It has been said that Self-Remembering gives a shock to the whole Being and actually provides better food for the cells of the body. But we do not give this shock to ourselves ordinarily and for that reason it is called the First Conscious Shock, because it has to be done deliberately.

There are many different ways of remembering oneself but in every case it means not identifying with something and so separating from something by feeling one is different from it. There is no mechanical way of Self-Remembering. It is, speaking on a lower scale, like saying there is no mechanical way of self-observation.

On one occasion, when Mr. O. was asked: “What is this pill that Sly Man makes and swallows?” he said that one meaning was that a Sly Man remembers himself in different ways under different conditions. The pill that Sly Man takes is composed of many things. One must self-remember to be able to take the pill.

If we do what we do not desire, this shows will. Self-Remembering must have an element of will-control. It is an act of doing—the only one we can make.

Maurice Nicoll, “A Short Note on Different Ways of Self-Remembering” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 3, p. 925).