To observe and to observe oneself are two different things. Both need attention. But in observation, the attention is directed outward through the senses. In self-observation the attention is directed inwards, and there is no sense-organ for this. This is one reason why self-observa- tion is more difficult than observation.
In modern science only the observable is taken as real. Whatever cannot be a matter of observation by the senses or by the senses aided
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by telescopes, microscopes and other delicate optical, electrical and chemical instruments, is discarded. It has been sometimes stated that one of the general aims of this work is to unite the science of the West with the wisdom of the East. Now if we define the starting-point of western science on its practical side as the observable, how can we define the starting-point of the work? We can define the starting-point of the work as the self-observable. It begins, on the practical side, with self- observation.
These two starting-points lead in entirely different directions.
A man may spend his whole life in observing the phenomenal world
—the stars, atoms, cells and so on. He may gain a great amount of this kind of knowledge—namely, knowledge of the external world—that is, of all that aspect of the universe that can be detected by the senses, aided or not. This is one kind of knowledge and by means of it changes can be made. The changes are in the external world. Outer, sense- experienced conditions may be improved. All sorts of facilities and conveniences and easier methods may be invented. All this knowledge, if it were used in the right way, could only be for the benefit of mankind by changing his external environment to his advantage. But this kind of knowledge of the external can only change the external. It cannot change a man in himself.
The kind of knowledge that can change a man internally cannot be gained merely by means of observation. It does not lie in this direction—
that is, in the direction of the outwardly turned senses. There is another kind of knowledge possible to man and this knowledge begins by self- observation. This kind of knowledge is not gained through the senses, for, as was said, we do not possess any organ of sense that can be turned inwards and by means of which we can observe ourselves as easily as we observe a table or a house.
While the first kind of knowledge can change the external conditions of life for a man, the second kind of knowledge can change the man himself. Observation is a means of world-change, so to speak; self- observation is a means of self-change.
But although this is so, in order to learn anything, we have to start from knowledge itself and knowledge of whatever kind begins from the senses. The knowledge of this system of teaching begins with hearing it—that is, it begins through the senses. A man must be told to observe himself and in which direction he must observe himself and the reasons why he should observe himself, etc. And whatever he hears or reads in this connection first of all must enter through his senses. From this point of view the kind of knowledge of which the work speaks begins from the plane of the observable, just as does the teaching of any science A man must begin by giving external attention to the work. He must observe what is said, what he can read of it and so on. In other words, the work touches the plane of the senses. For this reason it can very easily become mixed up with the kind of knowledge that can only come through the study of what the senses shew, and as it were lie alongside
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it or become stifled by it. And unless a man has the power of distinguish- ing the nature or quality of the knowledge taught by this work and the knowledge taught by science—that is, unless he has magnetic centre in him, which can differentiate the qualities of knowledge—this mixing up of two planes or orders of knowledge will produce a confusion in him.
And this confusion will remain even though a person continues in the work, unless some effort is made to let the work pass on to where it belongs in himself. That is, he will judge of the work only by what he sees, by other people outside him and so on. The work will remain, so to speak, on the level of the senses. What then is the nature of the effort a person must make in this connection? He must effect a separation in his mind between two orders of reality that meet in him. Man stands between two worlds—an external visible world, that enters the senses and is shared by everyone: and an internal world that none of his senses meets, which is shared by no one—that is, the approach to it is uniquely individual, for although all the people in the world can observe you, only you can observe yourself. This internal world is the second reality, and is invisible.
If you doubt that this second reality exists ask yourself the question:
are my thoughts, feelings, sensations, my fears, hopes, disappointments, my joys, my desires, my sorrows, real to me? If, of course, you say that they are not real, and that only the table and the house that you can see with your outer eyes are real, then self-observation will have no meaning to you. Let me ask you: in which world of reality do you live and have your being? In the world outside you, revealed by your senses, or in the world that no one sees, and only you can observe—this inner world?
I think you will agree that it is in this inner world that you really live all the time, and feel and suffer.
Now both worlds are verifiable experimentally—the outer observable world and the inner self-observable world. You can prove things in the outer world and you can prove things in the inner world, in the one case by observation and in the second case by self-observation. In regard to the second case, all that this work teaches about what you must notice and perceive internally can be verified by self-observation.
