Self-Remembering by Gurdjieff - (830)

Introduction

The following text comes from a documentary made by a Gnostic institution that quotes Gurdjieff describing the practice of self-remembering and how the human being believes that he or she remembers their being but in truth does not.

Gurdjieff on Self-Remembering

“However, possibly the most revolutionary and novel idea that Gurdjeff brought to the west was the idea of self-remembering. This idea comes with the pathetic reality that man lives in a state in which he does not remember himself, that is to say, he forgets himself completely.

This very revolutionary statement was something new at its time, something that science and philosophy had missed till then.

One day, talking about the difficulty that man has to self-observe psychologically, Gurdjeff told his disciples what the most difficult obstacle to attain it is. He said:

None of you has noticed the most important issue that I pointed out, that is to say, none of you noticed that you don't remember yourselves, you don't feel yourselves, you are not conscious of yourselves. Within yourselves, you are to observe what is said, thought, felt. You don't feel 'I observe', 'I speak', 'I see'.

Everything is observed by itself, seen by itself. In order to truly self-observe, above all it is necessary to self-remember. Strive to remember yourselves when you self-observe and then tell me the results. Worthwhile are only the results that are accompanied by the remembrance of oneself, otherwise, what are they good for?

The person who knows this, knows a lot already. The problem is that no one knows it.

If you ask a person if he is capable of self-remembering, he will immediately say that he is. If he is told that he cannot self-remember, he will get upset or believe that you are mad. The whole life is based on this, the whole human existence, the whole human blindness happens because of lack of self-remembering.

If a person truly knows that he is incapable of self-remembering, he is already close to know his Being.”

Conclusion

The most striking sentences out of the quote is the last sentence. In other words when we begin to remember ourselves or remember our Being we can begin to come to know our Being.

Sometimes when think about knowing our Being we think about having a vision or dream or astral experience seeing a great, ancient magician, sage, wise man etc. just like in the image below.

Though it is mostly not this way it is to know our Being through ourselves right here and now in the physical body.

End (830).