On Commanding Self http://www.lightwinnipeg.org/Spiritual%20Writings/Essence%20and%20Personality.pdfLessing: I have a rather fanciful interpretation about schizophrenia, which is probably nonsense, but it might interest some people. It is that this self-hater part of ourselves, the conditioned conscience, is usually disassociated and is just sitting there ready to pounce. Then, then some crisis activates it, it gets plugged into the entire human psyche. It isn't just personal, it becomes an impersonal accuser, as if the whole of society is behind it. And that's why people can't bear it. It's so powerful. It isn't just the voice of mummy or daddy, it's the total collective power of dislike, accusation and pure hatred. In other cultures this is probably a recognised aspect of a god — I wouldn't be surprised — certainly in India you'd find it in, probably Kali or another of those terrible goddesses. But I'm sure that schizophrenics get plugged into something so enormously powerful they can't bear it.Tyrrell: Perhaps that's why schizophrenics commonly believe they are being spied on by evil alien creatures.Lessing: They often think they're spied on through electric sockets on skirting boards.The latest one I've heard is the check-out points at supermarkets! There is an interesting cult in South Africa which I was told about. They believe that the world is being controlled by an evil force, '666', which is taking over the entire world through the agency of check-outs of supermarkets. And this is easily proved because so often the numbers on the printouts from these check-outs have 666 on them. You can't fault the logical of crazy people! And this cult now has a paid up membership. They are waiting for Satan. South Africa breeds amazing cults for some reason.
ESSENCE AND PERSONALITY
‘The touchstone it is which knows the real gold.’Saadi
The ‘Secondary’ or ‘Commanding’ Self
The Commanding Self, the subjective mind which is a compound of
instinct and training, of intellect and emotion: these are the factors
which stand between the ‘gold’ and the ‘touchstone’ in everyone.
Idries Shah
o In many spiritual teachings a distinction is made between the essence or real self and the
secondary self or false personality.
It must be understood that man consists of two parts: essence and personality.
Essence in man is what is his own. Personality in man is what is ‘not his own.’
‘Not his own’ means what has come from outside, what he has learned, or reflects,
all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory and in the sensations, all
words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation –
all this is ‘not his own’, all this is personality.
A small child has no personality as yet. He is what he really is. He is essence.
His desires, tastes, likes, dislikes, express his being such as it is.
But as soon as so-called ‘education’ begins personality begins to grow. Person-
ality is created partly by the intentional influences of other people, that is, by
‘education’, and partly by involuntary imitation of them by the child himself. In
the creation of personality a great part is also played by ‘resistance’ to people
around him and by attempts to conceal from them something that is ‘his own’ or
‘real.’ (1)
o The secondary or commanding self dominates and controls the human personality. People live
largely in this conditioned personality and imagine that it is their only self. “The Commanding
Self is that mixture of primitive and conditioned responses, common to everyone, which
inhibits and distorts human progress and understanding.”
o The secondary personality develops early in life and forms a sort of mask or ‘persona’ which
covers the true inner being or essential self.
Personality is an accidental thing, which we begin to acquire as soon as we are
born; it is determined by our surroundings, outside influences, education and so
on; it is like a dress you wear, a mask; an accidental thing changing with changing
circumstances. It is the false part of man; and can be changed artificially or acci-
dentally – in a few minutes by hypnosis or a drug. A man with a “strong person-
ality” may have the essence of a child, overlaid by personality. (2)
o In Sufi terminology the dominating self is known as ‘nafs’ – the basic but selfish impulses and
desires which control the behaviour of most human beings.
The prime target of [Sufi teacher] Sanai’s onslaught is the ‘self’ (nafs). By this
term he understands something like the ‘ego’ of western psychology: the pro-
visional ‘consensus-reality’ which we passively allow environment, culture and
experience to erect around us from birth. The self is an entirely illusory entity,
constantly changing, full of contradictions which only habit prevents us from
discerning. But above all the self is – selfish. As if flying in panic from any
recognition of its own nothingness, it feverishly erects edifices of self-importance,
self-aggrandizement, self-love. More binding than any prison, since we unthink-
ingly take its very walls for reality, it prevents us from ever realizing the true
significance of our being here. (3)
o The secondary self rules and limits the scope and possibilities of human functioning. “The
Commanding Self is the origin of the individual controlled by a composite consciousness,
which is a mixture of hopes and fears, of training and imagination, of emotional and other
factors, which make up the person in his or her ‘normal state’.”
