ESSENCE AND PERSONALITY (the first 5 pages of the chapter)
One of the most important points in self-study is the distinction, in our motivations and functionings, between what belongs to us, comes from ourselves, is a part of our own nature, and what is foreign to the environment and represents only a loan.
From this point of view, we are divided into two parts. One part is what we are born with; it contains the seed of the qualities rightfully belonging to us - our capacities, our incapacities and more generally everything that has been given to us as our own. We shall call it our “essence”- a term which cannot fail to arouse discussion in present circumstances but which is here restored to its original meaning, the one which is used by Gurdjieff. Essence, almost entirely potential at birth, develops to a certain degree afterward and becomes what we shall also call “being”- the inner being, the core of “individuality.” This development, to the extent it takes place, is the development of our real being; it corresponds in degree to our experience of reality in the world, and by this fact it is almost entirely real (keeping in mind among other things that it still contains an unrealized potential).
The other part is what we have acquired - all our knowledge and most of what attracts us, most of our behavior. This is non-existent at birth and is formed in us gradually due to all that the surrounding conditions superimpose on us. For this reason, Gurdjieff uses the term “personality” (from Latin personna, a mask) for this part of us. Its development is, as a rule, only remotely connected (according to what we have taken in) with the reality of the surrounding world and in certain cases may even be made up almost entirely of imaginary notions.
In an ordinary person, these two parts are almost always so inextricably mixed as to be indistinguishable. However, both of them are there, each with its own life and “significance.” Both are necessary for life; and if one wants to know oneself, to know “this life,” that individual must first become able to differentiate between them.
The personality is “what does not belong;” that is, this personality mirrors movements, words, and the language that we have been taught, all the traces of external impressions recorded in memory of the different centers, sensations learned, feelings learned, the ideas acquired by imitation or by suggestion - all this is personality.
It can also be said that personality is formed out of the contents of the centers, that is, by what is inscribed on the recording apparatus connected to each center, as well as by the mechanisms that link the centers together. There are mechanisms which make associations between different records on the same roll or between records on different rolls, and there are buffering mechanisms which have the effect of preventing contradictory records from being made or from being recalled at the same time.
Personality develops as a result of external circumstances (place, time and environment) and it depends almost entirely on them. Even though the conditionings of which it is made may be very strong, it can be altered more or less deeply by a change in these conditions, and such changes may be almost complete and sometimes very quick. It can be lost, can deteriorate, be corrected or strengthened.
Essence, on the contrary, is what is innate. In other words, it is the particular gifts and traits peculiar to each of us, our heritage put into our charge to make it “grow” in life. One has a gift for music, another has none; one has the gift of languages, another has not; one has a taste for travel and escape, another likes to sit at home or is a recluse; one is straightforward and sincere, another is devious and suspicious; one oversimplifies everything, the other makes everything too complicated. The totality of these particular traits is essence. Their development in the course of life may take place or may not take place. They may be accentuated or modified. This development of essence, its growth, represents the “being” of humanity. Essence and being are “what are really ours,” what really belong to us, and go with us everywhere. As opposed to personality, essence cannot be lost and cannot be modified without, at least, the tacit consent of the one in question. In weak beings “who lets themselves be carried away” by the surroundings, essence may be smothered or even altogether crushed almost without their realizing it; or, on the contrary, it may be liberated and rebalanced. But in any case it cannot be developed and changed without one’s conscious and persevering participation. Changes in essence are slow and call for much more work, more time and more depth than changes in personality.
Essence and personality have as their support a third constituent of the human being: the organic body. This is the instrument through which all the exchanges that make life possible take place. These are the three basic elements given to man. Each of them has its center of gravity in one of the principal centers. The center of gravity of the body is the moving center; the center of gravity of essence is the emotional center; and the center of gravity of the personality is the intellectual center.
In the natural order of life, these three parts develop independently; they only come into conflict accidentally and are only occasionally connected together; no real connections are established between them. The establishment of real connections can come as the result of a specially directed work, and carrying out such work is the first step toward achieving unity and individuality.
Our threefold constitution makes this individuality possible for human beings, with the quality of presence that goes with it, because it allows full participation at the individual’s level in the fundamental interactions of life’s creative forces; but since all three parts are independent of each other by nature, individuality is not given at birth. It can only be attained as a result of a long work. Knowledge of the body, essence and personality is needed to accomplish this work.
At the beginning of life, a human being is body and essence; personality is still potential and without form - children behave as the individuals they really are; desires, tastes, likes and dislikes express their being such as it is.
