In Search of the Miraculous
Chapter 8
“It must be understood that man consists of two parts: essence and personality. Essence in man is what is his own. Personality in man is what is ‘not his own.’ ‘Not his own’ means what has come from outside, what he has learned, or reflects, all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory and in the sensations, all words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation—all this is ‘not his own,’ all this is personality. …
“Essence is the truth in man; personality is the false. But in proportion as personality grows, essence manifests itself more and more rarely and more and more feebly and it very often happens that essence stops in its growth at a very early age and grows no further. …This means that everything we see in this man is in reality ‘not his own.’ What is his own in man, that is, his essence, is usually only manifested in his instincts and in his simplest emotions……
…A very important moment in the work on oneself is when a man begins to distinguish between his personality and his essence. A man’s real I, his individuality, can grow only from his essence. It can be said that a man’s individuality is his essence, grown up, mature. But in order to enable essence to grow up, it is first of all necessary to weaken the constant pressure of personality upon it, because the obstacles to the growth of essence are contained in personality.
“…The inner growth of a man cannot begin so long as this order of things remains unchanged. Personality must become passive and essence must become active. This can happen only if ‘buffers’ are removed or weakened, because ‘buffers’ are the chief weapon by the help of which personality holds essence in subjection. … A successful beginning of work on oneself requires the happy occurrence of an equal development of personality and essence.
Chapter 11
” ‘When a man awakes he can die; when he dies he can be born.’ …
” ‘To awake,’ ‘to die,’ ‘to be born.’ These are three successive stages.
…[B]eing ‘born’ …relates to the beginning of a new growth of essence, the beginning of the formation of individuality, the beginning of the appearance of one indivisible I.
“…Attachment to things, identification with things, keep alive a thousand useless I’s in a man. These I’s must die in order that the big I may be born.
Commentaries on All and Everything, A.R. Orage
‘One of the chief purposes of a man is to develop from a substance called “essence”, a special kind of reason—objective reason—which will establish him as a permanent brain-cell of all life. Man, by attaining to objective reason, can help to redeem Creation. Nature, says Gurdjieff, needs these relatively liberated beings. As we develop consciousness, will and individuality, we take our place as one of the brain-cells of the Universe…
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‘In the course of our existence, as we grow up, essence (in which is hidden objective conscience) becomes submerged, and there remains only personality, in which the three centres become separated…
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Ashiata Shiemash …reached the conclusion that there still remained, buried in essence, something that is not acquired but is our own and has not been corrupted—Objective Conscience.
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Inside a Question, Mme. Henriette Lannes
Human Essence
…The crux of our misery is that blind conviction that any influence moving through thought, feeling, body, is our own.
Essence can be described as a knot of many possibilities of different orders —and as a range of tendencies. It is not the same thing….And, in principle every human essence has been given the possibility to grow and evolve….
Essence is also ‘avidity’ at different degrees in the different centers. This is important. We could also call it hunger for impressions in sensation, movements, feelings, intellect. What in me is the most hungry?
—this brings the question: how is essence fed?
—What possibilities are developed?
—What tendencies are encourage, or thwarted, or distorted?…
…Essence is created unique. It is the root of individuality, the seed of Being. It could not be so, if it was not also ‘Angel and Devil”
Psychological Commentaries ,Vol 4, Maurice Nicoll
Commentary On Real I, Amwell, Jan 29, 1949
The only part of us that can get in touch with Real I is Essence. Real I —Master— is fully developed. Essence is not. …
…the Work teaches, that Essence, through which alone we can get in touch with Real I, is undeveloped. …Essence cannot grow unless Personality is formed round it by life on this planet. …
…Essence, …cannot develop by itself beyond a very small point unless first of all it is surrounded with a side acquired from this planet, which is called Personality, which, in turn, if we begin to work against the aspect of it called False Personality, will feed undeveloped Essence. As Essence begins to grow in this strange way, so does the possibility of finding flashes of Real I become more apparent to those undergoing the process of this Work.
The Reality of Being
#4 “I” am not here
Real “I” comes from essence. Its development depends on the wish of essence—a wish to be and then a wish to become able to be. Essence is formed from impressions that are assimilated in early childhood, usually up to the age of five or six when a fissure appears between essence and personality. In order to develop further, essence must become active in spite of resistance from the pressure of personality. We need to “remember ourselves” for our essence to receive impressions. Only in a conscious state can we see the difference between essence and personality.
Ordinarily impressions are received in a mechanical way. They are received by our personality, which reacts with automatic thoughts and feelings that depend on its conditioning. We do not assimilate impressions because personality itself cannot be alive—it is dead. In order to be assimilated and transformed, impressions have to be received by essence. This requires a conscious effort at the moment of the impression. And it requires a definite feeling, a feeling of love for being, for being present. We must respond to impressions no longer from the vantage point of personality but from love for being present. This will transform our whole way of thinking and feeling.
Spiritual Physics, Jerry Brewster
All centers have buffers and they are very simple; a buffer could manifest as the raising of an eyebrow; it could be the phrase, “so that’s life;” it could be a shrug of the shoulders or a mental phrase. If you can take in an impression of this repetitive phrase or your face as you raise the eyebrow, as the buffer comes in and connects itself to something lower, let’s say self-pity, you can feel the contradictions. In feeling the contradictions, Gurdjieff says, “It will cause in you the rising of conscience.” In our essence we have this extraordinary ability or ‘organ’ of conscience. Gurdjieff also says that, “Conscience is to the emotions what consciousness is to the mind.” Objective conscience is an extraordinary thing; if I can bear the suffering of the contradictions, something will change.