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consciousness. You cannot keep a flash of consciousness unless your thoughts are in a certain form. It is quite simple: you remember the example of the line of attention with two arrows? Attention is directed both on myself and on the thing I see. This double attention is the form of thinking corresponding to another state of consciousness. Q. Is not self-remembering itself a state of consciousness? A. It can be taken like that. At the same time it can be taken as a method for inducing self-consciousness. Q. What is the relation of thought to consciousness? A. It is very difficult to answer briefly. Thought is a mechanical process, it can work without, or with very little consciousness. And consciousness can exist without perceptible thought. Q. If self-remembering can be taken either as a state of consciousness or as a method for inducing it, are there different kinds of self-remembering? Is it brought about by different qualities of thought? A. One has to do many things besides thinking—one has to make efforts. It is not only thinking. The difference is only that at first we can do very little. We have to begin from where we are. Then, if we continue, self-remembering will gradually become more emotional. It is not different qualities of thought that make the difference; it is different qualities of effort and underlying realization. Self-remembering is effective only if one realizes that one does not remember oneself but that one can remember oneself. Q. Is not the act of giving attention a method of changing the state of consciousness? A. A certain control of attention is necessary even in ordinary life. But attention can be drawn, or it can be controlled, and that is of quite a different value. Q. I understood that we have a certain control of our thoughts in the sense of stopping certain kinds of thinking. But I have never heard before about constructing our thoughts. A. We have the power not only not to think but also to think about this and that. So we can do both: we can eliminate useless thoughts and we can also put in the centre of our thinking the realization of 'I'—'I am here', 'I am thinking'. Q. Why is it that an accident or a violent crisis brings self-remembering? A. Every kind of emotional moment, emotional shock, makes you realize 'I am'. You realize it without any theory behind it: if you find yourself in a very unexpected place, you have a feeling of 'I' and 'here'; when you are in unusual circumstances it always reminds you of your existence. But in customary conditions we always forget. Q. Is self-remembering the only strength the system hands out to us? A. It is the only way to reach all the rest, because it is the first thing that is lacking in us. We are always forgetting ourselves from one moment to
another, and this state must be changed. One must remember oneself— this is the beginning and the end of the whole thing, because when one has that one has everything. Q. What is the distinction in the meaning of attention and consciousness? A. Attention can be regarded as the elementary beginning of consciousness—the first degree. It is not full awareness for it is only directed one way. As I said, consciousness needs double attention. Q. What is the object of attaining this higher consciousness—to live more fully? A. One thing depends on another. If we want to have will, if we want to be free instead of being marionettes, if we want to awake, we must develop consciousness. If we realize that we are asleep and that all people are asleep, and what it means, then all the absurdities of life are explained. It is quite clear that people cannot do anything differently from what they do now if they are asleep. Q. As we are, would we ever be able to be conscious when we want to be, or does it always come accidentally? A. Nothing comes in its full state at once. The first step is to be more conscious, the second step is to be still more conscious. If, with effort, you can now make yourself be conscious for a minute, then, if you work on it and do all that is possible to help, after some time you will be able to be conscious for five minutes. Q. Is it wrong when it is accidental? A. You cannot rely on it. As we are, higher states cannot last; they are just flashes, and if they last, then it is imagination. This is a definite fact because we have no energy for lasting higher states. Flashes are possible, only again you must judge and classify them by what material they bring. Q. Cannot they last in memory even? A. The memory that we can command, control and use is only intellectual, and intellectual memory cannot keep them. Q. It seems to me quite impossible to self-remember at will, although it seems not quite so difficult to observe myself. A. You must try methods that will produce it. Try this method of stopping your thoughts, to see for how long you can keep your thoughts down, to think about nothing—if you know about self-remembering. But suppose a man who does not know about self-remembering tries this—he will not come to the idea of self remembering in this way. If you already know, that will create a moment of self remembering; for how long will depend on your efforts. It is a very good way. This method is described, for instance, in some books on Yoga, but people who try it do not know why they are doing it, so it cannot produce good results. Quite the opposite, it may produce a kind of trance state. Q. When you said 'knowing about self-remembering', did you mean if you have it in your head as an aim, or if you had a taste of it?
