During the two years since this article was published, a number of readers have posted comments below accusing me of misunderstanding Ouspensky.<\/p>\n
To those readers: this article is my reaction to a section of one of Ouspensky’s books which you can read for free at this link:<\/p>\n
Self Remembering by Ouspensky from In Search of the Miraculous<\/a><\/p>\n To future commenters: before you accuse me of misunderstanding, please follow that link and read that part of Ouspensky’s book. It’s a beautiful piece of writing and it deserves to be read for its own sake. Please notice in particular that the black arrows which appear in the article below are copied from Ouspensky’s book. I didn’t invent them. He<\/i> did. They are his<\/i> illustrations of his<\/i> ideas.<\/p>\n Second note: When I say “beyond the mind” I mean beyond all mental activity of every kind. I’m using those words the way they are used by followers of Indian traditions. Judging from the comments that have been written here by followers of Gurdjieff, “beyond the mind” means something entirely different in Gurdjieff’s teachings.<\/p>\n P.D. Ouspensky and George Gurdjieff came very close to discovering Ramana’s method of Self-enquiry. They even gave their discovery a similar name: Self-remembering. But their method doesn’t work because they made a tragic mistake.<\/p>\n I mentioned this the other day in passing, but it deserves to be emphasized in a post by itself.<\/p>\n Their mistake was that they tried (or at least Ouspensky did) to be aware simultaneously of objects and of themselves.<\/p>\n This doesn’t work. They were trying to hold onto objects and sink into the Self simultaneously. That’s like a circus acrobat who tries to clutch the trapeze and fall to the net at the same time. Not possible! If you want to fall you must let go.<\/p>\n In order to practice Self-enquiry successfully — in order to drown the mind permanently in the Self — we need to stop paying attention to objects and instead pay attention only to ourselves. We must let go of objects.<\/p>\n Ouspensky’s and Gurdjieff’s followers call their idea “divided attention.” They are still giving themselves this advice today.<\/p>\n For example, Robert Earl Burton, a contemporary Fourth Way teacher, wrote in his book Self-Remembering<\/i><\/a> in 1995:<\/p>\n \nDivided attention is<\/i> Self-remembering.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The idea originated with Gurdjieff, who wrote:<\/p>\n There are moments when you become aware not only of what you are doing but also of yourself doing it. You see both \u2018I\u2019 and the \u2018here\u2019 of \u2018I am here\u2019 \u2014 both the anger and the \u2018I\u2019 that is angry. Call this self-remembering if you like. (Views From the Real World<\/i><\/a>)\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Even though the idea originated with Gurdjieff I call it Ouspensky’s tragic mistake because I don’t think Gurdjieff practiced his own teachings. Of the two men, I suspect only Ouspensky practiced them. Therefore I call the mistake tragic for Ouspensky but not Gurdjieff.<\/p>\nThe Original 2017 Article<\/h2>\n