But as soon as the necessity to face life arises, personality begins to grow. It is formed in part by intentional external influences (what we call education, in part by involuntary imitation of adults by the child, and partly also by the children’s “resistance” to what is around them and by efforts to protect (and to disguise if necessary) what they feel to be themselves and to be their own - that which is “real” in them, their essence.
In one way or another, “consciously” or “unconsciously,” whether wished for or not, the human being acquires, little by little, many tastes, feelings, ideas and judgments which are artificial, that is, that are not related to those that would be natural and would express an individual’s particular essence. All these traits acquired by education, by imitation, by opposition and by imagination come to take up more and more room; and to the degree that this artificial personality increases, essence manifests more and more seldom, more and more indirectly and feebly.
In childhood, essence still holds a major place. What comes from outside interacts directly with essence, is combined with it or opposes it, so to speak, “in equal parts” and is accepted or refused. And finally essence confronts the outside impressions without really blending with them, creating a complex still permeated with the essential nature. This is how traits acquired in very early childhood leave an indelible mark on the children (and the adults) and form what one may call, in effect, a second nature. For this very reason, it is valuable for those of us who wish to know ourselves, to go back as far as possible in childhood memories and rediscover tastes and feelings there, if we can, through which the characteristics of our essence may come to light more easily.
Later on, the characteristics which come into existence draw less and less upon essence; they are made up of acquired traits in whose formation essence has played a smaller and smaller part, and soon essence, for most people, only gives a broad coloration (a life style or general tendency which tints the entire personality with that particular shade and permeates the way of living - unless, in the adult, even this coloration has disappeared, in which case nothing is left of essence, and such a one is no more than a personality of facades and lies. For, in relation to the self, essence is the truth in the individual, and personality is the lie.
Grown people do not naturally have more consciousness of their being and their essence - self-consciousness - than a child does. But very young children who have not yet learned other ways of feeling and of expressing themselves respond to life in conformity with their own nature, that is, with essence. A child is still simple. Adults, on the contrary, have acquired an entire structure, a surface personality which covers all the parts of our own being and is only remotely connected with ourselves – we have become dual. And we habitually answer to life according to this surface personality without essence being brought into these responses. Even if we wish essence to come in, it can no longer do so without our making a special effort which has to be renewed each time. Personality has taken up all the room in us, and, in ordinary life, it answers by itself to every call: it has finally substituted itself for essence. And this substitution is the principal cause of our mechanical state and the reason why we cannot free ourselves from it; it is also the natural consequence of the law of least effort, the law which governs all that lives in the involutionary current.
This substitution comes about unconsciously as we grow up, due to natural inertia, and because of a lack of sincerity with ourselves - a complacency constantly reinforced by the usual education. Our functions are ceaselessly answering to life, but it is easier for us to reply as the outer world requires than to experience our actual situation and reply “out of one’s soul and conscience.” Eventually, it becomes easier to go back to answering in the way that was already learned than to question everything each time and adapt the response according to what one feels inwardly to be right, as if for the first time on each occasion. The formation of habits leads to this taking the easy way out. Thus “by force of circumstances” various personages are built up in us who get into the habit of dealing with each of the usual situations in which we find ourselves. Because it is easier to imagine than to act and easier to believe than to look and see, these personages gradually get saturated with illusions which make contact with reality more and more remote. And because these personages have such contradictory relationships, both with each other and with reality, that there is a danger of generating destructive shocks, this entire structure is protected by a system of “buffers.” The structure bears our name: “Mr. So-and-so,” Peter, Marie, John or Sophia, the name we give out and by which others know us, without suspecting it does not correspond to what we really are. It is the form in which we appear to others and are of use to them - they do not generally expect anything more.
Moreover, this formation, our personality, is jealously guarded by a “feeling” which is supported by them as much as by ourselves, namely, a hypersensitive self-love, which insures that the formation and its functionings manifest through each of our personages according to rigidly fixed ideas and images.
Thus, in the great majority of cases, nothing that we see in ourselves is really our own. Without knowing it we are living a lie. Personality claims to know all about the self, about life, God, the universe, everything; but in essence, in being, we know nothing about any of it and have not verified anything. It is not true that we really possess any of this knowledge that we attribute to ourselves; we have only picked it up from our surroundings. Nor do we possess a single one of the qualities that we believe ourselves to have; we have only imagined them without taking the trouble to test them by experience.
