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).
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