The Art of Self-Remembering: A Dive into Surrender and Spiritual Enlightenment

Very often we forget to remember ourselves. We wonder what to do, but forget to remember ourselves. Perhaps we think of it but we do not try to do it. We are always thinking of but not doing the Work. When we make no attempt to self-remember, our inner continuity with the Work is broken. The Work moves away from us and we pass into life. When this happens it is necessary to self-remember. This opens us again to the influences of the Work.

To remember oneself is a surrender of oneself. One realizes one's helplessness. It is impossible to self-remember if one does not realize and understand that better influences can reach us. In one book written some eight centuries ago, by someone belonging to the Sufi schools, the writer compares Self-Remembering with coming to the surface of the sea and drawing in air. "This air," he says, "is miraculous, and will last a whole day, even when one is at the bottom of the ocean."

Maurice Nicoll, “Self-Remembering” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 318-319).