++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Copyright TRIANGLE Editions.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Intro to a meeting from September, 1941:
 

You will see that in life you get back exactly what you put in. Your life is the
mirror of what you are, it is your image. You are passive, blind, demanding. You
take all, you accept all, without ever feeling indebted. Your attitude towards
the world and towards life is the attitude of one who has the right to demand
and take. Of one who doesn't need to pay or gain. You believe that all things
are due to you, only because it's you! All your blindness is there. It doesn't
catch your attention. It is however what, in you, separates a world from
another.

You have no measure to measure yourself up. You live only between 'I like it'
and 'I don't like it'. Which means that you have appreciation only for yourself.
You do not allow for anything above you - theoretically or logically maybe, but
not in reality. This is why you are demanding and keep on thinking that
everything should be cheap, and you can afford to pay for anything you want. You
don't recognize anything above yourself, or outside yourself or inside yourself.
This is why, I repeat, you have no measure and live only to satisfy your whims.

Yes, your 'self appreciation' makes you blind! It is the biggest obstacle to a
new life. One has to be able to pass this obstacle, this threshold, before one
can go further. It is the test that separates the 'chaff' from the 'wheat' in
people. No matter how intelligent, how endowed, how brilliant a man is, if he
doesn't change his opinion about himself, he will be lost for inner development,
for the work based on self-knowledge, for a real evolution. He will stay as he
is all his life. The first demand, the first condition, the first test for he
who wants to work on himself is to change his appreciation of himself. He cannot
just imagine, or simply believe or think, but actually *see* things in himself
that he did not see before, really see them. Never will his opinion about
himself change as long as he will not see inside himself. And in order to see,
e has _to learn_ to see: it is the first initiation of man into self-knowledge.

Before anything else, he has to know what to look for. Once he knows it, he has
to make efforts, focus his attention, look constantly, with tenacity. By
maintaining his attention on it, by not forgetting about looking, one day he may
see. If he sees once, he can see a second time, and if this is repeated he
cannot ignore seeing. This is the state to look for in our observation; it is
from this that the true desire, the desire to evolve, will be born; from cold
we're becoming hot, vibrating; we will be deeply touched by our reality.

Today we have only the illusion of what we are. We overestimate ourselves. We do
not respect ourselves. To respect myself, I have to have recognized in me a part
which is higher than the other parts, and to which I show respect by the
attitude I have towards it. In this way I will respect myself. And my
relationships with others will be ruled by the same respect.

We have to understand that all other measuring units, talent, erudition,
culture, genius, are changing units, units of detail. The only true measure,
never changing, objective, the only real one, it is the measure of inner vision.
'I' see - 'I' see myself - and you have measured. With a higher, real part, you
have measured a lower one, also real. And this measure, defining by itself the
respective roles of each part, will bring you to self-respect.
But you will see it is not easy. And it is not a bargain. One has to pay a lot.
For the bad payers, the lazy, the losers, no chance. One must pay, pay a lot,
pay immediately and pay in advance. Pay from oneself. With sincere efforts,
wholeheartedly, without expectations. The more you will be willing to pay
without reticence, without cheating, without falsity, the more you will receive.
And from then on, you will meet your true nature. And you will see all the
tricks, all the dishonesty it goes to in order to avoid paying cash. Because you
have to pay with all the gratuitous theories, all the deeply rooted convictions,
all the prejudice, all conventions, all 'I like it' and 'I don't like it'.
Without bargaining, honestly, not just make believe. Trying to see while using
fake money. Try for a moment to accept the idea that you are not what you think
you are, that you overestimate yourself, therefore that you lie to yourself.
That you lie to yourself always, every moment, all day long, your whole life.
That the lie rules you to the extent that you cannot control it anymore. You are
its victim. You lie everywhere. Your relationships with others, lies. The
education you' re giving, your petty conventions, lies. Your learning, lies.
Your theories, your art, lies. Your social life, your family life, all lies. And
what you think of yourself, lies too. But you don't stop from what you're doing
or from what you're saying, because you believe in you. You have to stop inside
and observe. Observe without prejudice. While accepting for a time this idea of
lies. And if you observe in this manner, paying of yourself, without self-pity,
by giving all your false riches for one moment of reality, maybe someday you'll
see all of a sudden something you have never saw in you before. You will see are
someone else from what you thought you are. You will see that you are two. One
that is not, but takes the place and play the other's role. And the one that is,
but so weak, so inconsistent, that just brought forth it disappears immediately.
It cannot stand the lies. The smallest lie kills it. It doesn't fight, it does
not resist, it is vanquished in advance. Learn to look until you have observed
the difference between your two natures, until you have seen the lies, the
impostor in you. When you will see your two natures, that day, in you, the truth
will be born.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Premiere Initiation, par G.I. Gurdjieff
Question de Gurdjieff (no 50) ed. Albin Michel, 1989, p.34-35
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++