The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution, P.D. Ouspensky
First Lecture
…there is no oneness in man and there is no controlling centre, no permanent ‘I’ or Ego. …Every thought, every feeling, every sensation, every desire, every like and every dislike is an ‘I’. These ‘I’s are not connected and are not co-ordinated in any way. Each of them depends on the change in external circumstances, and on the change of impressions.
…There are certain groups of ‘I’s which are naturally connected. …Now, we must try to understand that there are groups of ‘I’s connected only by accidental associations, accidental memories, or quite imaginary similarities.
Each of these ‘I’s represents at every given moment a very small part of our ‘brain,’ ‘mind’, or ‘intelligence,’ but each of them means itself to represent the whole. When man says ‘I’ it sounds as if he meant the whole of himself, but really …it is only a passing thought, a passing mood, or passing desire. …In most cases he believes in the last ‘I’ which expressed itself, …that is, as long as another ‘I’—sometimes quite unconnected with the preceding one—does not express its opinion or its desire louder than the first.
Michel de Salzmann at Beau Préaux 2001
I see how my ego is always in the way, spoiling everything. Don’t be too quick to judge. It is a very complicated thing, a temporary center of gravity with which my attention is identified, like a soap bubble. Have you ever seen an ego walking around somewhere? Where is it when you sleep at night? There are a hundred egos, a hundred “I”s. One “I” disappears and another takes its place. But when the center of gravity comes within, the ego does not exist. It is fed by images
The Reality of Being
#72. The imagination of myself
In order to know who I am, I need to see what is real in me. The biggest obstacle is illusion. I accept imagination in the place of consciousness, an idea of myself instead of a feeling of “I.”
In coming to work together, each of us brings something very important—his ego. I try to understand why I came. I see that it is my ego, my person, who is here, to which I cling, and I see, if I am sincere, that it is mixed up in large measure with what led me here. But it will not be able to help me. To see this, and to see that I still believe myself to be this person, makes me put the question with more feeling— “Then, who am I?”
We are all, such as we are, under the influence of our imagination of ourselves. …On the one hand, there is this imagination, this false notion of myself. On the other, there is a real “I” that I do not know. I do not see the difference. …Everything I affirm is the imagination of myself. What I cannot affirm—because I do not know it—is the real “I.”
I need to learn to recognize and separate the real “I” from the imagination of myself. This is an arduous task because my imagined “I” defends itself. It is opposed to the real “I,” and is exactly what “I” am not. …I have no idea of this imagination. So long as I do not know it, I cannot know what I am.
This imagination of “I . . . me” lies at the heart of my usual sense of self, the ego, and all the movements of my inner life go to protect it. …this imagined “I” desires, fights, compares and judges all the time. It wants to be the first, it wants to be recognized, admired and respected, and make its force and power felt…..
Heart Without Measure, Ravi Ravindra
quoting Jeanne de Salzmann,
“Unless there is the I, there is only the ego. So let it be. One recognizes the presence of the I from the fact that I wish to serve. Ego does not wish to serve. But until there is the I, let the ego be. It can be useful. What else are you going to do? When the I appears, the ego automatically loses energy and becomes unimportant. It can still be there but it is not in control.”
“Watch for the point in working when it is necessary to let go. Something has to be abandoned. Ego makes the effort, but one comes to the point when the ego has to be passive. The point of transition is subtle. There can be too much effort or too little.”
Beelzebub’s Tales
From the Author:
Before beginning to study this mechanicality and all the principles of correctly conducted self-observation, a man must decide, once and for all, that he will be unconditionally sincere with himself, that he will shut his eyes to nothing, will shun no results wherever they may lead him, fear no inferences, and impose no limits upon himself in advance,…
“…it is necessary at the very outset to give warning that a man, … will need great courage to accept sincerely the conclusions reached and not lose heart, …
“Thanks to correctly conducted self-observation, a man, from the very first days, will clearly grasp and recognize without question his complete powerlessness and helplessness in the face of literally everything around him.
…”If he frees himself of all imagination about himself and of all self calming—impulses which have become inherent in contemporary people—he will recognize that his whole life is nothing but a blind reacting to these attractions and repulsions.
(pause) …Such is the ordinary average man—an unconscious slave, entirely at the service of all-universal purposes alien to his personal individuality.
He may live through all his years as he is, and as such be destroyed forever.
However, Great Nature has given him the possibility of not being merely a blind tool entirely at the service of these all-universal objective purposes but, while serving her and actualizing what is foreordained for him, which is the lot of every breathing creature, of working at the same time for himself, for his own “egoistic” individuality.
This possibility also was given him for serving the common purpose since, for the equilibrium of these objective laws, such relatively liberated people are necessary.
Although this liberation is possible, nevertheless whether any particular man has a chance to attain it—this is difficult to say.
…The chief difficulty in the way of liberation from complete slavery is that we must, with an intention coming from our own initiative and a persistence sustained by our own efforts—that is to say, not by another’s will but by our own—succeed in eradicating from our presence both the already fixed consequences of certain properties of that “something” in our forefathers called the “organ kundabuffer,” as well as the predisposition to those consequences which may again arise.