George Gurdjieff Quotes
What you call the subconscious, is in my opinion the real human consciousness.
Man such as we know him, is a machine.
A "sin" is something which is not necessary.
I bury the bone so deep that the dogs have to scratch for it.
Either do nothing and just go to school, or do something nobody else does.
Without struggle, no progress and no result. Every breaking of habit produces a change in the machine.
A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same even for half an hour.
A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.
One of man’s important mistakes, one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I.
The flow of forces follows a line that constantly deflects at specific intervals and unites again at its ends.
It began, suddenly in my entirety a "something" arose, I felt an irresitible urge to do things not as others do them.
Writing must also be perceived, and after conscious confrontation
with information already possessed, be assimilated.
Laughter relieves us of superfluous energy, which, if it remained unused, might become negative, that is, poison. Laughter is the antidote.
Man has no permanent and unchangeable I. Every thought, every mood, every desire, every sensation, says "I".
An honest being who does not behave absurdly has no chance at all of becoming famous, or even of being noticed, however kind and sensible he may be.
A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.
It is impossible to recognize a wrong way without knowing the right way. This means that it is no use troubling oneself how to recognize a wrong way. One must think of how to find the right way.
Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity of self-change. And in observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening.”
It must also be said that owing to all kinds of accidentally and
perhaps not accidentally formed conditions of my youth, I have
had to learn, and moreover very seriously and of course always
with self-compulsion, to speak, read, and write a great many languages,
and to such a degree of fluency, that if, in following this
profession unexpectedly forced on me by Fate, I decided not to
take advantage of the "automatism" which is acquired by practice,
then I could perhaps write in any one of them.
LIBERATION LEADS TO LIBERATION. These are the first words of truth — not truth in quotation marks but truth in the real meaning of the word; truth which is not merely theoretical, not simply a word, but truth that can be realized in practice. The meaning behind these words may be explained as follows:
By liberation is meant the liberation which is the aim of all schools, all religions, at all times.
This liberation can indeed be very great. All men desire it and strive after it. But it cannot be attained without the first liberation, a lesser liberation. The great liberation is liberation from influences outside us. The lesser liberation is liberation from influences within us.
At first, for beginners, this lesser liberation appears to be very great, for a beginner depends very little on external influences. Only a man who has already become free of inner influences falls under external influences.
Inner influences prevent a man from falling under external influences. Maybe it is for the best. Inner influences and inner slavery come from many varied sources and many independent factors — independent in that sometimes it is one thing and sometimes another, for we have many enemies.
There are so many of these enemies that life would not be long enough to struggle with each of them and free ourselves from each one separately. So we must find a method, a line of work, which will enable us simultaneously to destroy the greatest possible number of enemies within us from which these influences come.
I said that we have many independent enemies, but the chief and most active are vanity and self-love. One teaching even calls them representatives and messengers of the devil himself.
For some reason they are also called Mrs. Vanity and Mr. Self-Love.
As I have said, there are many enemies. I have mentioned only these two as the most fundamental. At the moment it is hard to enumerate them all. It would be difficult to work on each of them directly and specifically, and it would take too much time since there are so many. So we have to deal with them indirectly in order to free ourselves from several at once.
These representatives of the devil stand unceasingly at the threshold which separates us from the outside, and prevent not only good but also bad external influences from entering. Thus they have a good side as well as a bad side.
For a man who wishes to discriminate among the influences he receives, it is an advantage to have these watchmen. But if a man wishes all influences to enter, no matter what they may be — for it is impossible to select only the good ones — he must liberate himself as much as possible, and finally altogether, from these watchmen, whom some considerable undesirable.
For this there are many methods, and a great number of means. Personally I would advise you to try freeing yourselves and to do so without unnecessary theorizing, by simple reasoning, active reasoning, within yourselves.
Relevant Pages
