Maurice Nicoll - Gems of Wisom

[Zigzag Idiot]

 

I referred to it earlier in Christian Resources

Today I found the good copy. Thought I should give it, it's own space.

1400 pages condensed into 130 pages. Many good quotes here.

https://inner-world-books.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Gems_of_Wisdom.pdf

Maurice Nicoll

UNCRITICAL SELF-OBSERVATION

“Remember that it is said that self-observation must be uncritical. You do not observe yourself in order to criticize yourself. If you do so it will at once stop self-observation and lead to internal considering. . . . In self-observation we do not try to analyze—i.e. find the causes and origins of different ‘I’s in us—but seek only to become conscious of them.” V. 2, p. 560, 571

UNCRITICAL II

“The Observing ‘I’ in the sense of the Work does not take sides with anything. It merely records what you are doing, what you are saying, at different moments, through the action of different ‘I’s, and does not say that this is better or this is worse. Observing ‘I’ is not shocked by anything. It is not a kind of Grandmamma or Grandpapa in you, but is quite pure and simple...It will have its own uncritical, gentle memory of all the different sides of you... We have to acknowledge and accept all sides of ourselves, because only through the acknowl- edgement, the acceptance, the consciousness of all sides of ourselves can we advance at all.” V. 2, p. 722, 724

THE VALUE OF SELF-OBSERVATION III

“Self-Observation clears a space in your mind so that you can see things coming in and going out. If the energy which was about to go into a negative emotion is prevented from doing so, it may pass on and may create a moment of Self-Remembering. All this means that you have brought the Work up to the point of incoming impressions.” V. 1, p. 199 

From page 15 of 

https://inner-world-books.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Gems_of_Wisdom.pdf

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

I should have mentioned Gems of Wisdom is a condensation of 6 volume set of The PSYCHOLOGICAL COMMENTARIES ON THE TEACHING OF GURDJIEFF AND OUSPENSKY - by MAURICE NICOLL.

There is a light heartedness in Nicoll's writing which makes him a joy to read.

From page 35-

SEEING ATTITUDES

“Now try to see an attitude in yourself. I mean, really try. Realize that you have not got an open mind. I want—as always—examples based on your own self-observation...A man cannot change himself unless he changes his attitudes. Try therefore to see the results of attitudes. Notice when you feel shocked, for example. Notice when you feel intolerant, contemptuous, etc. Notice when you tut-tut at things. Notice when you judge, and if you can, notice when you are speaking from attitude.” V. 3, p. 1172. 

 

A point that's made in ACIM is that all attitudes are egoic except for peace and joy. In other words, ultimately, only peace and joy are considered authentic. Any other frame of mind besides either peace or joy is considered egoic and is thus false.

 

 

[Zigzag Idiot]

Random excerpts from Gems of Wisdom

QUALITIES OF AN EVOLVED PERSON 

“We realize what an immense gap lies between ourselves and a man who is living more consciously than we do, a man who notices when he is becoming identified, a man who sees when he is becoming prey to imaginary anxieties and fears, a man who is sharply aware of the fact that he is justifying himself. This is a gap so great that if we ever have such a moment of insight we cannot help feeling by contract the enormous deficiencies in our quality of Being...But let me add one thing here—i.e., that if you begin to see all this about your state of Being you are already much further on, however hopeless you may feel, than a person who has never caught such glimpses of himself or herself, because it is exactly this feeling of vacuum, of deficiency, of lack, that is the starting point of work on one’s own Being.” 

V. 2, pp. 704-5 

SELF-SATISFACTION II 

“As regards the remark that this Work is selfish, you must all understand that this Work . . . is something that destroys your self-complacency, your selfishness, your self-esteem, your fantasies about yourself, your pictures of yourself and, in short, your False Personality. It makes you see yourself naked—makes you see that you have to do something about yourself before you try to help other people.” V. 3, p. 849 

PERSONALITY AND ESSENCE 

“As the feeling of ‘I’ is drawn out of the active man (personality) so does the passive man (essence) become strengthened until the time comes when the passive man becomes active and the active man passive. That is, a reversal takes places and the inner controls the outer, not the outer the inner...If we were all more in Essence than we are at present everything would be much more real, much more genuine, much more simple, much more true.” V. 1, p. 286, V. 2, p. 718 

ESSENCE AND SINCERITY 

“Now for the Essence, or inner part of us, to grow and become gradually active, a man must be able to be utterly sincere with himself when the occasion arises. Essence cannot grow from anything false.” V. 2, p. 445 

 

[Petals]

@Zigzag Idiot great! thank you!