A. There are different degrees. You see, we speak about self-remembering all the time; we always come back to it; so you cannot say you do not know about self remembering. But if you take a man who has studied ordinary psychology or philosophy, he does not know about it. Q. Is it possible to have done self-remembering before one met this system? I ask because I have tried to self-remember and the results seem to correspond to what I used to do before, without knowing what I was doing. A. That's the thing. You can study it to understand the principle that if you do a certain thing knowing what it is, it gives one result, and if you do almost the same thing without knowing what it is, it gives a different result. Many people came very near to self-remembering in practice, others came very near to it in theory but without practice—either theory without practice, or practice without theory—and neither from the one nor from the other did they come to the real truth. For instance, in the so-called Yoga literature there are many near approaches to self-remembering. For example, they speak about 'I am' consciousness, but they are so theoretical that you cannot get anything out of it. Self-remembering was never mentioned in any literature in an exact, concrete form, although in a disguised form it is spoken about in the New Testament and in Buddhist writings. For instance, when it is said, 'Watch, do not sleep', this is self-remembering. But people interpret it differently. Q. Is emotional centre the chief centre that works in self-remembering? A. You cannot control emotions. You simply decide to remember yourself. I have given you a very simple, practical method. Try to stop your thoughts but, at the same time, do not forget your aim—that you do it in order to remember yourself. That may help. What prevents self-remembering? This constant turning of thoughts. Stop this turning, and perhaps you will have a taste of it. Q. What centres work in self-remembering? A. Self-remembering needs the best work you can produce, so the more centres that take part in it the better the result. Self-remembering cannot be produced by slow, weak work—the work of one or two centres. You may begin with two centres, but it is not sufficient, because other centres can interrupt your self-remembering and stop it. But if you put all centres to the work there is nothing that can stop it. You must always remember that self-remembering needs the best work you are capable of. Q. You said real self-remembering needs emotion, but when I think of it I do not experience any emotion. Can one remember oneself without emotional experience? A. The idea is to remember oneself, to be aware of oneself. And what comes with it you just notice, you must not put any definite demands upon it. If you make it a regular practice to try and remember yourself three or four times a day, self-remembering will come by itself in the
intervals, when you need it. But that you will notice later. You must make it a regular practice to try and remember yourself, if possible at the same times of the day. And, as I said, the practice of stopping thoughts will produce the same effect. So, if you cannot remember yourself, try stopping thoughts. You can stop thoughts, but you must not be disappointed if at first you cannot. Stopping thoughts is a very difficult thing. You cannot say to yourself ‘I will stop thoughts', and they stop. You have to use effort all the time. So you must not do it for long. If you do it for a few minutes it is quite sufficient, otherwise you will persuade yourself that you are doing it when instead you will just sit quietly and think and be very happy about it. As much as you can you must keep only one thought, 'I do not want to think about anything', and throw all other thoughts out. It is a very good exercise, but only an exercise. Q. Is it bad to stop breathing when one tries to stop thoughts? A. This question was asked once in our old groups and Mr. Gurdjieff asked: 'For how long?' The man said for ten minutes. Mr. Gurdjieff answered: 'If you can stop breathing for ten minutes it is very good, because after four minutes you die!' Q. Are self-remembering and stopping thoughts the same thing? A. Not exactly; they are two different methods. In the first you bring in a certain definite thought—the realization that you do not remember yourself. You must always start with that. And stopping thought is simply creating a right atmosphere, right surroundings, for self-remembering. So they are not the same thing, but they bring the same results. Q. Is one's work more accurate if one is remembering oneself and the work one is doing? A. Yes, when you are awake you can do everything better, but a long time is necessary for that. When you get accustomed to self-remembering you will not be able to understand how you ever worked without it. But in the beginning it is difficult to work and to remember oneself at the same time. Still, efforts in this direction give very interesting results; of that there can be no doubt. All experience of all times shows that these efforts are always rewarded. Besides, if you make these efforts you will under stand that certain things one can only do in sleep and cannot do when one is awake, because some things can only be mechanical. For instance, suppose you forget or lose things: you cannot lose things on purpose, you can lose them only mechanically. Q. While performing on the piano, when I thought 'I am here' I did not know what I was doing. A. Because this is not being conscious, it is thinking about self-remembering. Then it interferes with what you are doing; just as when you are writing and suddenly think 'How is this word spelt?'—you cannot remember. This is one function interfering with another. But real self-
