Imagine Yourself Conscious

from Ouspensky's "Fourth Way," p. 113

Q. I still do not see what it means to try and think as we would think if we were more conscious.

A [Ouspensky]. Try to imagine yourself conscious--that would be the right use of imagination. We develop this power of imagination in an absolutely wrong and useless way which is always making trouble for us. But now, for once, try to use it and imagine yourself conscious. Try to think how you would act, think, speak and so on.

At first self-remembering is an effort on functions. You begin to remember yourself simply by forming your mental processes in a certain way, and this brings moments of consciousness. You cannot work on consciousness itself: you can make one or two spasmodic efforts, but no permanent efforts. But you can make efforts on thoughts, and in this way you can work on consciousness in a roundabout way. This is the most important part of the method. Try to understand the difference between remembering yourself in this way and being conscious. It is the same mental process that you use in everything, in reading, writing and all that you do, so you have a certain control over it. Even if we put the same amount of energy into self-remembering that we put into the study of a foreign language we would acquire a certain amount of consciousness. Unfortunately we do not want to put even that amount of energy into it; we think that these things must come by themselves, or that it is enough to try once--and it must come. Self-remembering needs effort, so, if you continue to make these efforts, moments of consciousness will come more often and will stay longer. Then, gradually, self-remembering will cease to be purely intellectual--it will have an awakening power.