And the more you open up this inner world called "oneself" the more will you understand that you live in two worlds, in two realities, in two environments, outer and inner, and that just as you must learn about the outer world (that is observable) how to walk in it, how not to fall off precipices or wander into morasses, how not to associate with evil people, not to eat poison, and so on, by means of this work and its application, you begin to learn how to walk in this inner world, which is opened up by means of self-observation.
Let us take an example of these two different realities to which quite different forms of truth belong. Let us suppose a person is at a dinner- party. All that he sees, hears, tastes, smells and touches, belongs to the first reality; all that he thinks and feels, likes, dislikes, etc., belongs to the second reality. He attends two dinner-parties recorded differently, one outer, one inner. All our experiences are the same in this way.
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There is the outer experience and our inner reaction to it. Which is most real? Which record, in short, forms our personal lives?—the outer or the inner reality? Is it true to say that it is the inner world?
It is the inner world in which we rise and fall, and in which we con- tinually sway to and fro and are tossed about, in which we are infested by swarms of negative thoughts and moods, in which we lose everything and spoil everything and in which we stagger about and fall, without understanding even that there is an inner world in which we arc living all the time. This inner world we can only get to know by self-observation.
Then, and only then, can we begin to grasp that all our lives we have been making an extraordinary mistake. All that we have taken as
"oneself" really opens into a world. In this world we have first to learn how to sec, and for this purpose light is necessary. It is by means of self-observation that this light is acquired.
ADDED NOTE
Let us represent the matter in the following diagram. Diagrams are useful because one can easily remember them and so they can act as means of recalling ideas.
As regards the internal world, what blocks our contact with it is all that this work teaches that we must struggle with—false personality and so on. All these wrong things in ourselves form, as it were, a thick cloud that prevents us from right contact with the influences reaching us from the internal world. When the work forms a definite point or
"organism" in use, it begins to make a relation to the "internal world".
This I call a "church" for the moment. It is comparable to what we have to form towards outer life—namely, what I call here a "fort".
This is added owing to the conversation that ensued after the above paper was read at the meeting on Saturday last at Birdlip. The most
important thing to grasp is that we live in two different realities or worlds, one shewn by the senses, the other only revealed through work on oneself—through the purification of the emotions from false person- ality and the right ordering of the mind through the ideas of the work, so that relative thinking is made possible and a proper system of thought is built up.
Birdlip, July 30, 1941
THE IDEA OF TRANSFORMATION IN THE WORK Part I.—As some of you know, it has been suggested by Mr. Ouspensky that this work might be called by the name Psycho-transformism. The idea of the work is psychological transformation—the transformation of oneself.
Transformation means the changing of a thing into a different thing.
Chemistry studies the possible transformation of matter. There are well known transformations of matter. For example, sugar can be transformed into alcohol, and alcohol into vinegar by the action of ferments: this is the transformation of one molecular substance into another molecular substance. In the new chemistry of the atoms and elements, radium slowly transforms itself into lead. As you know, the transformation of base metal into gold has always been dreamed of as possible by the alchemists of the past. But this idea did not always have a literal meaning, because the language of alchemy was sometimes used by secret schools of teaching as referring to the possibility of the trans- formation of man into a new kind of man. Man as he is—that is, mechanical man serving nature and grounded in violence—was represented as base metal and the transformation of base metal into gold referred to this possible transformation latent in him. In the Gospels, the idea of mechanical man as a seed capable of growing has the same significance, as has also the idea of re-birth, of a man being born again.
As you know, in this system of teaching, man is regarded as a three- storey factory, taking in three foods—ordinary food on the lower floor of the factory, air on the second floor, and impressions on the third floor.
The food we eat undergoes successive transformations. The process of life is transformation. Every living thing lives by transforming one thing into another. A plant transforms air, water and salts from the earth into new substances—into what we call potatoes, beans, peas, nuts, fruit, and so on—by the action of sunlight and ferments. The sensitive living film spread over the earth, which conducts force from the universe—that is, organic life—is a vast transforming organ.