remembering is not in centres, it is above centres. It cannot interfere with the work of centres, only one will see more, one will see one's mistakes. We must realize that the capacity for remembering oneself is our right. We do not have it, but we can have it; we have all the necessary organs for it, so to speak, but we are not trained, not accustomed to using them. It is necessary to create a certain particular energy or point, using this word in an ordinary sense, and this can be created only at a moment of a serious emotional stress. Everything before that is only preparation of the method. But if you find yourself in a moment of very strong emotional stress and try to remember yourself then, it will remain after the stress is over, and then you will be able to remember yourself. So only with very intense emotion is it possible to create this foundation for self-remembering. But it cannot be done if you do not prepare yourself beforehand. Moments may come, but you will get nothing from them. These emotional moments come from time to time, but we do not use them, because we do not know how to use them. If you try sufficiently hard to remember yourself during a moment of intense emotion, and if the emotional stress is strong enough, it will leave a certain trace, and this will help you to remember yourself in the future. Q. So what we are doing now is a sort of practising? A. Now you are only studying yourselves, you can do nothing else. Q. What is this preparation you are speaking about? A. Self-study, self-observation, self-understanding. We can change nothing yet, nor make a single thing different. It all happens in the same way as before. But there is a difference already, for you see many things you could not have seen before, and many things 'happen' differently. It does not mean you have changed anything: they happen differently. Q. Is our life long enough to attain results? A. You come to the understanding of this point through self-remembering. When you reach certain results in it, if it comes often—like seeing oneself in a mirror—then there comes another form of self-remembering, remembering one's life, the time-body. This increases possibilities. There are also other steps, but we can only speak of one step ahead, otherwise it would be imagination. We must understand that we must not touch certain questions without self-remembering. It is a question of perfecting our instrument of cognition. Our mind is very limited by our state of consciousness. We can hope that certain things will become comprehensible if our state of consciousness changes. Q. Can self-consciousness give knowledge? A. No, consciousness does not, by itself, give knowledge. Knowledge must be acquired. No amount of consciousness can give knowledge and no amount of knowledge can give consciousness. They are not parallel and cannot replace one another. But when you become conscious you see
things you have not seen before. If you keep it long enough it produces an enormous effect. The whole world would be different if you could keep it up for, say, fifteen minutes. But one cannot be aware of oneself for fifteen minutes without a very strong emotional element. You must produce something that makes you emotional; you cannot do it without the help of the emotional centre. Q. It does not come by itself? A. It is a question of destroying obstacles. We are not sufficiently emotional, because we spend our energy on identification, negative emotions, critical attitude, suspicion, lying and things like that. If we manage to stop this waste, we will be more emotional, Q. In endeavouring to remember myself I find that I should avoid too much effort. I feel that one can swamp the effect by excessive effort. A. What you mean is not too much effort, but a wrong kind of effort. Muscular effort will not help you to remember yourself. It is necessary for each person to find for himself the moment to make this particular big effort, especially at moments when all instinctive and emotional tendencies go against it. This is the moment to make effort. If you manage to remember yourself then, you will know how to do it. Q. How can one prevent regular efforts becoming just formal; how can one stop the meaning slipping out of them? A. Self-remembering cannot become formal; if it does it means deep sleep. Then it is necessary to do something to wake oneself up. But you must always start with the idea of mechanicalness and the results of mechanicalness. You are quite right. Everything slips away and disappears, and you find yourself again with nothing. Again you start with some conscious effort, again it slips away. The question is how to prevent it disappearing. In our ordinary ways of thinking and feeling there are many mechanical tendencies which always turn us in the usual way. We want to think in another way, we want to be different, to work in another way, to feel in a new way, but nothing happens, because there are so many old tendencies which turn us back. We must study these tendencies and try to throw light on them. Above all, we must overcome the inertia of mind; then, if we do, twenty-four hours will not be sufficient and life will become very full. It is difficult to begin—and yet it is not so difficult. Q. How can one conquer this inertia? A. By effort: effort to self-remember, to observe, not to identify. Consciousness is a force, and force can only be developed by overcoming obstacles. Two things can be developed in man—consciousness and will. Both are forces. If man overcomes unconsciousness, he will possess consciousness; if he overcomes mechanicalness he will possess will. If he understands the nature of the powers he can attain, it will be clear to him that they cannot be given; these powers must be developed by effort. If
