I Wish To Remember Myself

from Gurdjieff's Views from the Real World, Page 234

When you pronounce the word 'I' you will have a purely subjective sensation in the head, the chest, the back, according to the state you are in at the moment. I must not say ìIî merely mechanically, as a word, but I must note in myself its resonance. This means that in saying 'I' you must listen care-fully to the inner sensation and watch so as never once to say the word 'I' automatically, no matter how often you say it.

The second word is 'wish.' Sense with your whole body the vibration which occurs in you.

'To remember.' Every man, when he remembers, has a barely perceptible process in the middle of the chest.

'Myself.' When I say 'myself,' I mean the whole of myself. Usually, when I say the word 'myself,' I am accustomed to mean either thought, or feeling or body. Now we must take the whole, the atmosphere, the body and all that is in it.

All the four words, each one by itself, has its own nature and its own place of resonance.

If all the four words were to resound in one and the same place, it would never be possible for all four to resound with equal intensity. Our centers are like galvanic batteries from which current flows for a certain time if a button is pressed. Then it stops and the button has to be released to enable the galvanic battery to refill itself with electricity.

But in our centers the expenditure of energy is still quicker than in a galvanic battery. These centers of ours, which pro-duce a resonance when we pronounce each of the four words, must be given rest in turn, if they are to be able to respond. Each of the bells possesses its own battery. While I am saying ìI,î one bell answers; 'wish,' another bell; 'to remember,' a third bell; 'myself,' the general bell.