The secondary self is the false personality which, although enabling people to
handle many of the circumstances of life, has as its objective the maintenance of
itself; not the progress of the individual beyond quite narrow and shallow limits.
This Commanding Self is manifested by reactions, hopes and fears and various
opinions and preoccupations. (4)
o The activity of the secondary self leads to behaviour that is automatic, conditioned and uncon-
trolled. Much of the manifestations of this self are mechanical, almost like a machine.
The ordinary, familiar Self, which is a secondary one, is easily conditioned,
dominated and operated by primitive logic. People thus make decisions based
on habit, on command or upon lack of information. They do this because they
are trained to act in this way, and also because they frequently lack flexibility of
approach. (5)
o One of the qualities of the false personality is that it is constantly changing as it reacts to ex-
ternal influences and events. “The false or secondary self tends to filter and distort impres-
sions from the external world by processing outside impacts and situations from an entirely
subjective viewpoint.”
Personality is an accidental thing – upbringing, education, points of view –
everything external. It is like the clothes you wear, your artificial mask, the result
of your upbringing, of the influence of your surroundings, opinions consisting of
information and knowledge which change daily, one annulling the other.
Today you are convinced of one thing – you believe it and want it. Tomorrow,
under another influence, your belief, your desires become different. All the material
constituting your personality may be completely changed artificially or accidentally
with a change in your surrounding conditions and place – and this in a very short
time. (6)
o The secondary self acts as a barrier to higher or extra-dimensional perceptions. The activity of
the commanding self (which is said to have a ‘location’ in the area of the navel) stifles the
intuition and blocks any recognition of spiritual truth.
People may be obtuse because they are unconsciously suppressing their percep-
tion of the facts or of truth. There are many people who act against their reliable
and accurate promptings for some delinquent reason. This reason is generally
because something in them fears the intrusion of truth, either because this unsettles
them or because they are partly hypocrites.
The ‘censor’ is that part of the Commanding Self – the artificial personality,
which seeks to protect the existing ways of thought of the person, who therefore
is suffering from an inward conflict: half of which knows the truth and wants it,
admitting it into his brain, the other half inhibits the acceptance of this fact, since
it is dedicated to maintaining what it takes to be an equilibrium. If it were to admit
the truth, so its reasoning goes, it would face the unknown; the personality, it
fears, would change, or else the person would then be motivated by something else
(truth) not by the small bundle of ideas and reactions with which it is familiar. (7)
o The element which stands in the way of real human progress and spiritual development is the
secondary self or false personality.
The area of psychological activity in the human being is for the Sufi that of
his secondary, raw and conditioned self. This is not the self which achieves higher
consciousness, but is the socially operative one. Customary human efforts are
directed towards stabilizing this secondary self and integrating it in society, and
the emotional experiences which are possible to this self are generally confused
with higher experiences, giving rise, at best, to therapy or the formation of a new
tribe or society (actually a cult), not to a body of more aware people. I say at
best because this is the best that can be achieved when working on this level; not
to indicate that this is not to be desired. But people who need therapy or a tribe
should attend to this need first, and should not confuse it with higher perceptions. (8)
o The presence and activity of the false personality produces psychological and cultural problems
which distort the understanding of mystical teachings and methods.
The Western cultural milieu, more than those of the East, provides a back-
ground mentality which encourages the Commanding Self. Procedures designed
for Eastern people are likely to have negative effects if adopted by Westerners.
Briefly, the Eastern tradition that one learns until one is permitted by a teacher
to teach (an ancient tradition perpetuated in apprenticeship and the granting of
degrees in the West), is not adhered to in many non-academic areas of the West.
The reason for this is not far to seek. In the West, the prevailing culture’s
emphasis is on haste, on getting something and passing it on (e.g. products or
ideas, after value-enhancing) and so on. This has taken the form, in spiritual,
psycho-psychological and other areas, of people trying to teach, to expound, to
treat or cure, to communicate before they are properly fitted to do so.
