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

ing himself with his whole being of his negative properties that are evenin his own judgment unworthy of a man, and not only with his, in thepresent case, meaning-nothing "mind"; so that thus he may again become a person wishing to work uponhimself with his whole being, and not only, as I have just said, with his meaningless consciousness.On account of the great importance of this question, I repeat and underline that all this is indispensable in order that in a man workingupon himself should arise and accumulate, as could only lawfullyproceed, the needed energy for the possibility of continuing to workwith the intensity of striving and power of action upon himself whichalone permits the transmutation of oneself from this "nullity" into that "something," which he ought to have been according to even his own "good sense"; this latter, although rarely, does manifest itself in each contemporary man at those moments when the surrounding conditionsdo not prevent the manifestation of this good sense, that is, to be suchas a man ought to be, the, as is said, "acme of Creation," and not whathe has become in reality, especially in recent times, namely, as inmoments of self-sincerity he knows himself to be—an automaticallyperceiving and in everything manifesting himself domestic animal.Now I shall speak to you in the form of a conspectus about the eventswhich provoked the causes of my first journey to you in America. When, in the heat of my already described activity, repeated troublesbegan to grow again on a great scale in that "fertile soil for the growthof all kinds of scandals" bearing the name Russia, troubles which were related to me personally only because there were living with me manyof those unfortunate biped creatures, toward whom by the Will of Fate there had