In Search of the Miraculous
Chapter 4
“…by its very nature… the Absolute constitutes one whole …(and) possess a full and independent will, full consciousness…
“…We live in a world… very far from the will of the Absolute…
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
Chapter 43 …Beelzebub’s opinion of war
“The word ‘intelligentsia’ comes very close to the idea we define by the expression ‘force in oneself.’
“…among the ancient Greeks this word denoted beings so perfected that they could direct their functions by their own will, unlike nonspiritualized cosmic formations, whose actions are only reactions to external causes.
“… contemporary intelligentsia can give absolutely no direction at all to their being-functions, …there are already completely atrophied in them even those data for impulses of essence-initiative for daily being-existence which Great Nature always puts in all three-centered beings at their arising.
“During their responsible existence these beings belonging to the intelligentsia manifest themselves, that is to say, act automatically, only on receiving accidental or intentional shocks from outside, and it is only these external shocks that animate them and bring them corresponding experiences, thanks to the unrolling of a series of associations linked with accidental, automatic impressions already perceived by them and not depending at all on their own wish or will…
“But never do their outer manifestations or the inner being-impulses that ought to be under the direction of their ‘being-I’ proceed according to their own wish arising from their entire presence.
Views From the Real World
New York, March 1, 1924
…Free will is the function of the real I, of him whom we call the Master. He who has a Master has will. He who has not, has no will. What is ordinarily called will is an adjustment between willingness and unwillingness. For instance, the mind wants something and the feeling does not want it; if the mind proves to be stronger than the feeling, a man obeys his mind. In the opposite case, he will obey his feelings. This is what is called “free will” in an ordinary man. An ordinary man is ruled now by the mind, now by the feeling, now by the body. Very often he obeys orders coming from the automatic apparatus; a thousand times more often he is ordered about by the sex center.
Real free will can only be when one I always directs, when man has a Master…. An ordinary man has no master… Nevertheless, free will is a reality, it does exist. But we, as we are, cannot have it. A real man can have it.
Inner Octaves, Michel Conge
I have to understand the the birth of will is dependent on the union of wanting and not wanting. But if this opposition is not clear, if there is no real perception of this categorical refusal in me, if I don’t see it really clearly, there will never be any will-power. We want will-power right away because it would be a good thing to have…but that’s not possible. However, we can begin to become aware of what calls us and what refuses….
…if we succeed… in holding together in a single perception this strong demand and this systemic refusal that is in us, if we succeed in keeping them clear while truly understanding what they are, then will can be born. Otherwise, it will never be born.
Life is Real Only Then, When I Am
Third Talk
…there is a word, namely “wish,” …employed by you …only in order to vary …the degree of the expression of that so to say “slavish impulse” for which there are…a multitude of words, for example, “like,” “want,” “need,” “desire” and so on.
…When “I wish”—I feel with my whole being that I wish, and can wish. This does not mean that I want, that I need, that I like or, lastly, that I desire. No. “I wish.” I never like, never want, I do not desire anything and I do not need anything—all this is slavery; if “I wish” something, I must like it, even if I do not like it. I can wish to like it, because “I can.”
I wish—I feel with my whole body that I wish…
Teachings of Gurdjieff, C.S. Nott
(Quoting Gurdjieff:) “If you “wish,” you “can.” Without “wishing,” you never “can.” Wish is the most powerful thing in the world. Higher than God. Of course, I speak of conscious wish; and with conscious wish everything comes.”
The Reality of Being, Jeanne de Salzmann
103. The feeling of lack
In us there is a force that descends from above and a force that ascends from below. These energies are not related… Man has to relate himself to the higher force that is in him. For this, he must see his incapacity and his refusal, and at the same time feel the wish to be related in the depths of himself.
When the energy of attention has a different movement in each of the centers, there is no force capable of its own will. So I need another attention, a purer attention… Attention comes when it is needed… .when I feel this absolute necessity, the attention appears…
104. Obedience and will
…I am sensitive to the attraction of the earth; I obey it. And I am sensitive to the attraction coming from higher spheres, and I also obey it. …Here are two forces, two currents… without a relation with each other… (A) current of intermediate intensity… appears when I awaken to the vision of these two forces acting at the same time. As soon as I awaken to this vision, I am seized by a will, a wish that is the essence of the feeling of “I” in all its purity. It is the will to be what I am…
…I voluntarily obey and submit, renouncing my own will and at the same time asserting a different will over the functions.
4. “I” am not here
I must always, again and again, come back to this question: What do I wish? It must become the most important question of my life. Yet this wish for a different quality has no force at all if it comes from my ordinary “I.” It must be related to something completely different from my ordinary “I” and free from the desire for a result. I must not forget why I wish. This must be for me really a question of life or death—I wish to be, to live in a certain way.