Keeping Count, Accounting and Considering

In the previous class we talked about “The foundations we depend upon” and what being ‘Rich’ means in the esoteric sense. We want to remember our position in the Universe our place in the ray of creation so that we can fight our silly vanities which lead us to think we are ‘better’ than our fellow human beings.

Instead, we want to feel our own Inner Divinity, our Real Being, so that we can appreciate each moment we have and take full advantage of our time in the physical organism we currently occupy. But, unfortunately, the usual feeling we have is related to the particular egos or “I’s” that make up our psychology which is what blocks us from hearing our Inner Divinity.

If we analyze “the foundations we depend upon”, we find that each one of us has particular egos that play a recurring role in the make up our False Personality. This is our ‘Chief Feature’ or chief weakness and it is described as “the sum of several particular characteristic psychological elements”. There is “a definite event, a precise circumstance” that always repeats itself related to this Psychological Trait of ours and by studying our life, we can find those events and ‘get a lead’ our Particular Characteristic Psychological Trait.

Let’s understand that our Chief Feature or PCPT (Particular Characteristic Psychological Trait) is directly connected to how we process things (in our interior), the associations we make and, specifically, the ‘Accounts’ or Resentments we have… Resentments, Debts or ‘Accounts’ are related to the way we ‘keep track’ or ‘keep score’ and this is part of what is called “Considering” in the Work…

That is what we are going to review below.

Internal Considering as a Type of Identification

“Amongst the many things that we have to observe in ourselves and work upon, according to this teaching that we are studying, there is the psychological state called internal considering.”

“Internal considering or internal consideration is the disastrous consequence of ‘intimate self-consideration’.

Besides hypnotizing the consciousness, it causes us to lose a lot of energy.”

“Internal considering refers to a process which takes a great deal of force from us and, like everything that takes energy from us uselessly, it also keeps us asleep.

Internal considering is a branch of identifying and the study of identifying in all its different branches is one of the most important forms of practical work on oneself.

A person who identifies with everything is unable to remember themselves.

In order to remember oneself it is necessary not to identify.

But in order to learn not to identify, a person must, first of all, learn not to be identified with themselves.

One form of identifying is ‘considering’, of which there are several kinds, and some are forms of identifying with oneself.

One of the most frequent forms of internal considering is thinking about what others think of us , and how they treat us, and what attitude they show towards us.”

“Preoccupation about what others might think about us, that they might suppose: we are not honest, sincere, truthful, courageous, etc.

What is most intriguing regarding this subject matter is that we ignore the enormous loss of energy that this kind of preoccupation or worrying causes us.

Such worries (born from our inner self-consideration) are the cause of many hostile attitudes towards certain persons who have done us no evil.

In these circumstances, loving oneself too much, considering oneself in this way, it is clear that the “I” or better if we say the “I’s”, instead of disappearing, become horribly fortified.”

“A person may feel they are not valued enough and this torments them and makes them suspect others and causes them to lose an immense amount of energy and may develop in them a distrustful & hostile attitude.

Closely connected with this is that form of identifying called making accounts .”

“A person who is identified with themselves pities their own situation, and it even occurs to them to keep a count of their problems.”

“A man begins to feel that people owe him, that he deserve better treatment, more rewards, more recognition, and he writes all this down in a psychological account-book, the pages of which he is continually turning over in his mind.

And such a man begins to pity himself so much that it may be almost impossible to talk to him about anything without making him at once refer to all his sufferings.”

“Such people think that, in spite of all their well known generosities, the godfather, godmother, the neighbor, the boss, the friend, etc. have not repaid them as they were supposed to.

Therefore, bottled up within those egos of debts, that person becomes unbearable … to the entire world.

It becomes almost impossible to talk with such a person, because any conversation will certainly end up in that persons ‘account book’ where they unconsciously boast about their sufferings.”

“When one becomes identified with oneself, such a person loves themselves too much and feels self-pity.

Often, such a person thinks that they have always behaved very well with this or that fellow, with the spouse, children, etc., and that nobody has appreciated it, etc.

In summary, one is a saint and all others are scoundrels and rascals.”

Forgiving our Debts in order to Grow

“All accounts of this kind, all feelings that you are owed by other people and that you owe nothing yourself , are of very great psychological consequence to one’s internal development.

In the Work, a person can only grow through the forgiveness of others.”

“…the growth of one’s soul is only possible through the forgiveness of others.”

“That is, unless you cancel your debts, nothing, in you, can grow.”

“If a person lives from instant to instant, from moment to moment, suffering because they feel that others owe them something, because others have mistreated him, because others have caused him bitterness, then nothing will be able to grow in that person’s interior, because they will always sing the same psychological song.

As we emphasized in the previous class, the Lord’s Prayer says: “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors”.

Hence, the feeling that people owe us something or the pain we experience due to the evil deeds which others caused against us, etc., are obstacles for all internal progress of the soul.”

“Feeling you are owed, feeling ‘debts’, stops everything.

You hold back yourself and you hold back the other person.

