Structured Affirmation Pattern taken from Krishnamurti teachings
Listen
without effort
Look
without motive
Observe
without division
Observe
without the observer
See
thought without the movement of time
See
thought without the thinker
See
the truth of the mind
Know
without expectation
Know
without conditioning
Know
without division
Function
without conditions
Renew
the mind free of time
Transform without thought
Affirmations
taken from various book notes.
Questions and statements from
original texts paraphrased into affirmations.
Partial statements
reworded to stand alone.
Listen
without fear
Listen
without projection
Listen
without effort
Look
without belief
Look
without motive
Learn
without authority
Learn
without conditioning
Know
without expectation
Know
without conditioning
Know
without division
See
the truth of the mind
See
the truth of conditioning
See
the truth, not the verbal structure
See the truth, not the
explanation
See thought without the movement of time
Observe
the whole
Observe
the observer
Observe
without division
Observe
the thinker not separate from thoughts
Observe
the experiencer not separate from experiences
Be aware of the whole process of movement of the self
Function
outside the field of mind
Function
without conditions
Discard mechanical processes of thought
Renew
the mind free of time
Renew
the mind free of process
Transform without thought
God and microbe are the same system, the only difference is in the number of centers. Our development is like that of a caterpillar that develops into a butterfly. We must die as caterpillars and be reborn as the chrysalis that becomes the butterfly. It is a long process, and the butterfly in the end lives only a day or two, but the cosmic purpose is fulfilled.
To know the sense and aim of our existence we must suffer consciously, deliberately and with an aim, but as we are now we cannot really suffer for one franc and to know even a little of the real world as it is we must suffer for a million francs. We must destroy our buffers, and do many other things.
-- Gurdjieff, from Views from the Real World
from Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky Vol. 3 (Maurice Nicoll) p. 878
There are only two operations possible in the Universe: Analysis and Synthesis. To divide, and to unite. Solve et coagula, said the Alchemists. If anything is to be changed, either one must divide one object into two parts or add another unit to it. This principle lies at the basis of all scientific thought.
-- Crowley, from The Book of Thoth
We are enslaved by the thoughts which correspond to our weaknesses. If we allow ourselves to live in daydreams, we become idlers and dreamers. But if we want to achieve, it is not sufficient to think. We have also to put force into our thoughts.
We have the idea and feeling that we are free, not machines. It is possible to dissolve the machine of personality and become free. For this it is necessary to pay for a long time. The Work is to make this payment right. It begins with Self-Observation.
When you think of the meaning of 'freedom,' you must ask: Freedom from what? What do you want to be free from?
One of the most marvelous experiences is to realize how much useless Second Force (Resistance) we create in ourselves due to our imagination, and how endless forms of Second Force arise simply because we possess attitudes which we do not observe, which complicate everything in our lives, creating unnecessary Second Force. To separate oneself a little from one's ingrained attitudes and buffers is to experience a degree of freedom.
We must put ourselves under more laws to become free [of lower laws.] One must put oneself under the laws of the Work to reach any development. All freedom in the esoteric sense is due to inner development on Knowledge and Being. This forms a new level of Understanding.
Your level of Being attracts your life.
A higher level of Being is always freer than a lower level.
-- Maurice Nicoll, from Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky Vol. 2
'It is important to keep the Work alive in oneself, to hear its ideas over and over, to think of them, and try to act from them. If it dies out in one through the demands and pressure of life, it may be difficult to awaken it again.
To habitually disagree is to use only the negative part of the center. It is to be intellectually in reverse, the wrong use of a center. But a person who thinks only on the side of affirmation will never grasp the system either. It will never become 'real' to him, for he will not have passed through any temptations in regard to it or struggled and worked it out for himself by degrees.'
-- Maurice Nicoll, from Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Vol 1.
The whole Work is to prepare one for the reception of higher, subtler influences. Its knowledge must become one's own knowledge, if you want the Work results. One must study and make efforts for a long time, and think with the most genuine parts of oneself. Then one may become aware of being in contact internally with these ideas.
-- Maurice Nicoll, from Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Vol. 2
It is the belief of the sorcerers of the most ancient lineage that there is an inherent amount of energy existing in each one of us, an amount which is not subject to the onslaughts of outside forces for augmenting it or for decreasing it. They believe that this quantity of energy is sufficient to accomplish something which they deem to be the obsession of every sorcerer on Earth: breaking the parameters of normal perception.
They are convinced that our incapacity to break those parameters is induced by our culture and social milieu. They maintain that our culture and social milieu, our consensus reality, deploys our inherent energy in the process of fulfilling established behavioral patterns which don't allow us to break the parameters of normal perception.
Breaking those parameters is the unavoidable issue of mankind. Breaking them means the entrance into unthinkable worlds of a pragmatic value in no way different from the value of our world of everyday life. We are obsessed with breaking those parameters and we fail miserably at it.
-- Carlos Castaneda, from Magical Passes (1998)