The fact that, in the West, anyone can set up as an expert, a teacher, a therapist or an adviser, compounds this error. The Commanding Self, always agile in its sophistication, conceals from the individual that he/she is trying to run before being able to walk. When people start to approve of what the individual is doing, this is misread as a validation of his or her role. In fact, it is usually only the fact that some people are dependent characters by nature or formation.
The answer? Time and service rather than wanting to take a place on the totem-
pole. It is for this reason that Sufi teachers divert vanity from the spiritual area,
by encouraging their disciples to channel the Commanding Self’s activities to any
worthy worldly ambition: while continuing to study the Sufi Way in a modest and
non-self promoting manner. (9)
o Although the secondary self is very useful when used for certain purposes, its operation may be
useless or even harmful when applied to areas which are not appropriate to it. The impulses
and desires of the secondary self should not be suppressed or denied, but rather controlled and
channelled.
The Essence or Essential Self
o The essence or the essential being of a person has an inner hunger and capacity for spiritual
growth. But in the majority of undeveloped human beings, the essence operates in such a way
that it gives its potential (the development of higher consciousness) to the secondary self.
Take the case of a young child. The sense of ‘I-am’ is not yet formed, the
personality is rudimentary. The obstacles to self-knowledge are few, but the
power and the clarity of awareness, its width and depth are lacking. In the
course of years awareness will grow stronger, but also the latent personality
will emerge and obscure and complicate. Just as the harder the wood, the
hotter the flame, so the stronger the personality, the brighter the light generated
from its destruction. (10)
o An analogy by Rumi alludes to the hidden nature of the essence within the dominating struc-
ture of the secondary self.
In Fihi ma Fihi, Rumi says that there is a minute insect in a field, which cannot
be seen at first. But as soon as it makes a sound, people are alerted and see it.
People, similarly, are lost in the field of this world, their surroundings and preoc-
cupations. The human essence within is concealed by all this disturbance. (11)
o Essence grows and develops under favourable conditions, but in most cases any real inner
development stops at an early age. “As long as one regards what are in fact secondary things
(including one’s secondary, conditioned self) as primary, the subtler but more real primary
element – Reality and the Essence of the individual – will not be perceived.
With most people, essence continues to receive impressions only until it is fiveo The essential being exists at birth, but its capacity to express itself fully remains latent until it
or six years old. As long as it receives impressions it grows, but afterwards all
impressions are taken by personality and essence stops growing. Sometimes if education is not too unfavourable, the essence may continue to grow, and a more
or less normal human being can result. But normal human beings are the exception.
Nearly everyone has only the essence of a child. It is not natural that in a grown-up
man the essence should be a child. Because of this, he remains timid underneath
and full of apprehensions. This is because he knows that he is not what he pretends
to be, but he cannot understand why. (12)
can harmonize with sources of higher knowledge and energy.
Q: Could you say something about essence, some indications of how we can
recognize when we are working with essence or with personality?
A: To begin with, basically, you are using the essence each time you are using
any technique or any context of the Tradition.
Secondly, you are working with the essence, if, before beginning anything, you
invoke what we call a “Nyat” or intention. If you concentrate yourself on receiving
the help of the Tradition, then you will be using the essence.
The third and most difficult part is when you are treating someone or doing some-
thing and suddenly you have no idea of what to do. And then, without you really
knowing it, it comes to you. That is the essence working.
Q: Does the essence work in an unconscious way?
A: Yes. (13)
o The essence communicates to the human being in a subtle, refined and precise manner based
on necessity, urgency or need to know. “The communication harmonic of the essential being
transmits and receives in a very precise frequency. This communication and reception appa-
ratus or harmonic is a very fundamental and functional part of the essential being.”
Essence is a subtle substance that has physical characteristics. This means that
in order to experience essence the physical organism has to become sensitive
enough to perceive these physical characteristics, which are usually coexistent
with the ordinary physical sensations. The physical characteristics of essential
substance are very subtle, in the sense that they are quiet and silent compared to
the sensations of the body and its feelings. Usually, they are drowned out by the
grosser sensations. They might be present, but because the person is attuned only
to the grosser, more familiar physical sensations, he might not be aware of their
presence. So his awareness will have to become refined enough to be sensitive
to the subtler and finer sensations of the essence. (14)
o Signals from the essence are optimally received in a state of relaxed awareness and openness.
