Secret_History

606 The Secret History of the World
VERY IMPORTANT: it is not whether or not one “believes” in good things or bad
things that makes good things or bad things happen. It is the factual observation of
reality and whether or not it leads to a true assessment or lies.
The effort to view the universe as it views itself with love and acceptance even in
the face of what might be termed “horror” can actually lead to amelioration of that
horror. To view the universe and to deny the truth and to insist that one can believe
whatever one wants and thereby make it so, is to deny reality and contributes to the
chaos, the destruction, the suffering.
And so, what is the solution? The truth - as close to it as we can objectively get -
must be propagated as widely and as soon as possible.
That is the only thing that will “save the planet”. Because it is in the creative
centers of humanity - both kinds, those with souls and those without - that the fate
of the earth lies.
We come now to the specifics. We have seen what Mouravieff has said about
“Courtly Love”, what Gurdjieff has said about Esoteric circles, what all three of
them have said about the so-called “End of the World”, so what, exactly, do we
do? If the Grail Consciousness is Objectivity, how do we learn to see the universe
objectively, as it sees itself? Another way of putting it is: how do we overcome our
own subjectivity? The answer is by mastering the impermanent parts of our
personality and bringing them under the control of that part of us which is
permanent, that part of us that has a link with the Creative force. And in this
struggle, we discover that not only do we bind with truth spiritually, but this
process also induces a change in our brain chemistry which can literally lead to a
physical transmutation.
Transmutation of the Personality
Anyone who has done a bit of introspection will have noticed how our
personality appears to be divided. One minute we are promising ourselves to give
up sweets with all of the will-power we can muster, and the next minute we have
our hand back in the box of chocolates. We set out on a diet only to “forget” the
next time we see something tempting on our list of forbidden foods. We promise
ourselves to get to those bills next, only to decide to make a coffee first, followed
by reading a magazine. How many times have we done something that we know is
harmful to us, in spite of the interior voice telling us that we will have to pay the
consequences? Gurdjieff tells us that the whole work consists in the struggle
between “yes” and “no”.
The first thing, then, that we notice about ourselves is that there appear to be
many different “I’s” pushing and pulling us in many different directions. They
come and go so subtly that we think that we have a permanent ‘self’ when in fact
we are a bundle of conflicting and contradictory urges and impulses. We might
identify each of these little voices as a different aspect of our subjectivity or our
personality, but we have also discussed these as “programs” inculcated into us
from childhood, generally with significant emotional effect. The Tradition refers
to these programmed thought loops, ideas, opinioins, as impermanent parts of
ourselves. Certainly, to some extent, our tastes, desires, and needs change as we
grow, but there are many of these circuits that are laid in our brains during our