On Putting Feeling of 'I' Into the Work

ON PUTTING FEELING OF 'I' INTO THE WORK

We spoke recently about the Driver mounting the box of the Carriage. It has often been said in the Work that unless a man believes in Greater Mind it is impossible to do this Work. The Work teaches that there is a Conscious Circle of Humanity. The Conscious Circle of Humanity always through the ages has tried to awaken the Mechanical Circle of Humanity. But it cannot do this by compulsion. You may remember the idea of Man, one of the great sign-posts in the Work. The Work says that Man is created a self-developing organism, but to develop he must believe in Greater Mind. As you have probably already noticed, Nature, the external world, does not tell you anything. It is neutral. You can come to one conclusion or another about Nature. You can say God exists or you can equally well say that God does not exist. Why is there not clear evidence of Greater Mind? It was once said that suppose God were floating overhead on a cloud it would destroy the whole idea of God, who is invisible, and a spirit that only Truth finds within us. People would have to believe in God. People would be compelled by the evidence of their outer senses to acknowledge the existence of the Higher. But since Man is created a self-developing organism, this would destroy his meaning. In other words, we have to come to our own conclusions through our own individual thinking. A man can only develop in the esoteric sense through his own individual understanding by work on his knowledge and Being. Otherwise he could not be self-developing. I have often thought how disappointing it would be to draw your bedroom curtains in the morning and see God hovering overhead on some brazen cloud staring at you. And you would feel far more unbelief than ever before. We are left in a kind of freedom to choose for ourselves and find our way to the meaning of our own existence. The realization that Greater Mind exists is an internal process-a way. As you know, a sign of Being is the possession of Magnetic Centre. A man who has Magnetic Centre has the feeling that there is something else apart from external values, but the idea of Greater Mind will not thereby exist in him. For example, such a man may become aware that there are two great streams of literature in life, one the ordinary stream, including the newspapers, Financial Times, Sporting News, murders, politics, and so on, and another that is remote from all this and apparently speaks about something quite different-as the Gospels, for instance. But he will not thereby understand about Greater Mind or Conscious Humanity. Now we understand that the Conscious Circle of Humanity cannot compel Man to believe, owing to the nature of the case, and the conditions under which Man is born. You cannot force a self-developing organism. If you study the Ray of Creation-and people should think about it more-you will understand that the Will of the Absolute only reaches

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this Earth through a number of increasing laws and influences through an increasing machinery. We in our position in the Ray of Creation are immensely far from the Absolute. We are under 48 orders of laws with their conflicting influences and meanings. It was once said that if the Absolute were to manifest itself directly the whole of the Ray of Creation would be destroyed and that it would be like playing a game of cards in which suddenly all the rules of the game were destroyed. As a result the whole game would vanish. When we speak of Greater Mind we mean at least that there exist Intelligences greater than ours comparable, in comparison with ours, to Divine Intelligence. The Ray of Creation is full of this meaning. There is higher and higher meaning, a ladder of Intelligence. If a man is blind to this-to the Ray-his higher parts of Centres, the emotional and intellectual parts which conduct his meaning, will never awaken. His eyes will be on the ground. On the other hand, if he has a right Magnetic Centre and has, say, already distinguished between the two classes of literature of which we have spoken, and especially if he feels that this life cannot be explained in terms of itself but must have some other interpretation on some other level of meaning, then he is on the way to perceive for himself, by inner perception, the existence of Greater Mind. And in consequence of this perception that Greater Mind exists he is capable himself of receiving with right valuation the teachings that eventually originate in Greater Mind. As you know, we live in a very small part of our centres-we live in the basement of the house in which we psychologically exist. It is said in the Work that Man is the wrong way up. It is also said in regard to the bodies of Man, that he works the wrong way round. If we turn our eyes down to the ground like animals and look only downwards to the external world and interpret everything only according to our sense-evidence, we are thinking the wrong way round. We are taking the view that Nature creates herself. How could that be? We then think that matter makes mind. This is Plato' s definition of a materialist. He is upside down. The Ray of Creation shews us that the Mind of the Absolute creates the successive condensations of matter. It teaches us that we live in a created Universe. This belief turns a man the right way up. I will make a brief comment about the feeling of 'I' in this Work that is, of 'I' being in the Work. Eventually Work can become stronger than life-Work-'I' stronger than life 'I'. What the Work gradually lays down in one can become stronger eventually than what life has laid down and can control it. Then one is the right way round-that is, one is not driven from the wrong end. You remember that this idea is clearly represented in the diagram of the four possible bodies of Man, called first, second, third and fourth.

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Let us suppose a man attains to this level of development and that Real 'I' or Master directs him. Then he works in the direction 4, 3, 2, l. An ordinary man is worked from the other end and in place of organized bodies 2, 3 and 4 there is nothing formed in him and he is not in touch with Real 'l'-in fact, he is in the position. of the man in the public house. The question I will put is: Do you think a man who does not feel the existence of Greater Mind can ever attain to Real 'I' in himself? Can he reach a higher level of himself if he believes there is nothing higher? There is one thing quite definite that can be experienced in the Work-that is, a change in the feeling of 'I'. No one can change themselves without change in the feeling of themselves. This means a change in the feeling of 'I'-of what they fed as 'I' and say 'I' to. But do you think any change possible without believing in Greater Mind? I want you all to think for a practical exercise about all the Diagrams that indicate something higher, to go over them in your minds.

1Maurice Nicoll

“Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky” Vol 3