For most people, even for educated and thinking people, the chief obstacle to their attaining the state of consciousness called Self-Remembering lies in the fact that they think they possess it already. They think that they remember themselves in everything they do and in everything they say, and they not only think that they are conscious at every moment and aware of themselves but believe that they are conscious of their inner lives also and fully aware of all the thoughts and emotions that pass through them in a continuous stream.

We were created a self-developing organism. We were created not only to serve Nature, but to serve another order of laws, spoken of in every page of the Gospels. We were created with the possibility of remembering ourselves—that is, of giving ourselves the First Conscious Shock. But you will see that it is only he himself, she herself, who can do this. I will speak perhaps next time further about this.

You should always remember yourself but as you are you have not the force and even cannot remember that you have to remember yourself. The most important thing is to remember yourself. Self-Remembering puts us into a different state of consciousness. In that state of consciousness you cannot do certain things without going to sleep at once and you can see it happening—that is, you can see yourself becoming identified. Or, to put the matter differently, if you do certain things and remember yourself at the same time, you will do them in quite a different way.

Full Self-Remembering is consciousness of real 'I' which stands above all the 'I's artificially created by life in us. Finally, no one can remember themselves unless they feel that there is something higher than themselves. Unless you feel this, your Self-Remembering will always lead you into False Personality.

Now the Work teaches that you have to do certain things which takes the form of not doing certain things as, for example, in general, not identifying—that is, not putting your feeling of 'I' into all your mechanical reactions. So the Work consists for a long time in not doing things, according to the instructions laid down so clearly in this Work on its practical side.

The Work teaches we can awaken, we can remember ourselves, we can change ourselves. How then is all this possible? It is only possible by following what the Work teaches. The Work begins with self-observation whereby gradually we may realize how we are machines and how we react mechanically to everything.

We must remember that we can do this Work. What would be the good of teaching a system of Work that no one could do? Gurdjieff once said: "All call out in loud voices and say: I can work." We did this and I think we all got force from it. So every one of you say to yourselves sometimes just this phrase: "I can work," because this is what we can do. I can remember myself according to my own level; I can separate from negative emotions according to my own state and my own level; I can stop making internal accounts; I can practice non-identifying; I can stop fantasies; I can stop self-justifying; and so on.

Now we identify through the unobserved petty feelings of ourselves which cause us to make endless internal accounts and build up endless negative systems in us. These negative systems, once formed, are very difficult to deal with. On this level we do everything in a pseudo way, from our self-love, our self-liking, to advance ourselves in some way, to merit praise, and so we are very easily hurt and dejected. Remove this stimulus and we scarcely exist, and may seem to have no objective. This is being a machine. All this basis of self-feeling does not lead far in the Work eventually.

Remember that the Work is not by addition to what you are, but by transformation of what you are. The Work is to change you, not to add something to you as you are, but to change completely what you are now. You cannot do this Work and remain the same. You cannot add the new wine to the old bottle of yourself. Ask yourselves, some of you, have you really changed at all, and do you really wish to change yourself? Or are you full of self-merit? And if you wish to change, what is it you have to change, from what you understand of the teaching of the Work?

This knowledge must be understood, before we can be what we know. For example, you can ever remember yourself unless you understand, through self-observation, that you are asleep. To try to self-remember without understanding that you are asleep is useless.

This is most important— you cannot remember yourself unless you know through sincere observation that you are asleep in some specific sense. Then you must awaken in this part of yourself and try to be what you know. It is necessary to be what you know by working on yourself.

It is only by applying the Work to oneself in one's own particular case that one can realize what Self-Remembering is. If you do not know what it is to observe you are asleep, how can you remember yourself? In this connection I will add something.

Now in order to isolate ourselves from life, apart from what has been said above, there are three great Work-practices that aid in this. The first is Self-Remembering, the second is non-identifying, and the third is non-considering in the sense of not making accounts against others.

Now let us turn to another thing that we can and must observe— namely, the absence of Self-Remembering in oneself. Do you try to take life from the Work point of view or do you take it from your mechanical reactions to life ? If you bring the Work in between what happens in life and how you react to life, you will already be beginning to remember yourself.

It is not a question of theoretically believing there is something higher, but of the actual perception of it in oneself, for the subject of this Work is this strange and complex thing called oneself. One can often observe a regular horde of unpleasant mean little 'I's that surround one and wish to drag one down to their level, to their way of taking everything.

Why do we think that things should always go right and why are we upset when they do not go in this way? Why is it we never remember about Second Force? The reason is that only 'I's that are in the Work can remember such things and that there lives in us a vast crowd of 'I's that have never heard of the Work and simply take things in their own way. It may sound very strange that we have in us crowds of 'I's that have never heard of the Work.

Remember that Real Will or Master comes down from a higher level and cannot reach the ordinary so-called waking state of consciousness. Something must be awake in one to have any contact and that means that there must be some state of Self- Remembering present. After a time one can begin to tell when one is asleep inside—i.e. when there is no kind of Self-Remembering taking place.

The Work seeks to make a new arrangement in our minds and it can only do so when it is allowed to enter a person's mind. Nothing will enter anybody's mind unless they feel an affection for it, a desire for it. And this means in so many words that unless one has 'I's in oneself that wish to work, 'I's that have always felt there is something else, 'I's that can hear the Work, not merely through the ears, but through the mind and understanding—unless such 'I's exist, the Work can never enter, but if it does enter then it becomes a matter of choice.

For a long time the Work remains external, as something on the blackboard of the memory. But after a time a person may realize it is quite true that he or she is asleep and has negative emotions, etc. Or they may realize some other thing, some other idea that the Work teaches. The Work asks us to think from itself—to have a Work-mind, a mind formed by the ideas of the Work, to see things from what the Work teaches about ourselves, others and life.

If you begin to live this Work and think about everything from the ideas that it teaches, and struggle to separate yourself from negative emotion and useless ideas that simply drain force from you, and so on, and if you will try to feel yourself walking carefully amidst the events of life as if you had something protecting you on your feet, then you will begin to give yourself the First Conscious Shock.