“The essential being is reluctant to be recognized or used only in the sense that it wishes to pro-
tect itself and also the person. It therefore has to be encouraged and persuaded, and it also has
to feel right.”
The essential being of a person knows intimately what the minute by minute and
second by second state of the body and mind is signalling to you, and it sends sig-
nals to your conscious being in a very simple and also very sophisticated way.
The essential being of the person is interested in the quality and good state of
the body. It knows those signals, what type of signals they are, and in what way it
can communicate and be understood.
It may choose how to signal to you, either by some physical change or physical
manifestation, or else it can signal to you with a series of strong ideas coming back
over and over again into the mind.
Signals of a less obvious nature are coming back to one all the time. They can
come quickly and pass, perhaps because of a lack of alertness by the person.
Alertness is a state of scanning which is constant in you and it should be
encouraged, because if the essential being wishes to send a significant signal, this
signal will be repeated over and over again. (15)
Relationship Between Essence and Personality
‘While the Commanding Self says: ‘Give me what I want’, the
Real Self, which lies beyond it, is saying: ‘Give me what I need.’
o The secondary self is interposed between objective reality and the real self or essence (whose
realization is the purpose of spiritual study). “Personality hides behind essence and essence
hides behind personality and they mutually screen one another.”
o The essence or ‘real self’ must re-establish a living contact with the Divine. In most human
beings the inner self is trapped by the operation of the secondary self, and “the shallow but
strong bonds of conditioning and environment.”
The secondary (‘commanding’) self in everyone is the false self which everyone
takes to be the real one. It stands in relation to the real being of the person as the
face does to the person: virtually a persona. Everyone, says Rumi, in Fihi ma Fihi,
likes a mirror, and is enamoured of the reflection in the mirror of his attributes and
attainments: though he does not know the real nature of his face.
The veil which he sees on the looking-glass he imagines to be his face. ‘Take
the covering from your face, so that you may see me as the mirror of your real face:
so that you will realize that I am a mirror.’ (16)
o There is a mutual and parallel relationship between the two fundamental aspects of the human
being: the essence and the secondary self or false personality.
o The essence or real self, and not the secondary personality, has the potential for inner growth
Essence is the truth in man; personality is the false. But in proportion as person-
ality grows, essence manifests itself more and more rarely and more and more
feebly and it very often happens that essence stops in its growth at a very early age
and grows no further. It happens very often that the essence of a grown-up man,
even that of a very intellectual and, in the accepted meaning of the word, highly
‘educated’ man, stops on the level of a child of five or six. This means that every-
thing we see in this man is in reality ‘not his own.’ What is his own in man, that is, his essence, is usually only manifested in his instincts and in his simplest emotions.
There are cases, however, when a man’s essence grows in parallel with his person-
ality. Such cases represent very rare exceptions especially in the circumstances of
cultured life. Essence has more chances of development in men who live nearer
to nature in difficult conditions of constant struggle and danger.
But as a rule the personality of such people is very little developed. They have
more of what is their own, but very little of what is ‘not their own’, that is to say,
they lack education and instruction, they lack culture. Culture creates personality
and is at the same time the product and the result of personality. We do not realize
that the whole of our life, all we call civilization, all we call science, philosophy,
art, and politics, is created by people’s personality, that is, by what is ‘not their own’
in them.
The element that is ‘not his own’ differs from what is man’s ‘own’ by the fact
that it can be lost, altered, or taken away by artificial means.
Sometimes, though very seldom, and sometimes when it is least expected, essence
proves fully grown and fully developed in a man, even in cases of undeveloped
personality, and in this case essence unites together everything that is serious and
real in a man.
But this happens very seldom. As a rule man’s essence is either primitive, savage
and childish, or else simply stupid. The development of essence depends on work
on oneself. (17)
and spiritual development. “As we observe our personality it becomes more passive, then our
essence can become active and begin to grow.”
o In schools of higher development there exist precise methods which are applied to separate
A very important moment in the work on oneself is when a man begins to dis-
tinguish between his personality and his essence. A man’s real I, his individuality,
can grow only from his essence. It can be said that a man’s individuality is his
essence, grown up, mature. But in order to enable essence to grow up, it is first
of all necessary to weaken the constant pressure of personality upon it, because
the obstacles to the growth of essence are contained in personality.