When we eat food it is transformed successively, stage by stage, into all the substances necessary for our existence. This is done by that
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mind called instinctive centre, which controls the inner work of the organism and of course knows far more than we do about it. We can understand that when food is taken, digestion begins. Digestion is transformation. The food is changed into something different in the stomach. This is only the first stage of the transformation of food and is designated in the work as the passage of Do 768 to Re 384. It will be sufficient to use this first stage as an example without going further. It is a stage everyone can understand without difficulty. Everyone can see that the food taken into the lowest compartment of the three-storey factory—namely, the meals we eat—undergoes transformation. Now suppose the food passed into the stomach and nothing happened : what then? The body, which is like a huge town, will make no contact with it. How can an undigested piece of meat or a potato enter the blood stream and supply the necessary fine substance, say, to the brain?
This situation is more or less the case, however, in regard to the third food, the food of impressions. They enter and remain undigested
—that is, there is no transformation here. Impressions come in as Do 48 and stop. Save for a very small amount of transformation, nothing takes place. There is no adequate transformation of impressions. It is not necessary for the purpose of nature that man should transform impressions. But a man can transform his impressions himself, if he has sufficient knowledge and understands why it is necessary.
Most people think that external life will give them what they crave and seek. Life 'comes in as impressions, as Do 48. The first realization of the meaning of this work is to understand that life, coming in as impressions, must be transformed. There is no such thing as "external life". What all the time you are receiving is impressions. You see a person you dislike—that is, you get impressions of this nature. You see a person you like—that is, you get impressions once more. Life is impres- sions, not a solid material thing such as you suppose and believe is reality. Your reality is your impressions. I know this idea is very difficult to grasp. It forms a very difficult crossing-place. You are, perhaps, sure that life exists as such, and not as your impressions. The person you see sitting in a chair wearing a blue suit, smiling and talking, you think is real. No, it is your impressions of him that are real for you. If you had no sight, you would not see him. If you had no ears, you would not hear him. Life comes in as impressions and it is here that it is possible to work on oneself—but only if you realize that what you are working on is not external life but the impressions you are receiving. Unless you can grasp this, you will never understand the meaning of what in the work is called the First Conscious Shock. This shock relates to these impressions which are all we know of the outer world, that we are taking in, that we take as actual things, actual people. No one can transform external life. But everyone can transform his impressions, namely, the third and highest food taken in by the three-storey factory. For this reason this system of teaching says that it is necessary to create a trans- forming agency at the point of intake of impressions. This is the meaning
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of the work regarded in the light of psychological transformation and this is the point at which work begins. It is called the First Conscious Shock because it is something not done mechanically. It does not happen mechanically—that is, it needs a conscious effort. A man who begins to understand what this means, at the same time begins to be no longer a mechanical man, serving nature, a man asleep and merely used by nature for its own purposes, which are not in the interests of man. If you now think of the meaning of all you are taught to do in the way of effort, beginning with self-observation, you will see beyond any doubt that everything on the practical side of this work relates to transforming impressions and the results of impressions. Work on negative emotions, work on heavy moods, work on identifying, work on considering, work on inner lying, work on imagination, work on difficult 'I's, work on self- justifying, work on states of sleep, and so on, is all connected with transforming impressions and the results of them. So you will agree that in a sense work on oneself is comparable to digestion in the sense that digestion is transformation. Some transforming agency must be formed at the place of the intake of impressions. This is the First Conscious Shock and it is given the general description remembering oneself If you can, through the understanding of the work, take life as work, then you are in a state of self-remembering. This state of consciousness leads to the transformation of impressions—and so of life as regards yourself.
That is, life no longer acts on you in the old way. You begin to think, and to understand, in a new way. And this is the beginning of your own transformation. For as long as we think in the same way we take in life in the same way and nothing changes in us. To transform the impressions of life is to transform oneself, and only an entirely new way of thinking can effect this. All this work is to give you an entirely new way of thinking. Let me give you one example. You tare told in the work that if you are negative it is always your own fault. The whole situation as recorded by the senses must be transformed. But to under- stand this, it is necessary to begin to think in an entirely new way.
You all can understand that life is continually causing us to react
You all can understand that life is continually causing us to react