Teachings of Gurdjieff: A Pupil’s Journal, C.S. Nott
…We are taught to believe that natural greatness is a condition of individual happiness, that amusements amuse, that distinguished company is brilliant, that other people’s praise is necessary… that books, pictures, and music are stimulating, that leisure without work is desirable… that fame, the possession of power, titles, success, have real value.
‘We accept all this without pondering or reflection. We do not wish to ponder because it might disturb our self-calm, which is peace of mind, with no wish to understand the meaning of existence… We are victims of suggestibility… —Orage’s Commentary on ‘Beelzebub’
All and Everything: Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
“This strange trait of their psyche, that of being satisfied with whatever Smith or Brown says, without trying to know more, became rooted in them long ago, and now they no longer make the least effort to know anything that can be understood solely by their own active reflection…
“(T)hey themselves are to blame for it, on account of the abnormal conditions of external ordinary being-existence they gradually established, and which have progressively fostered in their common presence what has now become their ‘inner evil god,’ called ‘self-calming.’ —Chapter XIII
“…(T)heir god “self-calming’…is for them almost the chief evil, engendering and evoking all the abnormalities of their psyche, as well as of their ordinary being-existence.—Chapter XLII
“When the contemporary three-brained beings of your planet, who can afford to gorge themselves and to satisfy all their other needs…are fully satiated, and are reclining in what are called their ‘soft English armchairs,’ in order, as is said there, ‘to digest it all,’ they do not even take advantage of these favorable conditions for sincere thinking, but only abandon themselves to their maleficent ‘self-calming. ‘
“And since it is in general impossible for any three-brained being of the Universe, and therefore also for any of the beings of your planet, to exist without mentation taking place in them, and since, at the same time, your favorites wish to be able to give themselves up freely to their ‘inner evil god, self-calming,’ they have gradually and very efficiently accustomed themselves to a sort of purely automatic thinking, without the least being-effort of their own.
“One must give them their due—in this they have attained perfection, and at the present time their thoughts flow in all directions without the intentional exertion of any part of their presence. —Chapter XLIII
In Search of the Miraculous
“…’Buffers’ make a man’s life more easy. It is very hard to live without ‘buffers.’ But they keep man from the possibility of inner development because ‘buffers’ are made to lessen shocks, and it is only shocks that can…waken him. ‘Buffers’ lull a man to sleep, give him the agreeable and peaceful sensation that all will be well, that no contradictions exist and that he can sleep in peace. ‘Buffers’ are appliances by means of which a man can always be in the right…
“…Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it… For this it is necessary to destroy ‘buffers’…and a man must agree to this work, realizing that the result…will be every possible discomfort and suffering from the awakening of his conscience. —Chapter 8
Psychological Commentaries, Maurice Nicoll, Vol 2
The place of Real Conscience has been taken by what in the Work are called ‘buffers’… Mr. Ouspensky…said: “Buffers make things easy for us. They prevent us from seeing what we are really doing and saying… A well-buffered man or woman has no doubts about himself or herself.” Mr. (Ouspensky) said also that people with very strong buffers usually cannot observe themselves at all, and they take themselves for granted. They are kept going by their buffers…
…(T)he action of buffers is so powerful that no one can understand it unless he has begun to see for himself the existence of a single buffer in himself. —Quaremead, Ugley, August 4, 1945 – A Note On Buffers
In Search of the Miraculous
“You must realize that each man has a definite repertoire of roles which he plays in ordinary circumstances,” said G… “He has a role for every kind of circumstance in which he ordinarily finds himself in life; but put him into even only slightly different circumstances and he is unable to find a suitable role, and for a short time he becomes himself. To see the roles, to know one’s repertoire, particularly to know its limitedness, is to know a great deal. But the point is that, outside his repertoire, a man feels very uncomfortable should something push him, if only temporarily, out of his rut, and he tries his hardest to return to any one of his usual roles. Directly he falls back into the rut, everything at once goes smoothly again, and the feeling of awkwardness and tension disappears. This is how it is in life; but in the work, in order to observe oneself, one must become reconciled to this…discomfort… Only by experiencing this…can a man really observe himself… (T)he question arises: What does he want? A quiet life or to work on himself?… To have them both together is in no way possible. A man must make a choice… —Chapter 12
This Fundamental Quest, Henriette Lannes
We seek happiness by escaping our lives. Here, you must put yourself in question; if not, you might as well take tranquilizers. Do not use the Work as a tranquilizer. The Work is not an escape. It helps us face what we are. We discover the aim of the Work little by little. For as long as you wish only to calm yourself, your experiences will bring you no real change.
…I am seeking, now, a place inside where I feel myself to be more alive… All this needs to make more and more sense to you. Can you feel what is asked of us: a state of much greater awakening?—Further Exchanges: With a Young Group (1963-64)