Welcome.
Today I'm going to talk about the practice of self-remembering and connecting with the higher emotional center or higher self.
The practice and the knowledge I'm going to share with you today are all coming from something we call the system.
The system was brought to us at the beginning of the 20th century by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.
Self-remembering is one of the pillars of the system and the starting point for what we call the work.
One of the main ideas is that we have access to four different states of consciousness but live only in two of them.
A little bit as if we lived in a large house,
Spent all of our time in the kitchen and completely ignored the other rooms.
The first state of consciousness is sleep.
The main point about it is that we are completely unaware of ourselves,
Of our surrounding.
We are in a totally subjective state.
The second state of consciousness is when we are awake.
It's a normal state when we successfully navigate the world.
But if we scratch under the veneer,
We soon realize that we are not as awake as we think we are.
A lot of our actions are controlled by habits.
A lot of our time is spent in imagination with our mind wandering all over the place and us not being present,
Not being focused on the things that we are actually doing.
Something else that's interesting in that state is that we are controlled by biases,
By emotions.
We often make decisions that are not in line with our values.
We are not unified.
We feel incomplete.
In order to be unified,
To feel complete,
We need to access the third state of consciousness.
In the third state of consciousness,
We are fully aware of who we are.
We know everything there is to know about ourselves,
And we gain more influence on our habits and our emotions.
The fourth state of consciousness is not accessible to us.
All we can have in our normal state are glimpses of the third state of consciousness,
Of being in contact with our higher emotional center.
To be in the fourth state and in contact with the higher intellectual center,
We will need to be in the third state for long periods of time.
And the practice we're going to do today,
Self-remembering,
Is the gateway to the third state of consciousness,
To our connection with the higher emotional center.
The main characteristic of self- remembering is a bi-directional attention,
Where we are not only aware of the object we're focusing on,
We are also aware of ourselves at the same time.
So part of our attention is directed towards ourselves,
Keeping track of our body,
Our emotions,
Our thoughts.
And the other part is directed towards the object of our attention.
It is also a state where our three brains,
The intellectual brain,
The emotional brain,
And the moving brain are working together in unison as one.
Let's give it a try.
First,
We work on the body,
Which is the easiest to control.
Find a comfortable position,
Sitting on a chair if possible,
With your feet flat on the floor,
Your spine relatively straight,
But without forcing anything.
If you want,
You can imagine a thin thread gently pulling the top of your head towards the ceiling.
And adjust your position.
It should be relaxed,
Comfortable,
And also alert and dignified.
Relax your shoulders,
Your back,
Your jaw,
All the little muscles around your eyes,
Your nose,
Your mouth,
And keep your body as still as possible.
The only perceptible movement should be the movement of your breathing.
And let your breathing be natural.
Let your body decide the right tempo for your breathing.
Now have a general sensation of your body sitting here,
In this place,
In this moment.
And when you are ready,
Gently,
Slowly close your eyes.
Now that the body is still and relaxed,
Let's work on the emotional brain.
Think of your emotions,
Your emotional state,
As a vibrating chord on a piano or a guitar.
And that chord needs to vibrate at the right frequency in order to resonate in the higher emotional center.
We need to change the level of vibrations in our emotional brain to reach out to the higher emotional center.
In order to do that,
We need to let go of the emotional states and attitudes that are keeping us at a lower vibration.
We need to let go of any judgmental attitude.
There is no right or wrong,
Good or bad,
Where we're going.
There's no duality.
We need to let go of expressing negative emotions.
The expression of unpleasant emotions,
Such as when we complain because the weather is bad,
Or we are stuck in traffic,
Is totally unnecessary and brings down the level of vibration of our emotional brain.
And we also need to let go of any imaginary suffering,
Worries,
Fears,
Anxiety,
Depression,
All based on imaginary scenarios we invented,
Or rumination of the past.
And finally,
Let go of any assumptions or expectations.
This is not about creating an experience or recreating a previous experience.
This is more about surrendering,
Surrendering yourself to something higher.
Everything is exactly as it should be.
It's you here,
Right now.
Now,
Keeping some of your attention on your body and your emotions,
Let's take a look at the intellectual mind.
The first thing that we notice with our intellectual mind is that it is often wandering,
Incessantly creating stories,
Scenarios,
Ruminating the past.
With the mind,
It's a little bit like asking a monkey to be still,
And why we sometimes call it the monkey mind.
The way we are going to keep it still and discover what is behind it is by neutralizing it,
Depriving it of words and sentences.
It is the most effective way to pierce through the fog of our mind,
To get rid of the noise it's making,
So we can listen and hear the voice of our higher self.
And just like you are keeping your body still by depriving it of movements,
Your emotional brain by depriving it of wants and desires,
You're going to keep your mind still,
As still as possible,
Depriving it of words and sentences.
It will happen again and again.
The mind will take over,
Jump on a word,
Add a few words to it to create a sentence,
And start building a story.
That's the way it works.
And as soon as you catch it going that direction,
You go back to your stillness.
You refuse to listen to the story.
You refuse to complete the sentence.
You even try to not use any words.
You say no to words in your mind.
And when you catch yourself in a thought,
In a story,
Simply notice and come back right away to your meditation,
To your stillness,
Without any judgment.
Now I'm going to let you experiment with this technique for the next five minutes.
Remember stillness in your body,
Equanimity in your emotions,
And silence,
No words,
No stories in your intellectual mind.
Don't try too hard.
Simply be present,
Anchored in yourself.
Here,
Right now.
I will keep track of the time and let you know when the meditation is over.
Slowly,
Gently,
Bring your attention to your feet on the floor,
To the top of your head,
And feel the energy flowing through your body.
Take a moment to acknowledge your meditation,
What you've experienced.
You can wiggle your fingers,
Your toes,
Stretch if you feel like it.
And when you are ready,
On your own time,
Slowly,
Gently,
Open your eyes.
