George Gurdjieff informs us that conscience is to emotion what consciousness is to intellect. Both are a summation or entirety, one of feeling, the other of thought. As a contemporary spiritual teacher tells us, self-remembering, or presence, is always right action. He also said that conscience has to do with right action.
The difference lies in control. We have partial control of thought, whereas we cannot control emotions, as Ouspensky states[1]. Both moments of consciousness and of conscience are rare, at least in the beginning of spiritual evolution. Ouspensky said that the whole aim of the Fourth Way is to bring a man or a woman to conscience. The seat of conscience is in the king of hearts, the intelligent part of the emotional center[2].
Conscience can become a powerful tool in spiritual evolution[3]. Before finding and joining a school, conscience may nourish the magnetic center[4]. For example, one may be disappointed by one’s expression of negative emotions. Once one joins a school and begins to work on oneself, one’s inner world undergoes refinement. Things that were coarse or blurry in the past start taking shape. One becomes more attentive. This sensitivity allows one to hear ‘the voice of the heart,’ as Ouspensky’s student Rodney Collin put it.
“Remember that you are an actor in a drama, of such kind as the author pleases. Act well the character assigned you, but to choose it belongs to another..” Epictetus[5]
Fortunately, we are not alone. C influence[6] is always with the real spiritual aspirant, even when he doesn’t realize it. It is these higher forces who design our role, and give us what we need in the moment. At the same time, we need to pretend that we ‘do’ everything, as a contemporary spiritual teacher tells us. In the image below, God, who represents presence, or self-remembering, is infusing conscious life into the Man, representing the soul, or the steward.
Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam (1508-1512, Sistine Chapel)
Curiously, falling in love can also induce presence in us. The ability to reach higher worlds is inherent in the feeling of love. This energy is volatile, and the rub is that it often involves much identification[7], a precursor of negative emotions. When asked if love is possible without identification, Ouspensky replied, “Love is impossible with identification.”[8].
Ultimately, the unifying factor in a real school is a conscious teacher. It is said that only the higher can see the lower. The lower cannot see the higher. This works in our favor—the teacher is a parent of his students, and can give them what they need to evolve.
[1] In contrast, a modern-day spiritual teacher starts off with a strict disciplining of emotion, i.e., with exercises to attempt to control emotions.
[2] The Fourth Way describes a human being as having five lower centers: instinctive, sex, moving, emotional, and intellectual.
[3] As a friend observed.
[4] A magnetic center accumulates influences that once stemmed from a conscious source, now B influence. They may lead one to find a school.
[5] A Greek Stoic philosopher (~50-~135AD).
[6] Angels —Men or women who became conscious and immortal during their earthly sojourn.
[7] ‘Attachment’ in Buddhism. Not identifying is a step on the way to presence.
[8] In ‘The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution.’