This is the inner meaning of Christ’s remark that one should make peace with one’s enemy. He says:

“Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilest thou art with him in the way; lest haply the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily, I say unto thee, thou shalt not come out until thou hast paid the last farthing.” (Matt. 5:25, 26)

If you are going to psychologically extract every pound of flesh or every “farthing” from a person who owes you —that is, if you are going to make everyone apologize and make amends and eat the dust, then you will be under the exacting law that Christ warns you to escape from.”

“This is the ‘Law of the Thalion’, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’, an absurd ‘vicious circle’.

The apologies, compliance and the humiliations which we demand from others for the wrongs they caused us are also demanded from us, even if we consider ourselves to be “humble sheep”.”

“You will put yourself in ‘prison’ —that is, under unnecessary laws— and you will not get out until you have paid on your side for all your own faults.”

“… to place oneself under unnecessary laws is an absurdity. It is better to place oneself under new influences.”

“But there is a law of mercy —that is, an influence higher than the literal law of ‘an eye for an eye’ (which is the law of violent people).

This is an example of ‘putting yourself under new influences’.”

“It is urgent to intelligently place ourselves under the marvelous influences of the Gnostic esoteric work, in order to forget that people owe us and to eliminate from our psyche any form of self-consideration or internal considering.

We must never allow, within ourselves, feelings of the wrongs inflicted upon us, sentiments of revenge, resentment, negative emotions, anxieties, violence, envy, incessant remembering of debts, etc.”

Observing our own Accounting

“If you want to put yourself under better influences coming down through the Ray of Creation, then you must behave differently, and learn to take everything differently —that is, you must implement the Work .

You must put yourself first under the influences of the Work and try to obey these influences.

That means, you must hear and do the Work.

In the Work, negative emotions, internal considering, making accounts, feeling violent, jealous, etc., are not encouraged.

Now if you make inner accounts, then you always feel that someone owes you.

Try to understand what this means: and then try to observe what it means in yourself and then finally try to do what the Work says, that is, separate yourselves from this identification.

And do not imagine it is quite easy. The Work means work —hard work— on yourself .

Remember that this Work is for those who really wish to work and change themselves. It is not for those who only wish to change the world.

We now come to a fuller description of one form of internal considering, but you must understand that you must observe this form in yourself .

No one can work on themselves without observing what this Work tells them to observe in themselves and seeing what it is one has to work on.

You must be able to perceive your inner state at any particular time as distinct from your outer physical body and what it is doing.

Once people can distinguish between their physical appearance and their inner states, then they can begin to work.

They see that they have a body which obeys orders, and a psychology.

The Work is about what a person is psychologically.”

-Paraphrase from the Lecture ‘Birdlip, February 22, 1943 –
INTERNAL CONSIDERING AND EXTERNAL CONSIDERING 1’
in Volume 1 of Psychological Commentaries
on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky

The ‘Songs’ we Sing and Accounting

“When a person in the Work is called a ‘good singer’, this refers to the songs he or she sings.”

“If we observe people we can see in a direct way that each person has their own song.

Each one sings their own psychological song.

These songs typically emphasize the subject matter of “psychological accounting” which is the feeling that people owe us. One complains, one self-considers, etc.”

“Sometimes people sing their songs without any encouragement…”

“…without anyone winding them up, without anyone’s invitation…”

“…and sometimes, after a few glasses of wine, they begin to sing openly.

They sing about how badly they have been treated, about how they never had a real chance, about their past glories, about how no one understood their difficulties, about how they married wrongly, about how their parents did not understand them, about how nice they really are, about how they have been unappreciated, misunderstood, and so on, and all this means how everyone is to blame except themselves.”

“All of a sudden, we will meet someone who tells us: “In life I did this and that and that; I was robbed, I was a rich man, I had money and
then I was cheated; ‘so and so’ was the one who swindled me” (summary, this person is signing their psychological song).

Ten years later one finds the same person singing the same song; twenty years later one meets them again and they sing their same song again; this is their psychological song: they will remain identified with this event for the rest of their life, and in such circumstances, how is one going to dissolve the Ego? In what way, since it is being fortified?”

“All this is making inner accounts, or rather it is the result of making accounts. Which is one form of internal considering.”

-Paraphrase from Ch. 24 of Treatise of Revolutionary Psychology
and from the Lecture ‘Birdlip, February 22, 1943 –
INTERNAL CONSIDERING AND EXTERNAL CONSIDERING 1’
in Volume 1 of Psychological Commentaries
on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky
and from Lecture #005 “The Exercise of Self-Knowledge”
(also known as “The Knowledge of Oneself”) in El Quinto Evangelio

Getting rid of ‘Songs’

“Gnosis affirms that our songs must be eliminated, because it incapacitates us internally; and it robs us of a lot of energy.”

“Can you see, now, why it is necessary, in the Work, to get rid of songs as far as possible?

And why it is necessary to notice them, to starve them, to push them away, out of a central position in one’s life, until they are sung only on rare occasions, in faint voice, and perhaps, finally, never?

It is because they cripple you inside. They take energy. You smile —bravely—and it is all lies.

A good singer in the Work cannot get beyond themselves.”

“…They remain in the past…”

“They are a victim of their own account-making.

