I Am That I Am

[Guest guest]

What more need be known?Love to All,

>

>Tim.Well Tim This might give some ideas about who you are not.Just maybe?If

>not it may be helpful to others.

~

To be happy apart from outer circumstances is a goal well worth striving

for.Our happiness,such as we are,depends on our outer conditions.The man who

has reached a stage in which is independent of failure or success,cold or

heat,discomfort or comfort,starvation or plenty,such a man has a second

body.What does it mean,Second Body? As we are,we only have one formed

body-namely the physical body-but it is possible to form another body within

himself.This is one of the teachings of the Work.This second Body does not

depend on the first body but in fact can control it.What ever the

circumstances affecting the first body,whether it is in prison or

not,wheteher it is in discomfort or comfort,whether it is surrounded by

eveidences of wealth and power or poverty,this second Body remians

uninfluenced.In the practice of non identifying we begin to make the second

body and in fact,everything the Work teaches is connected with this

goal.Itis said that a person who is always making requirements is always

unhappy.What does it mean,making requirements? It means your happiness

depends on certain outer things being right according to how you think they

should be right.You don't like these people,you don't like these

circumstances,you object to this or that,and so on.In such a case,you are

making requirements?It means that your happiness will depend on certain

outer things which,if they are not what you consider right will plunge you

into depression and negativeness.Such a person has no inner state

sufficiently developed-that is no second Body-to make it possible for him or

her to be independent of ever changing conditions of life. It may surprise

you to be told that you can often find happiness, when everything is going

wrong, by practising the Work. You know that it has been said that

everything that happens in life is a means and not an end. But have you

thought what this signifies? Whatever the circumstances you are in, they can

be taken from the Work point of view ~ a means for non~iden~zfying. Do you

see what is meant? People take life as an end and they do things in life

from this point of view. They always seek results. They work for results. If

they encounter failure they are rendered miserable. But in this Work we are

told not to work for results, but whatever we do to practise non~identifying

and Self~Remembering. Now if your happiness depends on the praise of other

persons you are a machine. If your happiness depends on making money, again

you are a machine, because you may lose money and destroy yourself. If your

happiness depends on people treating you rightly according to your picture

of yourself, surely something is wrong. To be always making accounts which

arise out of making requirements c~not possibly be a source of inner peace

of mind. To be always thinking that things are not as you wish them can only

make you continually unhappy and negative. It is you yourself who have to

awaken and have to hold in yourself the secret of being happy. And this

holding means scaling yourself from the effects that outside events,

out-side conditions, have hitherto mechanically had on you. All of us have

acquired absurdly typical ways of behaving towards people and outer

conditions. It is just here that one can separate oneself by noticing

through self-observation how one is reacting to the moment. Yes, it is well

worth just noticing this-and often during each day.

Now in connection with all this, which you have already heard very often, I

would like to-night to speak briefly once more about pictures, roles and

attitudes. When a man or a woman has a strong picture of themselves they are

liable to be vexed by life. A picture of oneself is a fixed form of

imagination about oneself. I used to think myself a good boy. (I need not

say that it was a long time ago). It was quite definitely a picture of

myself. Naturally, being a good boy, I could never tell a lie, and

naturally, of course, I told a good many lies. I could not see the dark side

of myself; what I actually was, but was kept on one side through the

influence of the picture. You will be able to see that by having this

picture of myself I told more lies than I needed. Everything false arouses

its opposite. Now you know that we have to accept the opposite side of

ourselves, or the dark side, which simply means the side that we are not

properly conscious of and do not accept. Consciousness is light. ~~hat we

are not properly conscious of is dark to us-i.e. in obscurity. A great deal

of work has to be done for many years just exactly on this point. This is a

very useful place to work on because it br~ngs into the light of

consciousness, through self-observation, know-ledge of yourself that

contradicts the pictures of yourself that have hitherto had power over you.

It would be marvellous if our pictures fell away. A picture of oneself shuts

out any reality. It is a picture and not what we really are. This picture

prevents us from accepting sides of ourselves that do not agree with our

pictures of ourselves. In con-sequence we get divided into a light and a

dark side, and this creates great disharmony. One can see people living all

the time in a picture of themselves and being constantly vexed or surprised.

The next point is r6les. Everyone has typical roles that he plays. A person

probably has five or six roles that he uses for ordinary life. Now it is

wrong to say that people use these roles. The right way of putting it is

that these roles use people. Let us say an innkeeper once entertained

royalty. This forms a role and he can never stop talking from this role

which is like a gramophone record. I remember once that a question was asked

in one of the earlier meeting~in London as to how it is that people who in

ordinary life seem to be at ease and talk a great deal become silent in the

atmosphere of the Work. One reason is because they cannot use their ordinary

life-roles. They can, so to speak, turn nothing on and therefore do not know

where they are. Now this means we live in some kind of artificial state.

When you talk to a man with a lot of roles you get an impression that he is

not there just as you do when you talk to people who have very strong

pictures of themselves.