[Zigzag Idiot]

I thought this thread deserved a bump. If nothing else than its having a link to the condensed book - Gems Of Wisdom

Nicoll was born at the manse in Kelso, Scotland, the son of William Robertson Nicoll, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He studied science at Cambridge University before going to St. Bartholomew's Hospital and then to Vienna, Berlin and Zürich where he became a colleague of Carl Gustav Jung. Jung's psychological revelations and his own work with Jung during this period left a lasting influence on Nicoll as a young man.[1]

After his Army Medical Service during the first World War, in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, he returned to England to become a psychiatrist. In 1921 he met Petr Demianovich Ouspensky, a student of G. I. Gurdjieff and he also became a student of Gurdjieff the following year. In 1923, when Gurdjieff closed down his institute, Nicoll joined Ouspensky's group. In 1931 he followed Ouspensky's advice and started his own study groups in England. This was done through a programme of work devoted to passing on the ideas which Nicoll had gathered and passing them on through his talks given weekly to his own study groups. Many of these talks were recorded verbatim and documented in a six-volume series of texts compiled in his book series Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.

Taken from:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Nicoll

If memory serves me right, after World War 1 Nicoll, being aquaintences with Carl Jung, passed up an opportunity to study more with him but chose instead to work with Ouspensky and Gurdjieff.

Nicoll was the first and I believe the only person that both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky validated and gave consent to be a Teacher of their Work.

[Petals]

I have found this site if one wants to read the whole Commentaries:

https://selfdefinition.org/gurdjieff/maurice-nicoll-directory/

On it there are also some of his other books.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Petals

[Zigzag Idiot]

I believe there is probably a good percentage of Actualizers who, if they were just to settle in to reading 'The Commentaries ' will begin to actually enjoy how Nicoll expresses himself in these ideas.

Those who have a Christian background and were confused and disappointed with the fundamentalists literal interpretation of the Bible may find Maurice Nicoll's book THE NEW MAN very interesting. His writings have helped me to reconcile the disparities in my mind of what Christianity actually represents.

Below is just a little sample to hint at what it offers. I have yet to read his book THE MARK.

THE NEW MAN
AN INTERPRETATION OF SOME PARABLES AND MIRACLES OF CHRIST by MAURICE NICOLL 

 

ALL sacred writings contain an outer and an inner meaning. Behind the literal words lies another range of meaning, another form of knowledge. According to an old−age tradition, Man once was in touch with this inner knowledge and inner meaning. There are many stories in the Old Testament which convey another knowledge, a meaning quite different from the literal sense of the words. The story of the Ark, the story of Pharaoh's butler and baker, the story of the Tower of Babel, the story of Jacob and Esau and the mess of pottage, and many others, contain an inner psychological meaning far removed from their literal level of meaning. And in the Gospels the parable is used in a similar way.

Many parables are used in the Gospels. As they stand, taken in the literal meaning of the words, they refer apparently to vineyards, to householders, to stewards, to spendthrift sons, to oil, to water and to wine, to seeds and sowers and soil, and many other things. This is their literal level of meaning. The language of parables is difficult to understand just as is, in general, the language of all sacred writings. Taken on the level of literal understanding, both the Old and New Testaments are full not only of contradictions but of cruel and repulsive meaning. ,,,,,,

 

In the psychological teaching of the Gospels, a man is not taken as what he appears to be, but as what he most deeply is. This is one reason why Christ attacked the Pharisees. For they were appearances. They appeared to be good, just, religious, and so on. In attacking the Pharisees, he was attacking that side of a man that pretends, that keeps up appearances for the sake of outer merit, fear, praise, the man who in himself is perhaps even rotten. The Pharisee, psychologically understood, is the outer side of a man who pretends to be good, virtuous, and so on. It is that side of yourself. This is the Pharisee in every man and this is the psychological meaning of Pharisee. Everything said in the Gospels, whether represented in the form of parable, miracle or discourse, has a psychological meaning, apart from the literal sense of the words. Therefore the psychological meaning of the Pharisees refers, not to certain people who lived long ago, but to oneself now—to the Pharisee in oneself, to the insincere person in oneself, who, of course, cannot receive any real and genuine psychological teaching without turning it into an occasion for merit, praise and award. Later on we will study the meaning of the Pharisee in oneself more fully. ,,,,,,

Edited September 2, 2020 by Zigzag Idiot