If we take an average cultured man, we shall see that in the vast majority of
cases his personality is the active element in him while his essence is the passive
element. The inner growth of a man cannot begin so long as this order of things
remains unchanged. Personality must become passive and essence must become
active.
In the case of less cultured people essence is often more highly developed than
it is in cultured man. It would seem that they ought to be nearer the possibility of
growth, but in reality it is not so because their personality proves to be insufficiently
developed. For inner growth, for work on oneself, a certain development of person-
ality as well as a certain strength of essence are necessary. Without some store of
knowledge, without a certain amount of material ‘not his own’, a man cannot begin
to work on himself, he cannot begin to study himself, he cannot begin to struggle
with his mechanical habits, simply because there will be no reason or motive for
undertaking such work.
Thus evolution is equally difficult for a cultured and an uncultured man. A
cultured man lives far from nature, far from natural conditions of existence, in
artificial conditions of life, developing his personality at the expense of his essence. A less cultured man, living in more normal and more natural conditions, develops
his essence at the expense of his personality. A successful beginning of work on
oneself requires the happy occurrence of an equal development of personality and
essence. Such an occurrence will give the greatest assurance of success. (18)
essence from personality and experimentally verify the relation of personality to essence.
“In Eastern schools ways and means are known by the help of which it is possible to separate
man’s personality from his essence. For this purpose they sometimes use hypnosis, sometimes
special narcotics, sometimes certain kinds of exercises.”
Personality Roles and Essence Types
o The issue of identity and self-image is a major pre-occupation and concern of most human
beings. The personality of many people is an artificial one, almost a ‘role’ which they play in
social situations.
Q: How concerned are people, really, about their identity, about who or what
they are, and whether what they think and do is real or just habit and instinct?
A: They are so concerned with this, that they think of very little else, though
they do not realize it. It is very easy, however, to observe that this is what is
happening, if we only examine what people say, think and do from the point of
view of whether it is connected with their identity and/or their perception of
themselves and of others. The interesting thing is that they seldom suspect that
this is their obsession. (19)
o The behaviour of most people in customary social situations is based on particular roles that
they play. “As soon as we define ourselves in relation to another we feel more comfortable,
because now we know how to be and to act.”
If you are awake enough, aware enough, to be able to observe how you interact
with other people, you may detect subtle changes in your speech, attitude, and
behaviour depending on the person you are interacting with. At first, it may be
easier to observe this in others; then you may also detect it in yourself. The way
in which you speak to the chairman of the company may be different in subtle
ways from how you speak to the janitor. How you speak to a child may be
different from how you speak to an adult. Why is that? You are playing roles.
You are not yourself, neither with the chairman nor with the janitor or the child.
A range of conditioned patterns of behaviour come into effect between two
human beings that determine the nature of the interaction. Instead of human
beings, conceptual mental images are interacting with each other. The more
identified people are with their respective roles, the more inauthentic the relation-
ship becomes. (20)
o The average person has a limited repertoire of roles, drawn from the secondary personality,
which he or she exhibits in ordinary life.
You must realize that each man has a definite repertoire of roles which he playso Most people are unable to live without roles, preventing the real self from emerging. “When
in ordinary circumstances. He has a role for every kind of circumstance in which
he ordinarily finds himself in life; but put him into even only slightly different
circumstances and he is unable to find a suitable role and for a short time he
becomes himself. The study of the roles a man plays represents a very necessary
part of self-knowledge. Each man’s repertoire is very limited. One or two for
his family, one or two at his office (one for his subordinates and another for his
superiors), one for his friends in a restaurant, and perhaps one who is interested in
exalted ideas and likes intellectual conversation. And at different times the man
is fully identified with one of them and is unable to separate himself from it.