The third point is attitudes. Pictures, roles and attitudes prevent us from

any real understanding of ourselves or of our lives and they all make us

dependent on outer conditions. A man or a woman full of pictures, roles or

attitudes cannot form Second Body. He cannot get behind himself~cannot

separate himself. How then is this to be remedied? It is only remedied by

gradually seeing pictures, by becom-ing aware of roles, by becoming

conscious of attitudes. So it is necessary to observe oneself. Attitudes are

very easily formed by upbringing. You are taught that this point of view is

right and thereby you have an attitude laid down from an early age. You may,

for instance, have been brought up amongst anarchists and think they are

right. How easily our psychology can be seized hold of and spoilt by outer

things! Now how can a man be happy in himself when he is full of unconscious

roles~ of pictures and acquired attitudes that act on him all day.

 

 

 

Realizing this, it is well worth while in the great discipline of self

observation to notice very carefully what vexes you, what destroys such

happiness as you are capable of experiencing. When you have made good

observation, try to find out whether it is due to a picture of yourself that

was not satisfied by the behaviour of someone, or a role that turned on that

met with no praise, or an attitude that was completely useless. How often I

have heard it said, in the earlier Work, to myself and to other people:

" You have a wrong attitude-you are taking things in the wrong way owing to

your attitude. " As you know attitudes are probably always negative attitudes

from which we judge things and people. To be free, to begin to see things a

little more the way they really are, to begin to see other people a little

more as they really are, how is this possible if we are full of pictures and

attitudes that make us blind? How can we possibly imagine we can make

sincere relationships if we turn on our typical roles and boast? It was once

said: " Try to notice when you are talking from attitudes and try to notice

when you are talking from roles. " If you cannot do this,try to notice it in

other people who are doing the same. All these these belong to the external

psychology, to the acquired Personality, which we have to make passive

through self-observation and the insight understanding that results from it.

The outer psychology must be eventually controlled by the inner psychology.

This is reversal. This is the formation of a second organized body-an

organized psychological body~composed of finer matter than the physical

body. The beginning is self-observation and memory and insight that arise

from it. Through this we begin to form a new inner psychology that looks at

the outer psychology-SECOND BODY~ Through this we begin to be more and more

independent of the outer psychology and what is happening to it. So we begin

to understand what happiness depends on.

~ Maurice Nicoll~ A note on second Body from " Psychological Commentaries On

the Teaching of Gurdjieff & Ouspensky " .

 

 

 

____

 

 

 

 

 

~should you require the great tranquilty,

prepare to sweat white beads " ~

Hakuin

>Tim Gerchmez <core

>Realization

>Realization

>CC: NondualitySalon

> I Am That I Am

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>

>Dear Lists,

>

>I have always been what I am, I am what I am now, and I will always be what

>I am.

>

>Defining what I am is of no importance. I do not know what I am, I cannot

>know what I am, nor do I care to know what I am. It is enough to know that

>I am.

>

>Certain sages tell me it is important to know what I am not. But how can I

>know what I am not, when I do not (and cannot) know what I am? These are

>only opposite sides of the same coin. Since I do not know what I am, I do

>not know what I am not, either.

>

>I only know *THAT* I am. I know that I have always been what I am. I know

>that I am *now* what I am. And I know that I will always be what I am.

>

>There is no more wish to try to figure out what I am. Why waste time in

>frivolous pursuits such as this? Nor is there a desire to find out what I

>am not. Knowing what I am not makes sense only in the context of knowing

>what I am, and I do not and cannot know what I am.

>

>Again, I am what I am, I have always been what I am, and I will always be

>what I am.

>

>What more need be known?

>

>Love to All,

>

>Tim

>

>-----

>BEING *IS*; What can add to or take away from It?

>

>Visit " The Core " Website at http://coresite.cjb.net -

>Music, Poetry, Writings on Nondual Spiritual Topics.

>Tim's other pages are at: http://core.vdirect.net.

 

____

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[Guest guest]

Dear Lists,

 

I have always been what I am, I am what I am now, and I will always be what

I am.

 

Defining what I am is of no importance. I do not know what I am, I cannot

know what I am, nor do I care to know what I am. It is enough to know that

I am.

 

Certain sages tell me it is important to know what I am not. But how can I

know what I am not, when I do not (and cannot) know what I am? These are

only opposite sides of the same coin. Since I do not know what I am, I do

not know what I am not, either.

 

I only know *THAT* I am. I know that I have always been what I am. I know

that I am *now* what I am. And I know that I will always be what I am.

 

There is no more wish to try to figure out what I am. Why waste time in

frivolous pursuits such as this? Nor is there a desire to find out what I

am not. Knowing what I am not makes sense only in the context of knowing

what I am, and I do not and cannot know what I am.

 

Again, I am what I am, I have always been what I am, and I will always be

what I am.

 

What more need be known?

 

Love to All,

 

Tim

 

-----

BEING *IS*; What can add to or take away from It?

 

Visit " The Core " Website at http://coresite.cjb.net -

Music, Poetry, Writings on Nondual Spiritual Topics.

Tim's other pages are at: http://core.vdirect.net.