to what 111 you are in to receive them.
lf you are in some state of
Self-Remembering externa! impressione may be intensely beautiful,
whereas if you are in negative 'l's the most wonderful meal or most
beautiful day means nothing to you. When a thing means nothing to
you, you get no impressions from it. Tbe more a thing means to you the
more impressione you get, and vice versa. But ali this is a question of
Jong observation and inten:hange of views amongst you. But everyone
should 88k himself or herself: On what food of impressions do you
nourish yourself? If you are negative internally 88 a rule you will
take in unpleasant impressions and feed yourself on them, or if you
are depressed you wilI take in only depressing things from the news-
papers. And this will infect the whole of the human machine. Or if
you are fearful, nervous and so on, you will ta.ke in impressione
accordingly. Usually &om the stream of our inner life we get very
small inner impressione or, as it were, stale impressione. However
if you make an effort, you decrease 1entropy' and ta.ke in impressione.
Vou muet aek yourselves what entropy meane. lt meane, in ehort,
a state where everything becomes equaliud and there is no inter-
change of energy, and so everything is stale. When you make effort
you go against your staleness. For example, when you deny yourself
something you incresse its attraction and then your entropy is decreased.
The idea of Self-Remembering is to decrease entropy enormously by
having a very distinct sense between you yourself and externa! life.
Ali identifying incresses entropy-i.e. runs us down-ro that there is
no difference between us and life, as it were. lf you can see life as an
illusion in the right way, 88 Yoga systems teach, you will feel ao in-
cre88ingly powerful dilference of potential between you and life, and
this will decrease entropy. But if you are immersed in life everything
will come into ao equilibrium and you will ceaae to take in impressions
beyond the minimum necessary.
Birdlip, March 31, 1945
THE REASON WHY WE HAVE TO
OBSERVE OURSELVES
Let us begin by taking this idea that is taught us in the Work that
Higher Centres are always speaking to us and telling us what we should
do but we cannot hear them. We may be quite sure that, since the
object of the Work is to connect us with Higher Centres and their
messages, one of the first things we are taught-namely, to observe
ourselves-muat have connection with ultimately getting into contact
with these Higher Centres in ua which are fully formed but which we
cannot hear. I mean, that there must be some reason for eelf-observation,
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and I think that it is right to say that if we simply try to observe our-
eelves merely becauee we have been told to do so we will not be obeerving
ourselves in the right way. We will not underst.and why we should, or
what deeper meaning lies in this practice. We shall then be inclined to
say: "Why on earth should I observe myself? with what object? for
what reason?" If we have not a wide enough grasp of the ideas of the
Work and what the goal of the Work is, if ali these ascending scales
shewn in the Ray and lhe Side-Octave, ali lhese t.eachings about lúgher
levei and lower levei, fewer laws and more laws, and ali that is said
about Personality and Essence and so on, mean nothing to us concept-
ually and simply lie scattered about in our memory, having no co-
ordinated and emotional life in them, then of course self-observation
will be merely a dreary taak imposed upon us. But surely we have to
get a much more subtle and interior idea of the Work. Let us consider
self-observation in the light of why we are told to practise it. We are
told to practise it because it can lead to becoming more aware of lhe
influences of Higher Centres. We cannot hear these influences because
there is a kind of thick substance lying between them and ourselves.
What is this tlúck substance? It is ali that part of us that is unoonscious
t.o us, which we do not realize, which we are unaware of as existing in
us. As you know, it is often said that the act of self-observation lets a
ray of light into our inner darkness. This darknesa is what I have just
called the tlúck substance wlúch will not transmit the intluences of
Higher Centres. A man, a woman, must come to terms eventually
with this dark side of themeelves, and this is only possible through long
and intelligent self-observation carried out for a definite reason and
not merely as a mechanical taak. Remember ali self-observation must
be a oonscious effort You will agree that we ali have in us 'l's of wlúch
we are quite unaware. We tive in a false personality, not in a real one.
We are full of pictures of ourselves, for example, and owing to the action
of buffers which prevent our seeing contradictions we feel quite at
peace with ourselves. But lhe object of the Work is to stir up a struggle
in us, a struggle with this false contentment and complacency. And
what is the method used? The method is self-observation, whereby we
gradually become more conscious of what is in us and begin to lose
these beloved pictures of ourselves, these forma of imagination. You
remember how the driver is in the public-houee, drinking. Tlús means
he is living in imagination, in pictures, in imaginary ideas about lúmself
-in !maginary '!'. The first thing is that the driver must awaken.
Now we can tlúnk of lhe situation in the following terms: We each
have a dark side to ourselves that we know nothing about-that is, a
side that is not oonscious to us but yet acts. lnto this darkness a ray of
light must enter through self-observation carried out according to
what the Work teaches us to observe, to look for, to become aware of.
This dark side of ourselves must gradually be connected with our
idea of ourselves and, as it were, a pattern has to be made, a mingling
of these two sides. And unlesa this ray of light ent.ers this darkness this
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