To see the roles, to know one’s repertoire, particularly to know its limitedness, is
to know a great deal. But the point is that, outside his repertoire, a man feels very
uncomfortable should something push him if only temporarily out of his rut, and
he tries his hardest to return to any one of his usual roles. Directly he falls back
into the rut everything at once goes smoothly again and the feeling of awkward-
ness and tension disappears. This is how it is in life. (21)
we see clearly how we function, how we contact our surroundings through memory from the
point of view of separate roles and patterns, the already known, we can only be astonished.”
When you are free from the concept “mother,” you are really a mother. Then
when circumstances call on you to be a mother, when the child asks for a mother,
you are a mother. But don’t live in mothering. You are nothing, and in this
nothingness the mother comes and goes. Then there is a current of love.
The problem is not biology but psychology. To take yourself as a father, mother,
lawyer or businessman is fractional living. Then you act according to certain
patterns. When you are established in your wholeness, the father or mother appears
in this wholeness. Similarly, conception, memory, is an essential tool of our brain,
but to live in memory is the problem. (22)
o In some spiritual teachings the importance of identifying and being aware of unconscious role-
playing is the initial step in restoring elements of the personality to their proper functions “as
servants rather than masters of the mind.”
Human beings play different roles in life, and relate differently to different people
and situations through these different roles. The question is this: “Who and what
is the real self underlying and undertaking these roles?”
The Zen point is that these roles are not the real self, but are more properly like
guests or servants of the real self. Confusion and loss of freedom arise from a
fundamental misapprehension: Identifying with a role, people can forget and lose
the rest of their potential shifting from role to role unconscious of the central
“pivot” of the essential self, people can experience stultifying conflicts among
their commitments to different roles. (23)
o The various roles played by a person in life come from the false personality, but in certain
circumstances these may be replaced by the genuineness and authenticity of the essential self.
All the ordinary roles we play are personality; but if, by accident, we find
ourselves in unusual conditions, we may behave according to essence. Some
grown-up men, for example, when they have had a good deal to drink, or are
under the influence of some young woman, will behave like little boys – which
essentially they are. On the other hand, in times of danger they may behave
either intelligently and rationally or like frightened children. Under the shock
of grief, the stern business man or the statesman may become human and tender.
Our task is to die to this personality, which is a false thing, not our own; it may
be necessary to melt it down in the fires of great suffering, but when this is done
correctly, in its place will grow individuality; a man will become an individual,
possessing real will and an “I”. He will be himself. (24)
o In most instances it is difficult to distinguish between personality roles and the workings of
essence.
Only a conscious man can tell which are the manifestations of essence and
which are personality. The ordinary role we play in life is personality, and with
some people it becomes a fixed habit and is no longer even a role. Yet person-
ality can react differently with different surroundings and people. Essence, when
it does react, will always react in the same way.
Essence means being, intrinsic nature, the thing in itself, inborn character,
something that is. The opposite is personality, persona, a mask, that which is
not ours. But essence can be spoiled and warped: ‘Man, most ignorant when he’s
most assured. His glassy essence plays such fantastic tricks. . .’ (25)
o The powerful influences of contemporary culture and civilization exert a profound effect on
the human being. One of the negative consequences is a one-sided development away from
natural type and real individuality.
o In many spiritual traditions individuals are classified into various ‘types’ based on common
The life of our times has become so complex that man has deviated from his
original type – a type that should have become dependent upon his surroundings:
the country where he was born, the environment in which he was brought up, and
the culture in which he was nurtured. These conditions should have marked out
for a man his path of development and the normal type which he should have
arrived at; but our civilization, with its almost unlimited means of influencing a
man, has made it almost impossible for him to live in the conditions which should
be normal to him. While civilization has opened up for man new horizons in
knowledge and science and has raised his material standard of living, thereby
widening his world-perception, it has, instead of lifting him to a higher level all
round, only developed certain faculties to the detriment of others; some it has
completely destroyed. Our civilization has taken away from man the natural and
essential qualities of his inherited type, but it has not given him what was needed
for the harmonious development of a new type, so that civilization, instead of
producing an individually whole man adapted to the nature and surroundings in
which he finds himself and which really were responsible for his creation, has produced a being out of his element, incapable of living a full life, and at the same
time a stranger to that inner life which should by rights be his. (26)
similarities and patterns of behaviour. “If you observe yourself and note the things that
attract you, what you like to see, to hear, to taste, touch, you may discover your type.”
