Self Remembering: Pathway to Infinite Mind

What is the most important thing you notice during self-observation?

This was a question put forth by Gurdjieff to his students as recounted by P.D Ouspensky in his book, In Search of The Miraculous. The answers he received were varied, but not the answer he was looking for.

We have asked students that very same question over the years with the same result. There are reasons for that. For one, self-observation is quite misunderstood until one discovers the reality of awareness, called self-remembering in Fourth Way terms. Just because the thinking mind can articulate inner phenomena does not mean that there is self-observation occurring. The thinking mind is very skilled at labeling, comparing, and analyzing. We can train ourselves to focus on anything but that is not necessarily presence or awareness. It’s simply focus.

Self-remembering is a requirement for self-observation. Gurdjieff was looking for students to have awareness of their awareness.

P.D. Ouspensky wrote about his intentional practice of self-remembering, or being aware of his own beingness, while walking the streets of St. Petersburg near the Nevsky. He noted the difficulty of maintaining this awareness, particularly on crowded streets where distractions were plentiful. Ouspensky found it easier to achieve and return to this state of awareness on quieter streets, often having to bring himself back to it after repeatedly forgetting.

Suddenly he saw the tobacconist and remembered he needed cigarettes and went inside. The next time he “awakened” he was in a cab and had a strange feeling he had forgotten something. He realized that he had forgotten to remember himself. In that two hour time period, he had bought cigarettes, drafted two letters, called the printer, hailed a cab, and was on his way to the printer when he “woke up.”

This story helps illustrate just how difficult it is to remember oneself and maintain that awareness.

There is a great deal of confusion around the term self-remembering and what Gurdjieff meant by it. Ouspensky’s story shows one beginning stage of self-remembering. Rupert Spira, in his talk titled Self Remembering, refers to this state more appropriately as self-abidence, self-inquiry, or returning attention to its source (the place from which attention arises). One relaxes or settles into this awareness of being aware initially with effort, forgetting and remembering until a connection with Infinite Mind is established.

The attention goes out from its source through the “finite mind” where it focuses on something in the outside world. When the attention no longer focuses on that object, it falls back into itself. We can see and know the difference between these two things and aim to cultivate falling back into awareness, or returning to source. Ramana Maharshi called it sinking the mind into the heart. The Christians called it the practice of the presence of God.

The finite mind, often referred to as ego, will mostly seek to prevent itself from falling back into its infinite source where it has no identity. When the finite mind is done focusing on an outside object, project or situation, it finds some filler to occupy itself, like ruminating on future scenarios or past occurrences, repetitive thoughts, and daydreams. This perpetuates the separate self.

Our effort to bring ourselves back to awareness is bringing ourselves to presence; a place where we are aware of our awareness. This is the beginning of a spiritual practice of a lifetime.
Things evolve. Our strength grows from falling back into Infinite Mind as often as we can, making it possible to abide in this place while our attention is on something else.

This is the deeper meaning of divided attention.

There comes a time in one’s practice where attention is like a double-headed arrow. ←→ There is simultaneous attention on “I” as well as an observed object.

At the Awareness School, we pave the way by using sensation of the body as a tool for divided attention. One must learn to have sensation not by focusing the thinking mind on it, but by being aware through the body’s presence while doing mundane activities. It is possible to develop the ability to maintain sensation while engaged in something from the outside world. These are the first steps to understanding divided attention.

When we are able to maintain our awareness through uniting the sensation of thought, feeling, and body, a new energy is available. We have the capacity to relax into our Being, aware of a more pure and refined awareness of all that is and that we are that.

Self-remembering is abiding in our awareness and becoming oriented in that place as a way of life. The ego becomes less powerful and slowly loses its grip as the center of gravity. We know ourselves as infinite because we are seated in that awareness. It is an undercurrent in all we do instead of punctuation points here and there. We are a container for a higher consciousness in which we are one with God, the Infinite Source.

In summary, I’ll end with a quote from The Reality of Being by Jeanne de Salzmann:

“In opening to this new energy, I experience an inner order in which this Presence, experienced as a whole, can see all the parts. It can act through them, provided my attention remains active with the same intensity everywhere. This inner order requires a total attention. The new current of energy, which all the rest must obey, needs to take on force and become permanent. The connection between my inner presence and my body is the connection between this presence and life.”