GURDJIEFF, G.I. – Life is real only then, when I am - Integral Book

to concentrate each separate part simultaneously for a definite time onthree diverse inner or outer "objects."For the possibility of a practical achieving of this aim, in the samementioned detailed program were indicated a series of exercises underthe name of "soil preparing."Although the exercises indicated in the circumstantial program wereintentionally composed in sequence and it was required to begin fromnumber one, yet for you Americans in general, on account of severalmisunderstandings in the past, I consider it most useful to start fromnumber four.This exercise number four, from the series for preparing the soil, isperformed in reality thus:First, all one's attention must be divided approximately into threeequal parts; each of these parts must be concentrated on one of the threefingers of the right or the left hand, for instance the forefinger, the thirdand the fourth, constating in one finger—the result proceeding in it ofthe organic process called "sensing," in another—the result of theprocess called "feeling," and with the third—making any rhythmicalmovement and at the same time automatically conducting with theflowing of mental association a sequential or varied manner ofcounting.Here there again arises the question of the poverty of the Englishlanguage, this time in the sense that the contemporary people belongingto the English race and you Americans also, who have borrowed theirlanguage and use it in your ordinary life, totally lack any understandingof the difference between two entirely distinct impulses of an averageman, namely, between the impulse of "feeling" and that of "sensing."Since an understanding of this difference between these two impulsesis very important for my subsequent indications concerning all theexercises required for you, as well as concerning the real nature of thepsyche of man, I shall be