Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Self-Remembering
To remember oneself not as the acquired Personality but as something prior to it, by inwardly separating from one’s usual ideas of oneself and turning, with a certain emotional quality, toward a level higher than oneself — which Nicoll says ‘creates force.
Self-remembering (Nicoll) in 4 lines: Step back from your usual ideas of yourself — “this is not I” to the Personality. Remember instead something prior to it, in the direction of Essence. Turn, with a warm emotional quality, toward something higher than yourself, allowing higher influences to reach you — imitate the more awake state to attract it. Nicoll says this act itself “creates force.”
What it is
Self-remembering is the keystone of the Fourth Way, but Maurice Nicoll gave it a distinctly vertical, almost devotional accent. Gurdjieff framed it as a double-headed arrow of attention (aware of the object and of oneself perceiving it); Ouspensky ran it as an experiment in dividing attention.
Nicoll’s emphasis is on what one remembers, and on relating upward. To remember oneself, he taught, is not to remember the Personality — that “would be to strengthen it — to say ‘This is I’ to it instead of ‘This is not I’.” Rather, “in remembering oneself one does not remember the Personality but something prior to it that lies in the direction of Essence and can only be reached through it.” And self-remembering, for Nicoll, “is closely linked to the idea of something higher than oneself, an element of greater mind” — an inner act of opening so that “higher influences” can reach you.
It always “has a certain emotional quality,” and that quality, he says, is what lifts one into “higher parts of centres, and bigger ‘I’s.” It operationalises the deeper Self beneath the ego (All Is One) and the liberating contact with an inner/higher knowing (All Is One).
The Method
From Nicoll’s Commentaries:
- Begin by separating from the usual self. Self-remembering presupposes inner separation: a turning away from “all one’s usual ideas of oneself,” from the acquired Personality with its prides and buffers. You first stop saying “This is I” to the everyday figure.
- Remember something prior to Personality. Reach, in attention, not for your name-and-history self but for “something prior to it that lies in the direction of Essence.” It is recalled, not constructed — a remembering, as the word says.
- Turn, emotionally, toward a higher level. This is Nicoll’s signature move: relate to “something higher than oneself, an element of greater mind.” Self-remembering is “allowing higher influences to reach you” — an inner orientation upward, receptive rather than effortful.
- Carry the right emotional quality. Nicoll: self-remembering “always has a certain emotional quality, which is what puts one into higher parts of centres, and bigger ‘I’s.” It is not cold mental note-taking; it has warmth, reverence, a quiet lift.
- Imitate the higher state to attract it. A practical Nicoll instruction: “Our task is to try to imitate higher states of consciousness, so as to attract them.” You assume the inner posture of the more awake state, and that invites it.
- Notice that it creates force. Where non-identifying saves energy by preventing leaks, Nicoll says self-remembering generates it: “one gains force by every act of non-identifying… and one creates force by Self-Remembering.” The opening “to the act and the meaning and significance of Self-Remembering… actually creates force.” *(Sourcing note: “one does not remember the Personality but something prior to it… in the direction of Essence,” “to say ‘This is I’ to it instead of ‘This is not I’,” “something higher than oneself, an element of greater mind,” “allowing higher influences to reach you,” “always has a certain emotional quality… higher parts of centres, and bigger ‘I’s,” “imitate higher states of consciousness, so as to attract them,” and “one creates force by Self-Remembering” are attributed to Nicoll’s Psychological Commentaries; cited from quotation collections of the work, wording per those sources.)*
Source & Lineage
The teaching is Maurice Nicoll’s, in his Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (1952-56), and it also colours his The New Man and The Mark, where he reads the Gospels as an esoteric psychology of metanoia — changing the level of one’s being.
The base practice is Gurdjieff’s and Ouspensky’s; Nicoll’s distinctive elaboration is the vertical, relational framing — self-remembering as remembering Essence and opening to a higher level / higher influences, charged with emotional quality, which “creates force.” This sits within the Work’s model of levels of being, Personality vs Essence, and higher centres — offered here as the tradition’s framework, presented as its teaching, not as settled psychology.
Common refinements
Remembering the Personality. Dwelling on “me, my story, my qualities” strengthens exactly what you mean to step beyond. Remember something prior to that figure.
- Making it cold and mental. Without the emotional quality, Nicoll says, it doesn’t lift you. It is a warm, reverent turning, not a clenched act of attention.
- Forcing or straining. This is receptive — “allowing higher influences to reach you.” Effortful concentration or eye-tension misses the mode; hold it lightly.
- Expecting permanence. Like all self-remembering it is lost in seconds and renewed; the renewing is the practice.
- Refinement: Combine with the companion practices — first separate (“this is not I”), then remember (turn, with feeling, toward something higher). Separation clears the room; remembering opens the window.