Return to Now, Henriette Lannes
Further Exchanges with a young group
Mr. Gurdjieff said that the most difficult thing is to know what one wants. I only begin really to work when I know what I want.
In Search of the Miraculous
Chapter 6
“…it is important that you should define your own aim. The teaching by itself cannot pursue any definite aim. It can only show the best way for men to attain whatever aims they may have. The question of aim is a very important question. Until a man has defined his own aim for himself he will not be able even to begin ‘to do’ anything. How is it possible ‘to do’ anything without having an aim? Before anything else ‘doing’ presupposes an aim.”
..”Freedom, liberation, this must be the aim of man. To become free, to be liberated from slavery: this is what a man ought to strive for when he becomes even a little conscious of his position. There is nothing else for him, and nothing else is possible so long as he remains a slave both inwardly and outwardly. But he cannot cease to be a slave outwardly while he remains a slave inwardly. Therefore in order to become free, man must gain inner freedom.
Chapter 2
…(G’s) favorite statement was that, if a man in prison was at any time to have a chance of escape, then he must first of all realize that he is in prison. So long as he fails to realize this, so long as he thinks he is free, he has no chance whatever. … If liberation is possible, it is possible only as a result of great labor and great efforts, and, above all, of conscious efforts, towards a definite aim.
1938 Wartime Meetings With Gurdjieff
(responding to a question)…”You must prepare yourself for work. One certain time of day must be consecrated to work; you do nothing else. You sacrifice this. … You prepare the ground. You consecrate this time to the work. …And if a task is given you, or if you make one for yourself, you will do it during the time you have already fixed for this.
Gurdjieff: “…Before you immerse yourself in life, when you are alone at home, let go of your tensions and make a program for yourself. Represent to yourself how you will act during the day, and give yourself your word to follow this program exactly. You will fail ten times, or even twenty times but the twenty-first time you will be able to do what you decided when you were alone. There is no other way for now. You must make a program.
“I repeat, come to a quiet and relaxed state. Only then establish your program for the day. Then go into life and try to do exactly what you have decided. If you do it, reward yourself. If you forget, punish yourself…
“You fail one time, ten times. But each struggle brings results, a substance accumulates in you. It is this substance which will help you carry out conscious decisions…
“…Five minutes of real work is worth more than twenty-four hours of work done any old way. Again, it is not the quantity, it is the quality that counts—short but substantial…
The Reality of Being
41. Only in everyday life
I must learn how always to make new impulses for work, conditions that are hard enough, yet not too hard. If they are not hard enough, they will not serve as an impulse. If too hard, they will create such resistance that I cannot go on. Do not make a promise to yourself that you cannot be sure you are able to keep. If you undertake a task, you must feel it as a strong necessity from the beginning of the day. In order to bring a struggle, the demand must have the force of a strong identification.
5. Where our attention is
“…Our inner work progresses … in stages, and always depends on new forces. It is determined by laws. We must get rid of the idea that progress is continuous in a straight line. There are stages where the intensity diminishes and, if we wish not to fall back, a force must appear that is more active.”
Return to Now, Henriette Lannes
Inner discipline is not so much imposing an exercise on ourselves as it is listening to a demand that arises within us. Everything required of us, be it something simple or something altogether fundamental, should be approached with a constructive attitude.
1938 Wartime Meetings With Gurdjieff
Questions from the French Group
…Be wholehearted in everything you do. One must work precisely on something precise. Work should not be a desire, but a need, a need. You have not the right to have desire only. This is not enough. It will give nothing. Create a need in yourself. Repeat, repeat, repeat. You never repeat enough…
G: …Aim. Always have an immediate aim. This is your objective. You must achieve this. There are many zigzags on the way. Do not delay. Always see the aim. Know where you are going and you will find the means to get there.
Attention, Wish, Will, Free Will
A Talk by Mr. de Hartmann, From the Diary Notes of Thomas C. Daly
Madame de Hartmann questioned each and all of us together, especially deeply: “Why are you here?—What is your aim?—And what do you wish?”
One can want all such things just to be approved of by others, just to get on better in life—but why do you want that? …”
Mr. de Hartmann….began to speak. He underlined four themes: “Attention—Wish—Will—Free Will.”
“This morning I saw a dog with two small boys. Its whole attention was glued to its two masters, watching to see what they would do, which way they would go, so he could quickly follow and be with them. He had attention for nothing else. ..This is already a high degree of attention, even if it is only animal attention—much stronger than many humans have.
“Now we come to wish. Wish is only, as it were, a mere point in space. If we only wish for an object, we will never have it. In order to possess it, we must begin to move toward it. This movement is the beginning of will. If wish is a “point,” this kind of will generates a “line,” moving toward the object, with a view to possessing it, or identifying with it.
“At every level of the universe there are degrees of will. The iron and lodestone: purely mechanical will—yet it moves towards its goal. The caterpillar moves along towards the leaf it wants to eat.
“Thus there is an attention, and a will, for outside objects. An object attracts us; we do not attract the object. Objects govern us from outside. They make us do all sorts of things. It is not the woman who buys the hat, but the hat buys the woman. The man does not smoke the cigarette; the cigarette smokes the man, as Mr. Gurdjieff said. The attention and the will generated by outside objects, through the senses, are not our own. They are part of the mechanism of Nature: Nature works us. We do not conquer Nature; Nature conquers us. The attention and the will connected with the physical senses and outside objects are not our own.
“But there is another Attention, and another Will. Man has two natures: a lower, and a higher. The lower nature is like an animal’s—more subtle and complex, perhaps, but nevertheless it works in the same way. The higher nature is the real one. It is incomplete, but capable of growing into a full and complete Man.
“For the higher nature, there is another Attention, and another Will, not born outside of us, but born in us. This Attention is the beginning of real Consciousness; and this Will is the beginning of Free Will. With this Attention, we can observe ourselves; with this Attention we can remember ourselves. With this Will, we can make efforts to attain our greatest aim: to complete ourselves.
But we must actually will it. But unless we actually wish it, we will have no chance of obtaining anything. And wishing alone, is also not enough. We can wish forever, but unless we move toward what we wish we will never obtain it. We must will it.
“But we do not have enough Will. And we do not have enough Attention. So we must increase them as best we may. And the only way to increase them is to make the right kind of efforts. Without efforts, nothing can increase. But if we turn all our Attention, all our Will, and all our Efforts, towards our big Aim, little by little, like the caterpillar, we will approach it: the big Aim.
You Must Have an Aim, by G.I. Gurdjieff
(Published in Parabola Magazine)
Q: So I would like to know what I can do so that my will can have more of an action on myself.
Gurdjieff: You must have an aim, a serious aim. And you must establish a relationship between your task and your aim, an aim you cannot forget. Your task concerns your aim and brings you to your aim. The first day you do it indifferently, the second day a little better, the third day, you do it whether you like it or not. It is in accomplishing your task relentlessly, without considering your mood, that you will succeed in having will. You must do this gradually. It will increase. One cannot have will all at once. One cannot go to the pharmacy to buy will.
A Normal Being Wishes To Live Forever – G. I. Gurdjieff
…”Conscious labor consists of having an objective in life, as a LIFE aim, an Aim which can be pursued the whole of your life. It does not depend on the vicissitudes of life. It is the aim for which you took the trouble to be born.