(Jean Vaysse; Toward Awakening; pp 103-109 in Morning Light edited hardback edition)
(also available in original earlier editions on pp 110-116)
One of the most important points in self-study is the distinction, in our motivations and functionings, between what belongs to us, comes from ourselves, is a part of our own nature, and what is foreign to the environment and represents only a loan.
From this point of view, we are divided into two parts. One part is what we are born with; it contains the seed of the qualities rightfully belonging to us - our capacities, our incapacities and more generally everything that has been given to us as our own. We shall call it our “essence”- a term which cannot fail to arouse discussion in present circumstances but which is here restored to its original meaning, the one which is used by Gurdjieff. Essence, almost entirely potential at birth, develops to a certain degree afterward and becomes what we shall also call “being”- the inner being, the core of “individuality.” This development, to the extent it takes place, is the development of our real being; it corresponds in degree to our experience of reality in the world, and by this fact it is almost entirely real (keeping in mind among other things that it still contains an unrealized potential).
The other part is what we have acquired - all our knowledge and most of what attracts us, most of our behavior. This is non-existent at birth and is formed in us gradually due to all that the surrounding conditions superimpose on us. For this reason, Gurdjieff uses the term “personality” (from Latin personna, a mask) for this part of us. Its development is, as a rule, only remotely connected (according to what we have taken in) with the reality of the surrounding world and in certain cases may even be made up almost entirely of imaginary notions.
In an ordinary person, these two parts are almost always so inextricably mixed as to be indistinguishable. However, both of them are there, each with its own life and “significance.” Both are necessary for life; and if one wants to know oneself, to know “this life,” that individual must first become able to differentiate between them.
The personality is “what does not belong;” that is, this personality mirrors movements, words, and the language that we have been taught, all the traces of external impressions recorded in memory of the different centers, sensations learned, feelings learned, the ideas acquired by imitation or by suggestion - all this is personality.
It can also be said that personality is formed out of the contents of the centers, that is, by what is inscribed on the recording apparatus connected to each center, as well as by the mechanisms that link the centers together. There are mechanisms which make associations between different records on the same roll or between records on different rolls, and there are buffering mechanisms which have the effect of preventing contradictory records from being made or from being recalled at the same time.
Personality develops as a result of external circumstances (place, time and environment) and it depends almost entirely on them. Even though the conditionings of which it is made may be very strong, it can be altered more or less deeply by a change in these conditions, and such changes may be almost complete and sometimes very quick. It can be lost, can deteriorate, be corrected or strengthened.
Essence, on the contrary, is what is innate. In other words, it is the particular gifts and traits peculiar to each of us, our heritage put into our charge to make it “grow” in life. One has a gift for music, another has none; one has the gift of languages, another has not; one has a taste for travel and escape, another likes to sit at home or is a recluse; one is straightforward and sincere, another is devious and suspicious; one oversimplifies everything, the other makes everything too complicated. The totality of these particular traits is essence. Their development in the course of life may take place or may not take place. They may be accentuated or modified. This development of essence, its growth, represents the “being” of humanity. Essence and being are “what are really ours,” what really belong to us, and go with us everywhere. As opposed to personality, essence cannot be lost and cannot be modified without, at least, the tacit consent of the one in question. In weak beings “who lets themselves be carried away” by the surroundings, essence may be smothered or even altogether crushed almost without their realizing it; or, on the contrary, it may be liberated and rebalanced. But in any case it cannot be developed and changed without one’s conscious and persevering participation. Changes in essence are slow and call for much more work, more time and more depth than changes in personality.
Essence and personality have as their support a third constituent of the human being: the organic body. This is the instrument through which all the exchanges that make life possible take place. These are the three basic elements given to man. Each of them has its center of gravity in one of the principal centers. The center of gravity of the body is the moving center; the center of gravity of essence is the emotional center; and the center of gravity of the personality is the intellectual center.
In the natural order of life, these three parts develop independently; they only come into conflict accidentally and are only occasionally connected together; no real connections are established between them. The establishment of real connections can come as the result of a specially directed work, and carrying out such work is the first step toward achieving unity and individuality.
Our threefold constitution makes this individuality possible for human beings, with the quality of presence that goes with it, because it allows full participation at the individual’s level in the fundamental interactions of life’s creative forces; but since all three parts are independent of each other by nature, individuality is not given at birth. It can only be attained as a result of a long work. Knowledge of the body, essence and personality is needed to accomplish this work.
At the beginning of life, a human being is body and essence; personality is still potential and without form - children behave as the individuals they really are; desires, tastes, likes and dislikes express their being such as it is.
