Views From the Real World
Prieuré, January 30, 1923 – Energy—sleep
A man’s centers never sleep. Since associations are their life, their movement, they never cease, they never stop. A stoppage of associations means death. The movement of associations never stops for an instant in any center, they flow on even in the deepest sleep.
Toward Awakening, Jean Vaysse
Centers and Functions
…associations are very important for understanding the functioning of the machine. The machine is so constructed that, in certain conditions, the recording of impressions… automatically creates a tendency for some of them to connect together, so that when one is evoked all those associated with it are recalled. Such associations are produced chiefly in two sets of circumstances: first, when impressions received together… are inscribed simultaneously… and second, when impressions… are mutually aroused by a phenomenon analogous to resonance.
…The first in particular can very quickly be made use of… (D)ifferent impressions received simultaneously… are by this very fact linked together; not only do they remain in the memory longer than isolated impressions, but also the recollection of one inevitably causes the others to be remembered at the same time. If a man comes to realize, at least for a moment, a degree of unity in himself, all the impressions received together on such an occasion… become linked and remain linked in his memory, thus helping to establish this unity…
But the second process is just as important. Impressions having a certain inner similarity are also evoked by one another and leave a deeper trace; this relationship is automatically established when similar impressions are repeated in the same center… (I)f a man, through special work, becomes more conscious, then more subtle and more complete relationships of inherent similarity… put at his disposal an aggregate in which all the life impressions are associated together at the different levels.
As opposed to this, in a state of identification where a man is absorbed in outer functionings, he does not even notice the events which may be impressing his centers, or if he does notice them, their traces are deposited in him unconsciously and disappear before they have been evaluated or associated, thus leaving no trace at all in his memory.
G.I. Gurdjieff Paris Meetings 1943
Thursday, July 15
Gurdjieff: Associations are a part of our presence. If our presence had an aim, if it wished something to happen, the associations would obey… It is necessary to have an aim with your whole presence and to work for this aim. Not with one part alone, one centre alone.I have associations, but they don’t reach my consciousness. The circulation of blood also happens by itself. It is an automatic function. It doesn’t bother me. It happens night and day. Associations also work, just as my heart works. And there are other functions… You must have an aim and leave aside the organic functions. Don’t listen to them, either with consciousness or with thought…
Teachings of Gurdjieff: A Pupil’s Journal, C.S. Nott
Orage’s Commentary on ‘Beelzebub’
“Purposive thought” is thinking with a purpose, with attention. This implies control—not thinking just by association—control of the lower thinking centre by the higher thinking centre; of the formatory apparatus by “I”.
…’In every mind there is a certain grammar of association. There are two categories; association of words—verbal reasoning, and association of forms—mentation by form, reasoning by ideas… Nine-tenths of what we call thought is mechanical association of words… Association by form, or “mentation, by form”, is dependent on personal experience; it is still an association, but different from mere words. It is the form in which peasants and animals—or those we call “understanding persons” often think. It has strict reference to experience—a grammar of people in whom experiences exist. Verbal association is developed by words; formal, by being in the company of men of understanding, and by being with “simple” people…
Views From the Real World
Prieuré, January 19, 1923 – To all my questions…
…I have noticed that other associations engulf the associations connected with self-remembering. Our associations take place in our formatory apparatus owing to shocks which the formatory apparatus receives from the centers. Each shock has associations of its own particular character; their strength depends on the material which produces them.
If the thinking center produces associations of self-remembering, incoming associations of another character, which come from other parts, and have nothing to do with self-remembering, absorb these desirable associations, since they come from many different places and so are more numerous.
…It should be pointed out here that self-remembering, however full and whole, can be of two kinds, conscious and mechanical—remembering oneself consciously and remembering oneself by associations. Mechanical, that is, associative self-remembering can bring no essential profit, yet such associative self-remembering is of tremendous value in the beginning. Later it should not be used, for such a self-remembering, however complete, does not result in any real, concrete doing.
There exists another, a conscious, self-remembering which is not mechanical.
Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Vol. 1, Maurice Nicoll
Birdlip, May 22, 1943 – On ‘ Being Passive’
…the Work says that we see everything from association… To our small ‘I’s living in mechanical divisions of centres, things may seem familiar by mere association, which when seen from more conscious ‘I’s become unfamiliar… We see for a moment without associations… Impressions then fall on essence. We get used to things owing to associations so we no longer see each other, or indeed anything, but only our associations with which we completely identify…
…If impressions fall on essence you see in a new way… You must understand that if we see everything from past associations we will not be able to see anything in a different way… In this way, we keep one another in the prison of our associations about one another… Try to see another person without associations. That is the beginning of something new…