As soon as anything is difficult they begin singing.

This stops them: they cannot grow.

Perhaps they begin to cry.

They cannot change their level of being. They cannot get beyond what they are; they are crippled by sad songs. It is a sign of being.

Being is what you are and to change being one must not be what one is. Instead of working on themselves in some difficult situation, the person begins to sing at once, perhaps very nicely and quietly.

If they are criticized or spoken to sharply, then they begin to pity themselves, or get furious, and feel they are not understood, and so on. And then they begin to sing, either softly to themselves or to others, especially to people who will listen…”

“In order to pass to a superior Level of Being, it is necessary to cease being what one is; we need to not be what we are.

If we continue being what we are, then we will never pass to a superior Level of Being.”

Friends and ‘Songs’

“Often a person makes friends with another person only because it is easy to sing his or her song to them, and if the latter suddenly says in so many words to “shut up”, he or she is so deeply offended that they go in search of a new friend — a person who will really understand him or her, as the expression goes —as if anyone could understand another person, just like that.

‘If only’, they say.

To understand another, one must first understand oneself, and this only begins after long work on oneself and catching glimpses of what one is really like.

A good singer certainly does not understand him- or her-self, even if they believe they do…

They prefer to sing the song that they are misunderstood and so they dream of a marvelous world in which everything is arranged so that they are the central figure in it.

And this attitude and these dreams create a weakness and, in fact, a real psychological sickness (for which a person may have to pay all through life).

This person has, as it were, let life overcome them.”

-Paraphrase from the Lecture ‘Birdlip, February 22, 1943 –
INTERNAL CONSIDERING AND EXTERNAL CONSIDERING 1’
in Volume 1 of Psychological Commentaries
on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky

Secret ‘Songs’

“But you must realize that this does not apply merely to people who make no effort, to people who are not adjusted.

It applies also to people who do make ordinary efforts and yet who are sick in this sense because they feel life owes them things that they have never attained.

They feel they should be happier and very often think that other people seem to be happier.

And other people think the same thing of them.

And although they do not sing their songs openly…”

“…not all singers are public singers. There are also the reserved ones. They do not sing their song directly, but they do so secretly.

They are people who have worked much, who have suffered a great deal, who feel cheated.

They think that life owes them all that they were never capable of achieving.”

“They feel an inner sadness, a sense of monotony, a kind of inner tiredness or frustration around which thoughts gather.

It is about these inner secret songs that we wish to speak now.

For they also stand in one’s way, and very often they are not observed, although they are all the time secretly eating one’s life.”

“Unquestionably, secret songs prevent us from accessing the path of the Intimate Self-Realization of the Being.

Unfortunately, such inner secret songs go by unnoticed within ourselves, unless we intentionally observe them.”

“Only deeper self-observation will reveal them.

All self-observation is to let light in — in to oneself.

Nothing can change in us unless it is brought into the light of self-observation —that is, into the light of consciousness— and all self-observation is to make us more conscious of what is going on in us .”

“No interior change can occur in our psyche unless we allow the light of self-observation to penetrate.”

Self-Observation when we are Alone

“You know, you must observe yourself when you are alone, just as much as when you are with people.

Self-observation is inner attention.

Do not think that when you are alone there is no need for inner attention.

When you are alone, quite different “I’s”, different forms of imagination, different thoughts, different moods, come forward.

You must not think that you are necessarily in good company when you are alone.

You may easily be in the worst company and yet not even think of observing where you are in yourself and what company you are keeping in yourself.

Your most negative and most dangerous “I’s” may come forward when you are alone.

You may have quite well-written songs that only come when you are quite alone —when you feel no one is looking.

Yes, but you must look.

You must never feel no one is looking, simply because the door is shut.

You must never feel that you can indulge yourself in your worst negative “I’s” just because you are alone and that therefore you can behave as you like in yourself.

You must cultivate quite a new idea of your responsibility to yourself in this respect.

To think that you can go to sleep in yourself just because there is no one there and that you can enjoy all your inner negative talking for that reason is to have no proper conception of what this Work means.

It means that you have no inner sincerity —and this Work demands inner sincerity as the first thing that is essential.

In life we keep up outer appearances. But in the Work the case is quite different.

It is about what goes on in you —inside yourself, in your thoughts and feelings.

By inner work on ourselves when we are alone, we can often change a whole outer situation.

But we cannot do that without inner sincerity and observing which “I’s” in us are lying or twisting things and so on.

We may make an aim not to be negative with some person, but if we are alone and let our negative “I’s” say what they please and make no effort not to identify with them, then we are not working sincerely —and we can undo a week of work in a few moments.

If we do not go with negative “I’s” in public, but indulge them in private, what do we think we are doing?

We certainly have not begun to understand what work means.

We must handle a person we are working with as carefully and as consciously in our inner thoughts and feelings as we do externally from polite manners.

If we cannot see what this means, then we do not see what self-observation means.”

-Paraphrase from the Lecture ‘Birdlip, February 22, 1943 –
INTERNAL CONSIDERING AND EXTERNAL CONSIDERING 1’
in Volume 1 of Psychological Commentaries
on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky