Observations placeholder

The Fourth Way – P D Ouspensky [from the oral teachings of G I Gurdjieff]

Question:  Why should moments of consciousness be so rare?

Answer:  No fuel.  If you have no electricity, or if you have a pocket torch with a bad battery, you may have a flash and then nothing.  Consciousness is light, light is the result of a certain energy; if there is no energy there is no light.

-------------------------------------------------

We can only hope to become conscious beings if we use in the right way the energy that is now used in the wrong way.  The machine can produce enough energy, but you can waste it on being angry or irritated or something like that and then very little remains. 

We can get 'leaks of energy,' and the worst of all is expressing negative emotions.  If you can stop the expression of negative emotions, you will save energy and never feel the lack of it.

The normal organism produces quite enough energy not only for all centres but also for storing.  Production is all right, but expenditure is wrong.  These leaks have to be studied, because with some kind of leaks it is not worth going on until they are stopped, for the more one accumulates energy, the more will leak out.

It is like pouring water into a sieve.  Certain negative emotions produce precisely such leaks.  In certain situations some people go through a whole range of negative emotions so habitual that they do not even notice them.  It may only occupy five minutes or five seconds