Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Vol. 2, Maurice Nicoll
The first step is to observe centres. This is in fact the first thing taught in self-observation. You must get to know what centre you are in or what centre is interfering, etc. This has got to be done eventually as a necessary task.
Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution – Fifth Lecture, P.D. Ouspensky
The division of a centre into three parts is very simple. A mechanical part works almost automatically; it does not require any attention. But… it cannot ‘think’ and it continues to work in the way it started when circumstances have completely changed…
In the intellectual centre, the mechanical part includes in itself all the work of registration of impressions, memories and associations. This is all that it should do normally… Unfortunately… it is always ready to decide and (reply) to questions of all sorts… in ready-made phrases, in slang expressions, in party slogans. All these, and many other elements of our usual reactions, are the work of the mechanical part of the intellectual centre.
This part… is called a ‘formatory apparatus’… It is always possible to recognise ‘formatory thinking.’ For instance… It always divides everything in two: ‘bolshevism and fascism,’ ‘workers and bourgeois,’ proletarians and capitalists’ and so on. (M)ost modern catchwords to formatory thinking…
The emotional part of the intellectual centre consists chiefly of (the) desire to know, desire to understand, satisfaction knowing, dissatisfaction of not knowing, pleasure discovery and so on… The work of the emotional part requires full attention but in this part of the centre attention does not require any effort. It is attracted and held by the subject itself, very often through identification, which usually is called ‘interest,’ or ‘enthusiasm,’ or ‘passion,’ or ‘devotion.’
The intellectual part of the intellectual centre includes in itself a capacity for creation, construction, invention and discovery. It cannot work without attention, but the attention in this part of the centre must be controlled and kept there by will and effort.
This is the chief criterion in studying parts of centres If we take them from the point of view of attention we shall know at once in which part of centres we are. Without attention or with attention wandering, we are in the mechanical part: with the attention attracted by the subject of observation or reflection and kept there, we are in the emotional part; with the attention controlled and held on the subject by will, we are in the intellectual part…
Let us take the emotional centre… We will take only the division of the centre into three parts: mechanical, emotional and intellectual.
The mechanical part consists of the cheapest kind of ready-made humour and a rough sense of the comical, love of excitement, love of spectacular shows, love of pageantry, sentimentality, love of being in a crowd and part of a crowd; attraction to crowd emotions of all kinds and complete disappearance in lower half-animal emotions: cruelty, selfishness, cowardice, envy, jealousy, and so on.
The emotional part may be very different in different people. It may include in itself a sense of humour or a sense of the comical as well as religious emotion, aesthetic emotion, moral emotion and, in this case, it may lead to the awakening of conscience. But with identification it may be something quite different, it may be very ironical, sarcastic, derisive, cruel, obstinate, wicked and jealous— only in a less primitive way than the mechanical part.
The intellectual part of the emotional centre (with the help of the intellectual parts of the moving and instinctive centres) includes in itself the power of artistic creation… The intellectual part of the emotional centre is also the chief seat of the magnetic centre. I mean that if magnetic centre exists only in the intellectual centre or in the emotional part of the emotional centre, it cannot be strong enough to be effective, and is always liable to make mistakes or fail. But the intellectual part of the emotional centre, when it is fully developed and works with its full power, is a way to higher centres.
In the moving centre, the mechanical part is automatic. All automatic movements which in ordinary language are called ‘instinctive’ belong to it, as well as imitation and the capacity for imitation which plays such a big part in life.
The emotional part of the moving centre is connected chiefly with the pleasure of movement. Love of sport and of games should normally belong to this part of the moving centre, but when identification and other emotions become mixed with it, it is very rarely there…
The intellectual part of the moving centre is a very important and a very interesting instrument. Everyone who has ever done well any kind of physical work,… knows… One has to invent one’s own small methods for everything one does. These inventions are the work of the intellectual part of the moving centre… (I)mitating at will the voice, intonations and gestures of other people, such as actors possess, also belongs to the intellectual part of moving centre…
The work of the instinctive centre is very well hidden from us. We really know, that is, feel and can observe, only the sensory and emotional part.
The mechanical part includes in itself habitual sensations which very often we do not notice at all, but which serve as a background to other sensations; also instinctive movements in the correct meaning of the expression, that is, all inner movements such as the circulation of the blood, the movement of food in the organism and inner and outer reflexes.
The intellectual part is very big and very important. In the state of self-consciousness or approaching it, one can come into contact with the intellectual part of the Instinctive centre and learn a great deal from it concerning the functioning of the machine and its possibilities. The intellectual part of the instinctive centre is the mind behind all the work of the organism, a mind quite different from the intellectual mind.