In Search of the Miraculous
Chapter 11
“Every man. has a certain feature in his character which is central. It is like an axle round which all his ‘false personality’ revolves. Every man’s personal work must consist in struggling against this chief fault. …In this connection … a man cannot find his own chief feature, his chief fault, by himself. This is practically a law.
“The study of the chief fault and the struggle against it constitute, as it were, each man’s individual path, but the aim must be the same for all. This aim is the realization of one’s nothingness. Only when a man has truly and sincerely arrived at the conviction of his own helplessness and nothingness, and only when he feels it constantly, will he be ready for the next and much more difficult stages of the work.
“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. For this purpose the teacher gives each man definite tasks which require, in order to carry them out, the conquest of his chief feature. …
Chapter 13
…G. was very ingenious in the definition of features. I realized on this occasion that not everyone’s chief feature could be defined. With some people this feature can be so hidden beneath different formal manifestations as to be almost impossible to find. And then a man can consider himself as his chief feature, just as I could call my chief feature “Ouspensky” or, as G. always called it, “Piotr Demianovich.” Mistakes there cannot be because the “Piotr Demianovich” of each person forms so to speak “round his chief feature.”
Whenever anyone disagreed with the definition of his chief feature given by G. he always said that the fact that the person disagreed with him showed that he was right.
“I disagree only with what you say is actually my chief feature,” said one of our people. “The chief feature which I know in myself is very much worse. But I do not dispute that people may see me as you describe.”
“You know nothing in yourself,” G. told him; “if you knew you would not have that feature. And people certainly see you in the way I told you. But you do not see how they see you. If you accept what I told you as your chief feature you will understand how people see you. And if you find a way to struggle with this feature and to destroy it, that is, to destroy its involuntary manifestation” (G. emphasized these words), “you will produce on people not the impression that you do now but any impression you like.”
From Exchanges Within
Lord Pentland
The wish is your only initiative
Question: I’m wondering if the time is approaching when we could be told, almost brutally if necessary, what is our chief feature. I’ve had glimpses lately of an entirely different feeling that I’ve never had before, of believing that I was a little more present. I almost believe I’m ready to begin to work. I realize how much help I need, and I wondered if I were brutally told what my chief features are, could I grasp them or would I rush off and not want to face them?
Lord Pentland: If I told you what your chief feature was, would you believe me?
Questioner: Yes, I would.
Lord Pentland: It shows you’re not ready. We work for guidance, not for belief. All your work is based on a very small thing, which connects you with the line of great teachers including Gurdjieff—the wish to understand yourself in relation to your situation in the work. And the wish is your only initiative.
There’s very little light, but occasionally you get an inkling. Everything is against you. Your chief feature is the focus of all your mechanicalness. It represents all that keeps you in darkness. Until you can see all that, you cannot know your chief feature.
Don’t believe anyone who tells you your chief feature. You work. A great teacher can give you guidance, but he can’t do the work for you. The best step for you is to try to come to a more deep separation, something which is under all this talk about chief feature. This teaching is mostly in our feelings, but we wish to come to something separate from our feelings.
Perspectives on Inner Work, by Lee Van Laer
Chief feature is a part of ourselves around which everything else forms. In Gurdjieff’s teaching this part is understood, generally speaking at least, to be an inner obstacle. That is, it’s a major part of what blinds us to ourselves. …
Chief feature is probably not “all negative.” We actually need it. … It is a deal with the devil. Chief feature becomes a steel shield formed at the very front of our being to protect us. Our conduct in life all takes place from behind this barrier. After we’ve finished forming it rather early in life, nothing really gets in, and a lot of our real essential self can’t get out. No matter what happens, chief feature is right there, advising us, reassuring us, rationalizing, and making sure that we’re comfortable.
…The price of relative saftey is this imprisonment. Life is held at arm’s length, producing a state referred to in various ways such as sleep, lack of relationship, attachment, or identification. Dwelling behind this wall of our own making, we all convince ourselves that the view from the little slit through which all our exchanges take place is a damned good one. In fact, the view is so good we don’t even know we have a wall.
Chief feature is invisible. So invisible that Gurdjieff advised us if we are told what it is, we will most certainly deny it. …The implication is that chief feature causes us to live in an equally profound state of delusion about ourselves. It takes great effort to see through a veil that thick.
Inside this inner fortress, we live in a perpetual state of fear. …
I probably don’t spend as much time as I should studying this thing called chief feature. It’s the core of what self-observation is all about.
Further Teachings of Gurdjieff, C.S. Nott
Chief Feature in each one of us is a key to our actions and manifestations. It tips the scales. Always the same motive moves Chief Feature. It is like the bias in bowling, which prevents the ball going straight. Always Chief Feature makes us go off at a tangent. It is something mechanical and imaginary and is found in the emotional part of essence. It gives the tone pitch to the three centres and forms the pattern of our wishes. It arises from one or more of the seven deadly sins, but chiefly from self-love and vanity. One can discover it by becoming more conscious; and its discovery brings an increase of consciousness.
Views From the Real World
Prieuré, February 13, 1923: Liberation leads to liberation
…The meaning behind these words may be explained as follows: By liberation is meant the liberation which is the aim of all schools, all religions, at all times.
This liberation can indeed be very great. All men desire it and strive after it. But it cannot be attained without the first liberation, a lesser liberation. The great liberation is liberation from influences outside us. The lesser liberation is liberation from influences within us.
At first, for beginners, this lesser liberation appears to be very great, for a beginner depends very little on external influences. Only a man who has already become free of inner influences falls under external influences.
Inner influences prevent a man from falling under external influences. Maybe it is for the best. Inner influences and inner slavery come from many varied sources and many independent factors—independent in that sometimes it is one thing and sometimes another, for we have many enemies.
…(W)e must find a method, a line of work, which will enable us simultaneously to destroy the greatest possible number of enemies within us from which these influences come.
I said that we have many independent enemies, but the chief and most active are vanity and self-love. One teaching even calls them representatives and messengers of the devil himself.
…
Actually, we do not possess ourselves, nor do we possess genuine self-love. Self-love is a great thing. If we consider self-love, as we generally understand it, as reprehensible, then it follows that true self-love—which, unfortunately, we do not possess—is desirable and necessary.
As we have said earlier, self-love is a representative of the devil; it is our chief enemy, the main brake to our aspirations and our achievements. …But self-love is an attribute of the soul. By self-love one can discern the spirit. Self-love indicates and proves that a given man is a particle of heaven. Self-love is I—I is God. Therefore it is desirable to have self-love.
Self-love is hell, and self-love is heaven. These two, bearing the same name, are outwardly alike, but totally different and opposite to one another in essence. But if we look superficially, we can go on looking throughout our whole life without ever distinguishing the one from the other.
How to distinguish between one kind of self-love and another? We have said that on the surface it is very difficult. This is so even when we look at others; when we look at ourselves it is still more difficult.