we were made more conscious, we would remain conscious machines. Mr. Gurdjieff told me that in some schools they could, by some special methods, make a sheep conscious. But it just remained a conscious sheep. I asked him what they did with it, and he said they ate it. The idea of the conscious sheep is this: suppose a man is made conscious by someone else; he will become an instrument in the hands of others. One's own efforts are necessary, because otherwise, even if a man is made conscious, he will not be able to use it. It is in the very nature of things that consciousness and will cannot be given. If someone could give them to you, it would not be an advantage. This is the reason why one must buy everything, nothing is given free. The most difficult thing is to learn how to pay. But if it could be explained in a few words, there would be no need to go to school. One has to pay not only for consciousness but for everything. Not the smallest idea can become one's own until one has paid for it. Q. Self-remembering seems to be a very sad and cheerless experience. Is it a sad system? A. There are no sad systems as far as I know; only sad people and sad attitudes, sad understanding. And I do not understand why self-remembering should be cheerless and sad. It is the realization of the fact that one is asleep. If one realized that one was asleep and there was no chance of awakening, then indeed it would be a cheerless realization, I quite agree. But the system does not say you should stop at that; it says that you should try to awake. And this is quite another thing. I remember, when I first heard this idea, I saw many quite new things, because it was an answer to all the questions I had when I studied psychology. So I realized at once that psychology begins at this point. I understood that man does not remember himself but could remember himself if he made sufficient efforts. Without self-remembering there can be no study, no psychology. But if a man realizes and bears in mind that he does not remember himself, and that nobody remembers, and yet there is a possibility of self remembering, then study begins. This is how it must be understood. Certainly there can be no joy in realizing that one is a machine and asleep. But we do not speak about joy or suffering, we speak about control. We realize that we are machines, and we do not want to be machines. We realize that we are asleep, and we want to awake. Real joy can only be connected with awakening or with something that helps awakening. Q. But so many people are self-conscious in a bad sense of the word. Isn't that a form of self-remembering too? A. Not at all. What is called being self-conscious in English is a form of embarrassment or shyness; it has nothing to do with self-remembering. As I have explained, if you are not awake you cannot make yourself
awake; but you have some control over thoughts and you must construct them in such a way as to bring you to awakening. Q. Is a child nearer to self-remembering than a grown-up person? One has such vivid memories of childhood. A. No, not quite; it is not self-remembering. Self-remembering means conscious work, I mean intentional work. Vivid memories of childhood are due to the activity of the emotional centre. In a child it is more active, and moments of consciousness come by themselves. But self-remembering is a moment of consciousness that comes by your own effort. Suppose a child has flashes of consciousness without the possibility of using these moments? It does not help at all. Q. Would it not help us to try to get back to those states we had in childhood? A. How? That is the question. If we could stop identification, we would have many moments like that, but we do not know how to begin to stop identification. If we could destroy negative emotions, if we could remember ourselves, then those things would be in our hands, under our control, not accidental. Q. When well washed and carefully dressed I feel it is much easier to self-remember. A. It is not at all prohibited. This is not a fakir way. Q. What is the relationship between self-remembering and negative emotions? A. When negative emotion appears, self-remembering becomes impossible. So to remember oneself one must have a certain control of negative emotions. As a matter of fact, people are not equal in this respect: some have more, some less control even of the expression. And not only of the expression, for some people have more control of their emotions, some can control only certain emotions. And certainly only those who have a certain control of negative emotions can work on self-remembering and get good results. At the same time this control can be attained; one can begin from different sides, and if certain self remembering is created, this immediately helps one to struggle with negative emotions; and struggle with negative emotions helps self-remembering. Q. Does it always take a long time to awake? A. I can only say how much time it takes to know this system, but I cannot say how much time it takes to awake. Awakening is the result of personal work, so it is difficult to foretell. It goes by degrees. Complete awakening means a very big change, and that needs time, because it means acquiring new psychic functions. So we can only study degrees or steps which a man must pass through. One can be shown the way, but one must work for oneself. By itself learning is a small thing, for man can change himself only through the application of the knowledge he gets. Man can become conscious of himself at a given moment. This consciousness of
