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Gurdjieff y Ouspensky #4
Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of G. I. Gurdjieff and P. D. Ouspensky, Vol 4
pages 1235-1503
- GenresNonfictionSpirituality
268 pages
First published January 1, 1952
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54 people want to read
About the author
Maurice Nicoll
217 books51 followersMaurice Nicoll (19 July 1884 – 30 August 1953) was a British psychiatrist, author and noted Fourth Way teacher. He is best known for his Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, a multi-volume collection of talks he gave to his study groups.
Nicoll was born at the Manse in Kelso, Scotland, the son of William Robertson Nicoll, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He studied science at Cambridge before going on to St. Bartholomew's Hospital and then to Vienna, Berlin, and Zurich where he became a colleague of Carl Gustav Jung. Jung's psychological revelations and his own work with Jung during this period left a lasting influence on Nicoll as a young man.
After his Army Medical Service in the 1914 War, in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, he returned to England to become a psychiatrist. In 1921 he met Petr Demianovich Ouspensky, a student of G. I. Gurdjieff and he also became a pupil of Gurdjieff in the following year. In 1923 when Gurdjieff closed down his Institute, Nicoll joined P.D. Ouspensky's group. In 1931 he followed Ouspensky's advice and started his own study groups in England. This was done through a program of work devoted to passing on the ideas that Nicoll had gathered and passed them on through his talks given weekly to his own study groups.
Many of these talks were recorded verbatim and documented in a six-volume series of texts compiled in his books Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.
Nicoll also authored books and stories about his experiences in the Middle East using the pseudonym Martin Swayne.
Though Nicoll advocated the theories of the Fourth Way he also maintained interests in essential Christian teachings, in Neoplatonism and in dream interpretation until the end of his life.
Nicoll was born at the Manse in Kelso, Scotland, the son of William Robertson Nicoll, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He studied science at Cambridge before going on to St. Bartholomew's Hospital and then to Vienna, Berlin, and Zurich where he became a colleague of Carl Gustav Jung. Jung's psychological revelations and his own work with Jung during this period left a lasting influence on Nicoll as a young man.
After his Army Medical Service in the 1914 War, in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, he returned to England to become a psychiatrist. In 1921 he met Petr Demianovich Ouspensky, a student of G. I. Gurdjieff and he also became a pupil of Gurdjieff in the following year. In 1923 when Gurdjieff closed down his Institute, Nicoll joined P.D. Ouspensky's group. In 1931 he followed Ouspensky's advice and started his own study groups in England. This was done through a program of work devoted to passing on the ideas that Nicoll had gathered and passed them on through his talks given weekly to his own study groups.
Many of these talks were recorded verbatim and documented in a six-volume series of texts compiled in his books Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.
Nicoll also authored books and stories about his experiences in the Middle East using the pseudonym Martin Swayne.
Though Nicoll advocated the theories of the Fourth Way he also maintained interests in essential Christian teachings, in Neoplatonism and in dream interpretation until the end of his life.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 3, 2020
Bringing it home
Volume 4 brings home to the self the purpose of the Work. It is a deeply personal experience and not easily passed through mere words. A careful read (and re-read) brings the ideas down from the hypothetical and opens the doors of inner self knowledge to the light of day.
Volume 4 brings home to the self the purpose of the Work. It is a deeply personal experience and not easily passed through mere words. A careful read (and re-read) brings the ideas down from the hypothetical and opens the doors of inner self knowledge to the light of day.
October 19, 2023
Nicoll really stresses the ineffable nature of the Work. It has to be experienced and done in order to be understood as it is not a purely intellectual endeavor. All of the commentaries are collections of notes from meetings he held, so the topics jump around a lot so it’s hard to discuss the volume as a whole. Below are excerpts I found particularly useful:
“You will see from this diagram that Man—i.e. mankind—is not awake. He is living in the second state of consciousness. Now suppose he reached the Fourth State—Objective Consciousness—he would not have to practise External Considering or Self-Remembering, because he would see things as they really are, both himself and others, and he would be Man fully Awake, which is the object of all in this Work who begin to understand in what direction it is leading. It is for this reason that it is necessary to do work every day on these three previous things mentioned in the last three papers—i.e. negative emotions, identifying, and internal considering. And, as I said on another occasion, these things are not at all easy to work against, but if we have an aim in the Work to awaken they become easier to work against because one is shewn internally how they keep one asleep—that is, in the so-called waking state of consciousness. When you begin to awaken you have, as it were, two clocks. One tells one time and the other tells another time, but we all have an old-fashioned clock if we go on thinking in the same way as we do, and a new clock if we begin to undergo metanoia or change our thinking.”
“If you do not understand anything about the cosmological diagrams of the teaching, this lack of comprehension will begin to become a barrier to your further inner psycho- logical progress in the Work. You cannot work only for yourself. Your thinking will be, as it were, half-sided. I mean you will be thinking only of the psychological teaching of the Work, which is half the Work. You will be thinking about observing yourself, about remembering yourself, about trying to separate from negative states. But this is only half the Work. The other half belongs to the cosmo- logical side and the great diagrams connected with it in the Work. All the ideas of the Work, whether referring to the cosmological side or to the nature of yourself, can give force. At times they give very great force. Take the Ray of Creation, and the Side-Octave from the Sun which makes it possible to change. This great diagram of Scale, this lowly-placed Earth that we live in, so low-down in Scale, and this Side-Ladder which ascends to the Sun, are ideas which if you meditate on them will give you great strength and force and a new understanding of why we are here. One can begin to understand why it is necessary to work on oneself. One may understand why the psychological work on oneself has another meaning connected with the scheme of the Universe. We can see why this life is a pain-factory. Take the idea of the Ray of Creation and the formation of Organic Life as a transmitting agent between the notes Fa and Mi in the Ray. This transmitting apparatus called Organic Life is a pain-factory. Yes, and remember that you are taught that there is a Side-Ladder to climb so that you can come under fewer laws and no longer be a person simply serving Nature—that is, Organic Life, which surrounds the Earth as a sensitive film.”
