attitude that Dickens is the only real novelist. Offer that person Dumas, and he or she will no doubt reject it, and offer that person anything modern and he or she will become cross. You can see how attitudes limit the mind in such a case. Now we have attitudes about life, about society, about religion, about people, about politics, about sex, about art, and so on, which prevent us from experiencing anything new.
It is necessary to free the mind from these acquired attitudes, for they prevent you from thinking for yourself. And unless you begin to think for yourself about this Work you will never understand it, and in turn it will be unable to help you, for the Work can only help you and give you force through your understanding of it. For that reason understanding is said in the Work to be the strongest force you can make. A person with strong, mechanical attitudes belongs to those called ‘the blind’ in esoteric teaching. One thing more must be added here: when you think or speak from a fixed attitude you are certain you are right.
Maurice Nicoll, “Note on Observation of Intellectual Centre and Useless Thinking and Wrong Thinking” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 4, p. 1169-1170).
Working Note
Notice today whenever certainty speaks first; instead of arguing with it or obeying it, simply see the fixed attitude that has already decided before you have really looked.
Today’s Aim
To observe fixed attitudes without automatically thinking or speaking from them.
Notice
The quick feeling of “I already know.”
Resistance before anything new is considered.
The moment irritation appears when a familiar view is questioned.
Opinions that arrive fully formed.
The quiet certainty of being right.
Practice
When you catch yourself rejecting, defending, or judging, pause for a moment before continuing. Ask inwardly: Am I seeing this directly, or am I speaking from an old attitude?
Do not force a different opinion. Simply remain with the observation.
Remember
Understanding begins where certainty loosens its grip.
The Weekly Aim
“I will observe the ‘I’ in me that wants to be right.”
