Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
“…(Ashiata Shiemash) once said the following ” ‘The factors for… Objective Conscience arise in three-brained beings from the localization in their presence of particles of the “emanations of the sorrow” of our All-Loving and Long-Suffering, Endless Creator… ”
” ‘And this sorrow is formed in our All-Maintaining Common Father from the struggle constantly proceeding in the Universe between joy and sorrow.’..
‘In all the three-centered beings of our entire Universe… including us men, owing to the data crystallized in our common presence for engendering in us the divine impulse of Conscience, “all of us” and the whole of our essence in its very foundation are and must be only suffering.
‘’And we must be suffering, because this being-impulse can come to its full manifestation in us only through the constant struggle between two quite opposite ‘complexes of functioning,’ issuing from two sources of quite opposite origin, namely…the functioning of our planetary body, and…the functionings arising…from the coating and perfecting of our higher being-bodies within this planetary body of ours…
” ‘Consequently… we men existing on the Earth… for engendering the divine impulse of Objective Conscience, must always inevitably struggle with… two quite opposite functionings… in our common presence… always sensed by us either as “desires” or as “nondesires.”
” ‘And so, only he who consciously assists the process of this inner struggle, and consciously assists the “nondesires” to prevail over the “desires,” behaves in accordance with the Being of our Common Father Creator Himself, whereas he who consciously assists the contrary only increases His sorrow. —Chapter 27 – The order of existence created for men by the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash
Inside a Question, Henriette Lannes
Try to understand that resistance is according to law. If there is no resistance, there can be no struggle, there can be no new energy. Without production of new energy, there can be no possible contact with higher levels in ourselves. Struggle has to be accepted as the only means that we have for producing energy… —London 1961 – Resistance is according to law
Toward Awakening, Jean Vaysse
…(T)he struggle against automatic habits established in each of our centers can be a support for the early stages of self-observation, just as later another kind of struggle —of oneself with oneself (between the two aspects of man) —will be necessary to serve as a basis for the appearance of a “presence,” and later still the struggle between the yes and the no (that is, between the two natures of man) will be necessary for his spiritualization. The story of the liberation of man is one of constant struggle against increasingly subtle forms of mechanicalness, and it all begins on the level of habits by a struggle to arrive at real self-observation. —The conditions, means and significance of real self-observation
In Search of the Miraculous
“…If a man lives without inner struggle, if everything happens in him without opposition… he will remain such as he is. But if a struggle begins in him, and particularly if there is a definite line in this struggle, then, gradually, permanent traits begin to form themselves, he begins to ‘crystallize.’
…If a man gives way to all his desires, or panders to them, there will be no inner struggle in him, no ‘friction,’ no fire. But if, for the sake of attaining a definite aim, he struggles with desires that hinder him, he will then create a fire which will gradually transform his inner world into a single whole. —Chapter 2
“The study of the chief fault, and the struggle against, it constitute, as it were, each man’s individual path…
“The struggle against the ‘false I,’ against one’s chief feature or chief fault, is the most important part of the work, and it must proceed in deeds, not in words. —Chapter 11
Transcripts of Gurdjieff’s Meetings 1941-1946
Gurdjieff: …Collect, accumulate the results of struggle… You must accumulate; you have batteries in you in which you must accumulate this substance, like electricity. This substance can only be accumulated by struggle. Therefore create a struggle between your head and your animal. …Continue your struggle, but without waiting for results. Accumulate the results of the process of struggle… It is this that is lacking in you.
… What is necessary is that you must have in you the process of struggle. What means shall you employ? That isn’t important. Struggle. You know better than I what struggle. For example, whatever your body likes, whatever you have the habit of giving it, don’t give it any more. The important thing is to have a continual process of struggle, because you need the substance that struggle will give you. —Meeting Fifteen Thursday, 21 October 1943
Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll
…(A) man should always remember his aim when he remembers himself… For a man to develop, a struggle must be set up in him—a struggle between “Yes” and “No”, a struggle between aim and not-aim. But everything will depend on the nature of this struggle—that is, upon what a man struggles for, and what he remembers as Yes and…as No. Upon this the result of the struggle will depend…
…What quality, what kind, of Yes and No does a man remember when he remembers himself? —Birdlip, December 14, 1942 – On Hydrogens V
The Reality of Being
…My ordinary nature refuses self-observation. I need to prepare, to organize a struggle against the obstacle, to withdraw a little from my identification—speaking, imagining, expressing negative emotions. Conscious struggle requires choice and acceptance. It must not be my state that dictates the choice. I must choose the struggle to be present and accept that suffering will appear. There is no struggle without suffering. Struggle is unacceptable to our lower nature; struggle upsets it. This is why it is so important always to remember what we wish… —#6. The First Initiation