Breaking the Chain: The Power of Inner Stop

People keep on thinking of self-remembering, but they do not do it. It is necessary to stop the chain of automatic associations every day. This can be done by inner stop—that is, stopping everything, all thoughts, etc. This is the beginning of self-remembering.

But people, as I say, keep on thinking of remembering themselves, and never do. To remember oneself one must stop everything and lift oneself into total silence and total loss of all ordinary sense of oneself. This takes a little time. But most people cannot spare even one minute to do it because they are slaves to their machines, so they are bound and glued to the ceaseless and useless flow of mechanical thoughts, negative emotions, personal accounts, etc.

Help, which comes from the direction of higher centers, cannot reach the Second State of Consciousness ; it can only reach as far as the Third State of Consciousness… It is no use saying: "I must remember myself." You must actually remember yourselves.

Maurice Nicoll, "Karma-Yoga" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 90)