WHY DO I WISH TO REMEMBER MYSELF? WHY DO I REMEMBER MYSELF? Isn't the deep reason—to be present at the creation. Yes, to "Be" at the creation. Creation is ceaseless, it never stops. Can I stop my own creation? One can hold their breath, but hold it to a certain point and one passes out. One could, of course, take one's life, but that's condemned by all religions, virtually all wise men, save the Stoics.
When am I not present at the creation? When I'm not in a state of self-remembering. Then I'm in the past, in the future. "I am" is not present. At that intersection, crossroads, an interesting thing happens—either I create or I deny creation. I deny automatic creation. Otherwise, I return to the dream world, desire, all that is an automatic creation.
When "I am" or "I Am" is remembered, suddenly I'm no longer creating. Creation still happens but my relationship to it has changed. "I" have stopped creating. I deny that and in that denial I affirm being and potentially Being—that which is always here-there-everywhere-nowhere. I affirm it, acknowledge it, give my attention and still do whatever I am doing. I can still create, I can still build something, think something, feel something, take something apart...but being present at the creation, there is choice. The choice fundamentally is this: whether to be part of the automatic ongoing creation—the 1-2-3 of the triad—or to deny that and in so doing affirm 2-1-3. And that continual denial, that affirmation, takes me deeper and deeper into the world of being, to that bridge-point to Being. Instead of going automatically forward in time, I flow backward, upward. In the First Series Mr. Gurdjieff speaks about this. He affirms—there is only one energy. This is the energy that flows out and the energy that flows back, just like our breath. Habituated by society and the impulsions of our own lower nature—man is a two-natured being—we go forward into time constantly creating. Every creation is in itself 1-2-3. Involution. No manifestation can be higher, encompass totally, the original idea from which it sprang. But what happens when I am present to the doing? Aren't there two creations simultaneously, the one higher, the other lower? But without solid grounding in the presence of creation that is too razor-keen a perception, too deep an experience to go into.