himself is awakening—one of the attributes of another state of consciousness. Q. Could a person wish to wake up and fail to do so? A. Maybe for a long time he will fail, but if he is capable of awakening he can awake; it is a long process. But certainly he may fail. We have only one good feature in our situation—we have nothing to lose. So if we fail we will be in the same position as before, but if we succeed we gain something new. Q. Does any great effort tend to make one more conscious at the time? A. That depends on the effort, because if one just makes a great effort to do something in a state of identification, one will not be more conscious. Q. Does self-remembering automatically stop identification? A. There is nothing automatic in self-remembering—every moment is effort. If it is sufficiently deep and sufficiently long it is one thing, but if it is just a flash it is not sufficient. Also, if you remember yourself to the exclusion of everything else, it is one thing, and if you remember yourself and at the same time remember your aim and what you are doing, it is another thing. It depends on how much enters into self remembering. Q. Would you call it self-consciousness? A. Self-consciousness is a permanent state. Self-remembering is an experiment; one day it may be successful and another day unsuccessful. It may be deeper or less deep. Q. Can we be told about the things that may be keeping us back? A. We are talking about just those things. There are two things that are keeping us back—ignorance and weakness: we do not know enough and we are not strong enough. The question is how to know more. By self-study—that is the only method. Then comes the struggle with identification and imagination, the chief causes of weakness. Only, in individual cases these things take on a different colour. What looks one colour for one person looks a different colour for another person. But the things that keep us back are more or less the same. Q. Is there nothing between self-awareness and identifying? A. They are on different levels, you cannot compare them. You cannot identify and be aware of yourself; the presence of one means the absence of the other. All things are connected, not a single manifestation is separate; they are all connected with a certain order of things. Q. I think I have not got the right idea about identification. Does it mean that things control us and not that we control things? A. Identification is a very difficult thing to describe, because no definitions are possible. Such as we are we are never free from identifying. If we believe that we do not identify with something, we are identified with the idea that we are not identified. You cannot describe identification in logical terms. You have to find a moment of identification, catch it, and then compare things with that moment. Identification is everywhere, at
every moment of ordinary life. When you begin self-observation, some forms of identification already become impossible. But in ordinary life almost everything is identification. It is a very important psychological feature that permeates the whole of our life, and we do not notice it because we are in it. The best way to understand it is to find some examples. For instance, if you see a cat with a rabbit or a mouse—this is identification. Then find analogies to this picture in yourself. Only, you must understand that it is there every moment, not only at exceptional moments. Identifica tion is an almost permanent state in us. You must be able to see this state apart from yourself, separate it from yourself, and that can only be done by trying to become more conscious, trying to remember yourself, to be aware of yourself. Only when you become more aware of yourself are you able to struggle with manifestations like identification. Q. I find when I am identified it is nearly always with things inside me. A. Perhaps you are right; perhaps you are not right. You may think you are identified with one thing when in reality you are identified with quite a different thing. This does not matter at all; what matters is the state of identification. In the state of identification you cannot feel right, see right, judge right. But the subject of identification is not important: the result is the same. Q. So what is the way to overcome identification? A. That is another thing. It is different in different cases. First it is necessary to see; then it is necessary to put something against it. Q. What do you mean by 'put something against it'? A. Just turn your attention to something more important. You must learn to distinguish the important from the less important, and if you turn your attention to more important things you become less identified with unimportant things. You must realize that identification can never help you; it only makes things more confused and more difficult. If you realize even that—that alone may help in some cases. People think that to be identified helps them, they do not see that it only makes things more difficult. It has no useful energy at all, only destructive energy. Q. Is identification mainly emotion? A. It always has an emotional element—a kind of emotional disturbance, but sometimes it becomes a habit, so that one does not even notice the emotion. Q. I realize that it is important to be emotional in the right way, but when I feel something emotionally in the work, I soon destroy the whole thing. A. Only identification is destructive. Emotion can only give new energy, new understanding. You take identification for emotion. You do not know emotion without identification, so, in the beginning, you cannot visualize an emotion free from it. People often think they speak about an emotional function when in reality they speak about identification.