Each one of you has probably met in life people of one and the same type.
Such people often even look like one another, and their inner reactions to things
are exactly the same. What one likes the other will like. What one does not like
the other will not like. You must remember such occasions because you can
study the science of types only by meeting types. There is no other method.
Everything else is imagination. You must understand that in the conditions in
which you live you cannot meet with more than six or seven types although there
are in life a greater number of fundamental types. The rest are all combinations
of these fundamental types.
‘How many fundamental types are there in all?’ asked someone.
‘Some people say twelve,’ said G. ‘According to the legend the twelve apostles
represented the twelve types. Others say more.’ (27)
o The concept of ‘types’ is related to the essence or real individuality of people and plays a
major role in the attraction and relationship between the two sexes.
If people were to live in essence one type would always find the other type and
wrong types would never come together. But people live in personality. Person-
ality has its own interests and its own tastes which have nothing in common with
the interests and the tastes of essence. For this reason personality can dislike
precisely what essence likes – and like what essence does not like. Here is
where the struggle between essence and personality begins. Essence knows
what it wants but cannot explain it. Personality does not want to hear of it and
takes no account of it. It has its own desires. And it acts in its own way. But its
power does not continue beyond that moment. After that, in some way or other,
the two essences have to live together. And they hate one another. No sort of
acting can help here. In one way or another essence or type gains the upper hand
and decides. (28)
o According to some esoteric teachings the laws of ‘fate’ and ‘accident’ play a fundamental part
in the life of humanity – although affecting different aspects of the human being.
Most people are separated from their fate and live under the law of accident
only. Fate is the result of planetary influences which correspond to a man’s type.
A man can have the fate which corresponds to his type but he practically never
does have it. This arises because fate has relation to only one part of man, namely
to his essence. (29)
REFERENCES
1. P.D. Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 161.
2. C.S. Nott Teachings of Gurdjieff: The Journal of a Pupil (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1974), p. 65.
3. David Pendlebury The Walled Garden of Truth (London: (Octagon Press, 1984), p. 65.
4. Idries Shah Learning How to Learn (London: Octagon Press, 1983), p. 42.
5. Idries Shah Evenings with Idries Shah (London: Designist Communications, 1981), p. 19.
6. G.I. Gurdjieff Views From the Real World (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1973), p. 143.
7. Idries Shah The Commanding Self (London: Octagon Press, 1994), p. 116.
8. Idries Shah A Perfumed Scorpion (London: Octagon Press, 1983), p. 191.
9. Idries Shah The Commanding Self (London: Octagon Press, 1994), p. 6-7.
10. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj I Am That (Durham, North Carolina: Acorn Press, 1982), p. 417.
11. Idries Shah Learning How to Learn (London: Octagon Press, 1983), p. 177.
12. J.G. Bennett Gurdjieff: Making a New World (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), p. 134-5.
13. Omar Ali-Shah Sufism As Therapy (Reno: Tractus Books, 1995), p. 18-19.
14. A.H. Almaas Essence (York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1986), p. 130.
15. Omar Ali-Shah Sufism As Therapy (Reno: Tractus Books, 1995), p. 105-6.
16. Idries Shah Learning How to Learn (London: Octagon Press, 1983), p. 289.
17. P.D. Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 162-3.
18. P.D. Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 163-4.
19. Idries Shah Knowing How to Know (London: Octagon Press, 1998), p. 237.
20. Eckhart Tolle A New Earth (New York: Dutton, 2005), p. 93.
21. P.D. Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 239-40.
22. Jean Klein Open to the Unknown (Santa Barbara: Third Millennium Publications, 1992), p. 17.
23. Thomas Cleary No Barrier (New York: Bantam Books, 1993), p. 163.
24. C.S. Nott Teachings of Gurdjieff: The Journal of a Pupil (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1974), p. 71.
25. C.S. Nott Journey Through This World: The Second Journal of a Pupil (New York: Samuel Weiser,
1974), p. 84-5.
26. C.S. Nott Teachings of Gurdjieff: The Journal of a Pupil (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1974), p. 2-3.
27. P.D. Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 246.
28. P.D. Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 254.
29. P.D. Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous (New York: Harcourt, 2001), p. 161.
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