Henriette Lannes
…(I)n our habitual life circumstances, which seem unfavorable to remembering… we are led to recognize that the vibrations of the external world can serve as reminding factors.
We need to exercise, to try each day to remember ourselves when we are in contact with something or someone… —This Fundamental Quest – Remembering, Self-Remembering
The other, whosoever he may be, living with us, working with us in life or in the teaching, is an essential reminding factor. But the difficulty is large. Our inability to accept others, especially if certain of their personal traits displease us, is our major stumbling block… —This Fundamental Quest – Work with Others
Excerpts from Meetings with Gurdjieff in Paris
Gurdjieff: … Every man should make use of his most frequent bad tendencies as a reminding factor. That is the most normal struggle and also the most productive. —Paris Meetings 1943 – Thursday February 4
Q: I see that I lie, even in relationships with those dearest to me, even with my wife and child. What can I do?…
Mme. de Salzmann: Your relationship with your wife and your child can be a good source of remorse for you, a good reminding factor, always there. Every man needs something in him which burns, which does not let him rest. —Paris Meetings 1943 – Thursday January 14
Q: I’m not able to create a struggle in myself.
Gurdjieff: You alone can struggle against your laziness… But you, you sleep. You must get up and struggle. The more your psyche wants something, the more the body refuses it. Perhaps this tendency was put there by nature so that a struggle would be necessary…. (I)t is a good thing… If laziness did not exist in you, it would be necessary to replace it with something else. It is also a reminding factor. Each time you experience it, you should think of your work. It is also a good thing that you see your laziness, because many people are lazy but do not see it. —Paris Meetings 1943 – Thursday March 18
Q: Sir, could you point me to a specific way to struggle against …”chattering”?
Mr. Gurdjieff: I will give you a really good way. You take a part of your body: the hand, the leg, a given part that you sacrifice for your weakness… And you make it serve as a reminding factor. Like a policeman. To factor this part, let’s take the left hand as an example, you focus everything on it: attention, feeling, sensation, once or twice a day. And you keep sensing it…
(Y)ou make this part a reminding factor… Then when you chatter, you…tell yourself through your hand that your sensation is coming to stop this chatter. Then every time you sense the hand, it will be a factor preventing this chatter. And every day you prepare yourself; I took the left hand as an example. You can take another part… And if you find that he is a good policeman, you can use him to help you against another weakness. —Meetings with G.I. Gurdjieff in Paris 1944 – Thursday June 15, 1944
Q: I have noticed that in every act, in every thought, in every word, pride poisons everything…
Mr. Gurdjieff: You must use it for your work. In general, our first aim is to recognize our nullity. You have seen something unworthy of yourself… If you often remember this thing…make it a reminding factor… As soon as you feel this thing, it will give you an impulse to work, and more possibility of recognizing your nullity… Now use this finding as a reminder…
Don’t destroy it. Let it gain strength, you can work more often. Even bad things can be good… Nothing should be destroyed. They will serve as material… They must become functions… Until now your “me” was the function of this impulse, now it must become the function of your “me.” —Meetings with G.I. Gurdjieff in Paris 1944 – Thursday October 19, 1944
Q: What to do about emotions that destroy everything?
Gurdjieff: You have planted…special kinds of vegetables… Today you are obliged to harvest them. Why did you plant them if you didn’t like them?t…
…if the fruits are not desirable, make them into material for remorse of conscience, for when the work becomes harder. Now, the past is finished… You can only repair; all you can do with these moments is to make them into reminding factors. . And, when you remember yourself, say ‘I am’, sense your whole body, and follow your programme. —Paris Meetings 1943 – Thursday July 8
…Only remorse can crystallize the factors that help you to remember yourself. Nothing else can. Only remorse of conscience. —Paris Meetings 1943 – Thursday October 7
Life is Real Only Then When “I Am”
…(I)n spite of all my desires and endeavors, I could not succeed in “remembering myself”… with others, so as to be able to manifest myself…according to the previous instructions of my “collected consciousness.” I could not attain the state of “remembering myself” even sufficiently to hinder the associations flowing in me automatically from certain undesirable hereditary factors of my nature…
Though in my past life I had tried everything, even had worn reminding factors of all kinds on my person, nothing helped. Perhaps these did help a little, while I carried them on me, but if so it was only at the beginning, as soon as I stopped carrying them or got used to them, in a moment it was as if before…
(T)here is one (way) only—to have outside myself…a factor which would remind me always, in my every common state, to “remember myself.”..
What is there contained in my general presence which, if I should remove it from myself, would always in my various general states be reminding me of itself?…
I came to the conclusion that if I should intentionally stop utilizing the exceptional power…which had been developed by me consciously… there must be forced out of me such a reminding source.
And so… always and in everything its absence would be felt… and thereby… always be a reminder for me. —Prologue