But as soon as the necessity to face life arises, personality begins to grow. It is formed in part by intentional external influences (what we call education, in part by involuntary imitation of adults by the child, and partly also by the children’s “resistance” to what is around them and by efforts to protect (and to disguise if necessary) what they feel to be themselves and to be their own - that which is “real” in them, their essence.
In one way or another, “consciously” or “unconsciously,” whether wished for or not, the human being acquires, little by little, many tastes, feelings, ideas and judgments which are artificial, that is, that are not related to those that would be natural and would express an individual’s particular essence. All these traits acquired by education, by imitation, by opposition and by imagination come to take up more and more room; and to the degree that this artificial personality increases, essence manifests more and more seldom, more and more indirectly and feebly.
In childhood, essence still holds a major place. What comes from outside interacts directly with essence, is combined with it or opposes it, so to speak, “in equal parts” and is accepted or refused. And finally essence confronts the outside impressions without really blending with them, creating a complex still permeated with the essential nature. This is how traits acquired in very early childhood leave an indelible mark on the children (and the adults) and form what one may call, in effect, a second nature. For this very reason, it is valuable for those of us who wish to know ourselves, to go back as far as possible in childhood memories and rediscover tastes and feelings there, if we can, through which the characteristics of our essence may come to light more easily.
Later on, the characteristics which come into existence draw less and less upon essence; they are made up of acquired traits in whose formation essence has played a smaller and smaller part, and soon essence, for most people, only gives a broad coloration (a life style or general tendency which tints the entire personality with that particular shade and permeates the way of living - unless, in the adult, even this coloration has disappeared, in which case nothing is left of essence, and such a one is no more than a personality of facades and lies. For, in relation to the self, essence is the truth in the individual, and personality is the lie.
Grown people do not naturally have more consciousness of their being and their essence - self-consciousness - than a child does. But very young children who have not yet learned other ways of feeling and of expressing themselves respond to life in conformity with their own nature, that is, with essence. A child is still simple. Adults, on the contrary, have acquired an entire structure, a surface personality which covers all the parts of our own being and is only remotely connected with ourselves – we have become dual. And we habitually answer to life according to this surface personality without essence being brought into these responses. Even if we wish essence to come in, it can no longer do so without our making a special effort which has to be renewed each time. Personality has taken up all the room in us, and, in ordinary life, it answers by itself to every call: it has finally substituted itself for essence. And this substitution is the principal cause of our mechanical state and the reason why we cannot free ourselves from it; it is also the natural consequence of the law of least effort, the law which governs all that lives in the involutionary current.
This substitution comes about unconsciously as we grow up, due to natural inertia, and because of a lack of sincerity with ourselves - a complacency constantly reinforced by the usual education. Our functions are ceaselessly answering to life, but it is easier for us to reply as the outer world requires than to experience our actual situation and reply “out of one’s soul and conscience.” Eventually, it becomes easier to go back to answering in the way that was already learned than to question everything each time and adapt the response according to what one feels inwardly to be right, as if for the first time on each occasion. The formation of habits leads to this taking the easy way out. Thus “by force of circumstances” various personages are built up in us who get into the habit of dealing with each of the usual situations in which we find ourselves. Because it is easier to imagine than to act and easier to believe than to look and see, these personages gradually get saturated with illusions which make contact with reality more and more remote. And because these personages have such contradictory relationships, both with each other and with reality, that there is a danger of generating destructive shocks, this entire structure is protected by a system of “buffers.” The structure bears our name: “Mr. So-and-so,” Peter, Marie, John or Sophia, the name we give out and by which others know us, without suspecting it does not correspond to what we really are. It is the form in which we appear to others and are of use to them - they do not generally expect anything more.
Moreover, this formation, our personality, is jealously guarded by a “feeling” which is supported by them as much as by ourselves, namely, a hypersensitive self-love, which insures that the formation and its functionings manifest through each of our personages according to rigidly fixed ideas and images.
Thus, in the great majority of cases, nothing that we see in ourselves is really our own. Without knowing it we are living a lie. Personality claims to know all about the self, about life, God, the universe, everything; but in essence, in being, we know nothing about any of it and have not verified anything. It is not true that we really possess any of this knowledge that we attribute to ourselves; we have only picked it up from our surroundings. Nor do we possess a single one of the qualities that we believe ourselves to have; we have only imagined them without taking the trouble to test them by experience.
(Jean Vaysse; Toward Awakening; pp 103-109 in Morning Light edited hardback edition)
(also available in original earlier editions on pp 110-116)