“(1) Unless a man believes that there is something higher than himself he can never remember himself rightly. For example, the Work teaches that we have something in ourselves much higher than we are at present, on our level—i.e. Real I.
(2) The Ray of Creation teaches us that there are much higher levels of being than exist on Earth. We are under 48 orders of laws, the Sun is under 12 orders of laws, and so on. Our being compared with the Being of the Sun is very small.
(3) The Work teaches that we have far higher centres in ourselves that we do not use called Higher Centres. They are always awake, but we are asleep to them.
(4) The Work teaches that mechanical Man is capable of becoming Conscious Man—i.e. of being much higher than he is at present in being. But if he takes pride in his present being, he cannot develop.
(5) When a man tries to obey the Work apart from his self-love and self-emotions, he is raising his level of being, and if he can listen to the Work in his heart and mind, he will be shewn how to work on himself and change his being. This of course applies to women in the same way.
(6) But if a man believes that the Universe or Nature created itself and has no meaning, then he can never remember himself, because he (or she) believes there is nothing higher than himself.
(7) Recall that a man or woman with good Magnetic Centre can distinguish between the influences created in life called A influences and those sown into life by the Conscious Circle of Humanity which are called B influences. Such a man, such a woman, has the possibility of development. Such can be selected by the Work and such can begin to remember themselves.”
“You will see from this diagram that Man—i.e. mankind—is not awake. He is living in the second state of consciousness. Now suppose he reached the Fourth State—Objective Consciousness—he would not have to practise External Considering or Self-Remembering, because he would see things as they really are, both himself and others, and he would be Man fully Awake, which is the object of all in this Work who begin to understand in what direction it is leading. It is for this reason that it is necessary to do work every day on these three previous things mentioned in the last three papers—i.e. negative emotions, identifying, and internal considering. And, as I said on another occasion, these things are not at all easy to work against, but if we have an aim in the Work to awaken they become easier to work against because one is shewn internally how they keep one asleep—that is, in the so-called waking state of consciousness. When you begin to awaken you have, as it were, two clocks. One tells one time and the other tells another time, but we all have an old-fashioned clock if we go on thinking in the same way as we do, and a new clock if we begin to undergo metanoia or change our thinking.”
“If you do not understand anything about the cosmological diagrams of the teaching, this lack of comprehension will begin to become a barrier to your further inner psycho- logical progress in the Work. You cannot work only for yourself. Your thinking will be, as it were, half-sided. I mean you will be thinking only of the psychological teaching of the Work, which is half the Work. You will be thinking about observing yourself, about remembering yourself, about trying to separate from negative states. But this is only half the Work. The other half belongs to the cosmo- logical side and the great diagrams connected with it in the Work. All the ideas of the Work, whether referring to the cosmological side or to the nature of yourself, can give force. At times they give very great force. Take the Ray of Creation, and the Side-Octave from the Sun which makes it possible to change. This great diagram of Scale, this lowly-placed Earth that we live in, so low-down in Scale, and this Side-Ladder which ascends to the Sun, are ideas which if you meditate on them will give you great strength and force and a new understanding of why we are here. One can begin to understand why it is necessary to work on oneself. One may understand why the psychological work on oneself has another meaning connected with the scheme of the Universe. We can see why this life is a pain-factory. Take the idea of the Ray of Creation and the formation of Organic Life as a transmitting agent between the notes Fa and Mi in the Ray. This transmitting apparatus called Organic Life is a pain-factory. Yes, and remember that you are taught that there is a Side-Ladder to climb so that you can come under fewer laws and no longer be a person simply serving Nature—that is, Organic Life, which surrounds the Earth as a sensitive film.”
“(1) Unless a man believes that there is something higher than himself he can never remember himself rightly. For example, the Work teaches that we have something in ourselves much higher than we are at present, on our level—i.e. Real I.
(2) The Ray of Creation teaches us that there are much higher levels of being than exist on Earth. We are under 48 orders of laws, the Sun is under 12 orders of laws, and so on. Our being compared with the Being of the Sun is very small.
(3) The Work teaches that we have far higher centres in ourselves that we do not use called Higher Centres. They are always awake, but we are asleep to them.
(4) The Work teaches that mechanical Man is capable of becoming Conscious Man—i.e. of being much higher than he is at present in being. But if he takes pride in his present being, he cannot develop.
(5) When a man tries to obey the Work apart from his self-love and self-emotions, he is raising his level of being, and if he can listen to the Work in his heart and mind, he will be shewn how to work on himself and change his being. This of course applies to women in the same way.
(6) But if a man believes that the Universe or Nature created itself and has no meaning, then he can never remember himself, because he (or she) believes there is nothing higher than himself.
(7) Recall that a man or woman with good Magnetic Centre can distinguish between the influences created in life called A influences and those sown into life by the Conscious Circle of Humanity which are called B influences. Such a man, such a woman, has the possibility of development. Such can be selected by the Work and such can begin to remember themselves.”
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