R de P: Mr. Gurdjieff, I have a question to ask you. I would like to be able to strengthen my self-remembering and find a support for my will… So I would like to know what I can do so that my will can have more of an action on myself. I don’t have a hold on myself.
Gurdjieff: You must have an aim, a serious aim. And you must establish a relationship between your task and your aim, an aim you cannot forget. Your task concerns your aim and brings you to your aim. The first day you do it indifferently, the second day a little better, the third day, you do it whether you like it or not. It is in accomplishing your task relentlessly, without considering your mood, that you will succeed in having will. You must do this gradually. It will increase. One cannot have will all at once. One cannot go to the pharmacy to buy will.
I will give you a good way to verify this. You set yourself an aim. It can be this or that, whatever you wish. For example—I say “for example”—here is something subjective: is your father still alive? You have respect for him? Perhaps you have never had respect for him up to now, as you should have. He created you. He gave you life. He is your god; he has to be. You must tell yourself this, because that’s the way it is. Is he alive? Then he is your god. It’s only after your father has died that God can be God. God said: “I love the one who loves his father and his mother, because a place will have been made in him for Me.”
So, give yourself this as an aim. You have not had enough respect for your father. Give yourself the aim to have a real relationship with your father. Consider your father your god. He is your god. Fix this in yourself. Tell yourself this frequently. Think about it often. This aim will establish factors for self-remembering in you. After that, choose a task. Do this or that. Establish a contact between your aim and your task. Your task will remind you of your aim. If you remember yourself, you think of your task—one evokes the other.
R de P: What can I take as a task?
Mme. de Salzmann: See for yourself. Choose a task in relation to your aim.
Gurdjieff: Choose. You know what you are lacking, what you need. Choose your task yourself. It is better. I suggested an aim to you as an example. Do your task; I don’t want to advise you. And do it. Begin again. One thing must constantly remind you of the other. The action of one must call up the other. In this way, you will acquire will. One perfects the other. You automatically create will.
* * * * * * *
GB: Mr. Gurdjieff, until recently I was trying a task that was too difficult. I had to give it up. I couldn’t do it. So I have been choosing tasks that are hardly tasks at all—tasks for only one day. Sometimes I fail. And when I fail, it is worse than when I have done nothing at all. I decide not to say or not to do things. And I notice, when I fail, that I am doing the things I had decided not to do or not to say, but even more.
Gurdjieff: You have found the right path by yourself, and if you continue like this, you will see how one can do great things. It is good. I have nothing to say. Make more observations. Collect more material. Continue in the same way. A very good path. You will see that it will give you a lot.
GB: If I fail, it is not for lack of strength, it’s the forgetting. How to struggle against forgetting?
Gurdjieff: The secret is to remember oneself. This is the first thing; you must struggle with this. When you are on the right path, the devil wakes up in order to disturb you. It is a law. If the devil has never awakened in you, if he has always been asleep, then, when you are on the right path, he wakes up and troubles you. So struggle a thousand times more. You must see a thousand times—more and more—that there is a devil and an angel in you. Perhaps the devil has never shown himself in you. But today perhaps you are already an enemy to him. Or else, it is help from an angel who has sent you some kind of an assistant. There is a law: when the devil enters into someone, it is proof that an angel has entered before. Where there is no angel, there is no devil; no devil, no angel. This proves that you have a devil. Make use of these two forces, these two servants, of your nature; and use them for your egoism.
(G.I. Gurdjieff; December 23, 1943; Paris)
Gurdjieff: You must have an aim, a serious aim. And you must establish a relationship between your task and your aim, an aim you cannot forget. Your task concerns your aim and brings you to your aim. The first day you do it indifferently, the second day a little better, the third day, you do it whether you like it or not. It is in accomplishing your task relentlessly, without considering your mood, that you will succeed in having will. You must do this gradually. It will increase. One cannot have will all at once. One cannot go to the pharmacy to buy will.
I will give you a good way to verify this. You set yourself an aim. It can be this or that, whatever you wish. For example—I say “for example”—here is something subjective: is your father still alive? You have respect for him? Perhaps you have never had respect for him up to now, as you should have. He created you. He gave you life. He is your god; he has to be. You must tell yourself this, because that’s the way it is. Is he alive? Then he is your god. It’s only after your father has died that God can be God. God said: “I love the one who loves his father and his mother, because a place will have been made in him for Me.”
So, give yourself this as an aim. You have not had enough respect for your father. Give yourself the aim to have a real relationship with your father. Consider your father your god. He is your god. Fix this in yourself. Tell yourself this frequently. Think about it often. This aim will establish factors for self-remembering in you. After that, choose a task. Do this or that. Establish a contact between your aim and your task. Your task will remind you of your aim. If you remember yourself, you think of your task—one evokes the other.
R de P: What can I take as a task?
Mme. de Salzmann: See for yourself. Choose a task in relation to your aim.
Gurdjieff: Choose. You know what you are lacking, what you need. Choose your task yourself. It is better. I suggested an aim to you as an example. Do your task; I don’t want to advise you. And do it. Begin again. One thing must constantly remind you of the other. The action of one must call up the other. In this way, you will acquire will. One perfects the other. You automatically create will.
* * * * * * *
GB: Mr. Gurdjieff, until recently I was trying a task that was too difficult. I had to give it up. I couldn’t do it. So I have been choosing tasks that are hardly tasks at all—tasks for only one day. Sometimes I fail. And when I fail, it is worse than when I have done nothing at all. I decide not to say or not to do things. And I notice, when I fail, that I am doing the things I had decided not to do or not to say, but even more.
Gurdjieff: You have found the right path by yourself, and if you continue like this, you will see how one can do great things. It is good. I have nothing to say. Make more observations. Collect more material. Continue in the same way. A very good path. You will see that it will give you a lot.
GB: If I fail, it is not for lack of strength, it’s the forgetting. How to struggle against forgetting?
Gurdjieff: The secret is to remember oneself. This is the first thing; you must struggle with this. When you are on the right path, the devil wakes up in order to disturb you. It is a law. If the devil has never awakened in you, if he has always been asleep, then, when you are on the right path, he wakes up and troubles you. So struggle a thousand times more. You must see a thousand times—more and more—that there is a devil and an angel in you. Perhaps the devil has never shown himself in you. But today perhaps you are already an enemy to him. Or else, it is help from an angel who has sent you some kind of an assistant. There is a law: when the devil enters into someone, it is proof that an angel has entered before. Where there is no angel, there is no devil; no devil, no angel. This proves that you have a devil. Make use of these two forces, these two servants, of your nature; and use them for your egoism.
(G.I. Gurdjieff; December 23, 1943; Paris)
