In this work to awaken fully, we experience a changing sense of ‘I’.

First, our sense of ‘I’ develops in childhood, as we grow away from the simple essence with which we are born. We develop personality, trying on aspects of new personas into adulthood.

When we begin to seek a way out of the sleep of ordinary life, when we develop a “magnetic center,” the sense of ‘I’ begins to change again. Instead of sensing our well-protected personality as who we really are, the quest for awakening begins to define us. The ‘I’ that wishes to awaken and to find others who wish to awaken, becomes paramount.

If, in our search, we find people who are more awake, or even books that seem to point a correct way, this questing ‘I’ grows strong. Of course it is not a single ‘I’, but our sense of identity begins to gather around this search for consciousness.

And this search itself begins to form within us a kind of new unity. We may lose interest in the allurements of ordinary life. Our career ambitions may falter, or take a back seat to this new note in our lives. Relationships start to become meaningful only if they touch this new deepest part of ourselves.

What can feed this new sense of ‘I’ becomes the main source of nourishment. What can feed this seed of the soul?

When we find a school, the search ends and another kind of effort begins.

Seeing Oneself

The ‘I’ that identified with being a seeker, that may even have imagined we were more awake than others, is in for a rude shock. If we actually begin the work of awakening, a new humility arises. And this work shows us to ourselves more clearly. Perhaps as a lucky seeker who found something real, but even more as a poor devil with all the flaws of the human condition.

Discovering our chief weakness starts to happen, and reminders of our features can come every hour of the day. Rediscovering essence also occurs, as layers of carefully-built personality begin to slide.

Rediscovering Our Essence

The new sense of ‘I’ is motivated to perform a clear task: to disinter essence from the false layers of the self. And the rediscovery of one’s essence is a healing and joyful experience.

Taking the time to enjoy essence is valid. Essence allows for a certain presence. But we must not stop here. Essence is “the ground of our beseeching,” and not the destination.

Entering the Real World

Over time in this work, the sense of ‘I’ slowly shifts again. We move from seeking something, wanting something, even higher states. Transitioning to a new place of not needing much, not wanting much, but accepting what the moment has to offer. We become “a man without qualities,” a being more formless than ever.

We begin to unite with what is real around us, and respond to it. And start to link ourselves to the energies that are too fine for personality to see, or for essence to use. What was active in us and false, we abandoned. What grew active in searching, we discard when we find what we sought. That which is now active is no longer within us—rather, we respond to our lives, to what needs us, to the moment, and freshly, each time.

Our being has many parts, but the soul is just being born. And there comes a recognition of this new birth, the awakening of the soul to the body that surrounds it.

How do we move towards this new life?

Gurdjieff: Death must come before rebirth. But what must die? False confidence in one’s own knowledge, self-love and egoism.

The lower centers with their hungers, preferences, and dislikes tend to take up most of the space. Yet this new Eye exists. And if we feed it, it grows.

Separating ourselves from ourselves creates a new awareness. Precious, delicate, easily lost, but familiar, as our deepest identity.

Remembering this state, we make aims to shock ourselves out of sleep, aims that help us awaken to our highest calling.

Gurdjieff: “Whichever way we take, our aim is to develop our soul, to fulfill our higher destiny.”

We Always Make a Profit

“We always make a profit.” – Gurdjieff

If we relocate ourselves to the part that seeks to awaken, that can awaken, each event in our day is a shock to keep awake. No matter what happens, we have the ability to use it for awakening.

Does someone chide us? Yes, this is what it is to be alive in a machine with lower centers. Does someone praise us? Yes, we have essence strengths and developed skills, but they may no longer form our truest identity.

Separating from ourselves, separating from what comes to us, gently, without denial, without blame–this is a path.

Gurdjieff, again: “As long as a man does not separate himself from himself he can achieve nothing and no one can help him. To govern oneself is a very difficult thing–it is a problem for the future; it requires much power and demands much work.”

A freedom comes with separation, a kind of joy. We are not what we observe, and all can be turned to food for higher centers, whose ability to transform everything teaches us how to live.