Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll
…(I)magination… is the most powerful force acting on mankind. It is a definite and terrible thing, not a “mere nothing.” To say that a person is suffering from imagination is to say that that person is suffering from a very powerful, intractable and dangerous force. – Vol 1 – Birdlip, July 9, 1943 – Commentary On Self-Observation And ‘I’s
In Search of the Miraculous
“…Each center has its own form of imagination and daydreaming, but as a rule both the moving and the emotional centers make use of the thinking center which very readily places itself at their disposal for this purpose… The inclination to daydream is due partly to the laziness of the thinking center… and partly to the tendency of the emotional and the moving centers to repeat to themselves, to keep alive or to recreate experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, that have been previously lived through or ‘imagined.’ – Chapter Six
The Reality of Being
…I need to learn to recognize and separate the real “I” from the imagination of myself. This is an arduous task because my imagined “I” defends itself. It is opposed to the real “I,” and is exactly what “I” am not…
…The things that we do are not chosen because we like to do them but because we thereby affirm and assure our imagined “I.” There is no thought or feeling that is not motivated by this. It is, however, so subtle that we do not see it. We are so preoccupied with what we would ideally like to be that we do not see what we actually are now, right now in the present moment. – 72. The imagination of myself
Toward Awakening, Jean Vaysse
…A man can undertake nothing so long as he does not begin to see things simply as they are. Then he can acquire an understanding, and only later does an authentic “imagination” become possible for him, that is to say, that law-conformable “previsioning” which is indeed one of the major faculties of a man worthy of the name. – Awakening and Obstacles
Psychological Commentaries… Maurice Nicoll
…Now if a man can use his imagination for a directed purpose instead of being used by his imagination… he will find that his imagination is a great gift… No one can do without right imagination… But everyone can do without the kind of imagination that attaches itself to negative states, because this form of imagination can lead people to insanity… Therefore we can say briefly that directed imagination is quite different from imagination that directs you… – Vol 4- Amwell, 9.2.51 – The Necessity of Living The Work – Work On Wrong Imagination
Life is real only then, when “I am”- Third Series
The first… secret… is that… a man can use a certain property which is in his psyche, and which is even of a very negative character. This property can serve as an aid to self-perfecting, and exists in people in general… and especially in you, and is none other than that which I have many times condemned… and it is called “self-deception.”
Such an… illogical… deduction… is obtained owing to the fact that the cognizance of truths concerning… self-perfection… must proceed not in the ordinary consciousness of a man… but in what is called the subconscious(.)… (I)t has become impossible for … contemporary man, to take in anything… and…”digest” it directly with his subconsciousness(. T)herefore it is necessary for him… to use a special means… not contradictory to his instinct(. T)his can be done only by means of this self-deceptive imaginativeness inherent in him.
If you have understood without any doubt what you must do, and how, and fully hope at some time to attain this in reality, you must at the beginning often imagine, but imagine only, that this is already present in you.
This is necessary chiefly in order that the consciousness forming in oneself during an active state should continue also during a passive state.
For the correct understanding of… this first assisting exercise, it is… necessary to know that when a normal man, that is, a man who already has his real I, his will, and all the other properties of a real man, pronounces aloud or to himself the words “I am,” then there always proceeds… in his, as it is called, “solar plexus,” a so-to-say “reverberation,” that is, something like a vibration, a feeling, or something of the sort…
If the ordinary man, not having as yet in himself data for the natural reverberation but knowing of the existence of this fact, will… correctly and frequently pronounce these same—and for him, as yet empty words—and will imagine that this same reverberation proceeds in him, he may thereby ultimately through frequent repetition gradually acquire in himself a so to say theoretical “beginning” for the possibility of a real practical forming in himself of these data.
He who is exercising himself with this must at the beginning, when pronouncing the words “I am,” imagine that this same reverberation is already proceeding in his solar plexus.
At the beginning it is necessary to pronounce the words “I am” very often and to try always not to forget to have the said reverberation in one’s solar plexus.
Without this, even if only imagined experiencing of the reverberation, the pronouncing aloud or to oneself of the words “I am” will have no significance at all. – Fifth Talk – to the same group on December 19th, 1930
Gurdjieff’s Emissary In New York: Talks and Lectures with A.R. Orage 1924-1931
Mantra are formulations used for mobilizing ideas, and keeping images present in consciousness. If repeated with a full inner effort to give them significance to one’s self, the corresponding wish in the emotional center will be evoked…
At first this can be merely a mechanical repetition. But the process is one of making a fact by making it conscious… You will say this is auto-suggestion, and so it is; but in the absence of acting under auto-suggestion, you are bound to act under the suggestion of others. – Tuesday, 26 May 1931
Views From the Real World
“…Become the possessor of your own sound ideas, and don’t accept anything on faith; and when you, yourself, by way of sound reasoning and argument, come to an unshakable persuasion, to a full understanding of something, you will have achieved a certain degree of initiation. – Glimpses of Truth