How does self-observation develop our sense of I?

A Sequence of Work ‘I’s

Once, during an elementary school break, as I now remember, I started playing hide and seek with children from all six grades in the school. Then an older girl yelled at me: “What are you doing in the game? Cockroach! Eh, cockroach! Why are you revealing our hiding places?”

Many years passed. Now, as a student of this Fourth Way school, I study conscious scriptures and the art of Being. Using the school invention of thirty Work ‘I’s, my internal rhythm improves and self-observation is active.

In our esoteric chaos, particularly useful can be a sequence of six ‘Work I’s: 

The first begins with “Be:” be present in the path you have set.

A second Work ‘I’ is an excellent companion that supports and holds the energy of the first.

A third ‘I’ reminds one aim of the trip in some way as “Make good use of your pain and you will get to the point.”

The fourth ‘I’ brings us back to presence and continue the normal rhythm when physical inertia and instinctive negativity appear.

A fifth ‘I’ strengthens our faith in the original purpose as previously: “Use your pain voluntarily as an opportunity for rebirth.”

And the sixth ‘I’ is “BE”—meaning that ‘I am’ in a new state of understanding and evolution. I inhale, exhale and continue towards my aim again.

Happy is He that Has a Soul

“Happy is he that has a soul, and happy is he that has none, but to him that has one in gestation, misery and grief!” – Gurdjieff

Remembering this aphorism, I realize, in my way, that “Happy is he that has a soul”—because he is not afraid of oblivion or death any more.

And “happy is he that has none”—because he has no active conscience  of the ten thousand “I’s” to press on him. 

“But to him that has one in gestation, misery and grief!”—because his pain awakens self observation and Influence C’s impulse within him. By this divine impulse man can acquire the soul steward of his lower centers.

Purification through Suffering

Only through transformation of pain does a soul become a hero. We receive painful experiences to awaken and tame our lower self. But the steward’s taming of the lower self using the four lower centers is not enough for our evolution. Our soul’s wisdom shall hold active our fifth energy center which balances the feminine and masculine energies. The steward has the privilege of recognizing and purifying ourselves from wit, fears of non-existence, barren defenses, corruption, and finally from oblivion. A purified essence bows and connects to the esoteric “5G” energy from our higher centers. 

The “cockroach” was mystically acting in my being all during the past, but Work ‘I’s, acting as a vaccine against inner gloomy substances, leave me happy in a moment of no ‘I’s. I come back into the havoc as a survivor of all times, which is what people used to say about a natural cockroach.

Natassa Cavalli is an artist living in Greece. For other articles by Natassa, see: 

https://fourthwaytoday.org/uncreated-and-transcendent-light/
https://fourthwaytoday.org/views-from-the-real-world/ https://fourthwaytoday.org/level-of-being/ and https://fourthwaytoday.org/ideal-state/