Q. Is it possible for us, as we are now, to have any feeling at all without identifying? A. Very difficult, unless we begin to watch ourselves. Then easy kinds of identification—I mean easy individually—will respond to treatment. But everyone has his own specialities in identification. For instance, it is easy for me not to identify with music, for another it may be very difficult. Q. Is love without identification possible? A. I would say love is impossible with identification. Identification kills all emotions, except negative emotions. With identification only the unpleasant side remains. Q. Non-identifying does not mean aloofness? A. On the contrary, aloofness needs identification. Non-identifying is quite a different thing. Q. If you are identified with an idea, how can you stop it? A. First by understanding what identification means and then by trying to remember yourself. Begin with simple cases, then later you can deal with the more difficult. Q. As you develop self-remembering do you acquire a sort of detached attitude, more free from identification? A. Detached attitude in the sense that you know your attitudes better; you know what is useful to you and what is not useful. If you do not remember yourself it is easy to make a mistake about it. For instance, one can undertake some kind of study that is really quite useless. Self-remembering helps understanding, and understanding always means bringing everything to a certain centre. You must have a central point in all your work, in all your attitudes, and self-remembering is a necessary condition for that. We must talk more about identifying if it is not clear. It will become more clear when you find two or three good examples. It is a certain state in which you are in the power of things. Q. If I look closely and think deeply, does it mean I have become identified? A. No, identifying is a special thing, it means losing oneself. As I said, it is not so much a question of what one is identified with. Identification is a state. You must understand that many things you ascribe to things outside you are really in you. Take for instance fear. Fear is independent of things. If you are in a state of fear, you can be afraid of an ash-tray. This often happens in pathological states, and a pathological state is only an intensified ordinary state. You are afraid, and then you choose what to be afraid of. This fact makes it possible to struggle with these things, because they are in you. Q. Can we have any understanding with identification? A. How much can you understand in deep sleep, which is what identification is? If you remember your aim, realize your position and see the danger of sleep, it will help you to sleep less.
Q. What is the difference between sympathy and identification? A. It is quite another thing; it is a normal and legitimate emotion and can exist without identification. There may be sympathy without identification and sympathy with identification. When sympathy is mixed with identification, it often ends in anger or another negative emotion. Q. You spoke of losing oneself in identification. Which self? A. All, everything. Identifying is a very interesting idea. There are two stages in the process of identifying. The first stage denotes the process of becoming identified, the second a state when identification is complete. Q. The first stage is quite harmless? A. If it attracts too much attention and occupies too much time, it leads to the second. Q. When you desire something, can you desire it without identification? A. Identification is not obligatory. But if you desire to hit someone, you cannot do it without identification; if identification disappears, you do not want to any longer. It is possible not to lose oneself; losing oneself is not a necessary element at all. Q. Is it possible to identify with two things at once? A With ten thousand! It is necessary to observe and observe. From one point of view struggling with identification is not so difficult, because, if we can see it, it becomes so ridiculous that we cannot remain identified. Other people's identification always seems ridiculous and ours may become so too. Laughter may be useful in this respect if we can turn it on ourselves. Q. I cannot see why identification is a bad thing. A. Identification is a bad thing if you want to awake, but if you want to sleep, then it is a good thing. Q. Would not everything we do suffer if we kept our minds on keeping awake instead of attending to what we are doing? A. I have already explained that it is quite the opposite. We can do well whatever we are doing only as much as we are awake. The more we are asleep, the worse we do the thing we are doing—there are no exceptions. You take it academically, simply as a word, but between deep sleep and complete awakening there are different degrees, and you pass from one degree to another. Q. If we feel more awake, we should not overtax these moments, should we? A. How can we overtax them? These moments are too short even if we have glimpses. We can only try not to forget them and act in accordance with these moments. This is all we can do. Q. Can you say that identification is being in the grip of something, not being able to shake off some idea in mind? A. Being in the grip of things is an extreme case. There are many small identifications which are very difficult to observe, and these are the most