Esteemed Reader

by Jason Stern, October 28, 2009

Esteemed Reader of Our Magazine:

I attended a Climate Change Day of Action event this weekend and felt the seriousness of our predicament. We are approaching the inevitable tipping point but are unable to change course. It would seem that, as a race, we are intransigent ingrates and incorrigible biters of the hands that feed us. Can we feel the terror of the situation in time?

Rumi said “a man’s capacity is equal to the breadth of his vision,” which is to say that we respond to what we can see. If all we see are the desires that revolve around self-involved appetites and ambitions, these are all we have the power to actualize. But if we see the impulses arising from a deeper part of ourselves, a part that recognizes our unity with others, then at least we are presented with a choice, and in choosing can begin to develop the habit of choosing what serves that larger world.

I find it useful to look at the question in light of the idea that each person is a microcosmos—a direct reflection of the whole of humanity. In other words, the ignorance, greed, and blithe indifference to what matters, shown by governments, corporations, academicians, and religions to what matters, are present in us also. But that is not all that is within us. There is also a knowledge of truth, a conscience, if you will, that is present within our confusion.

In the teachings of Gurdjieff, the word conscience has a specific, technical meaning. It is an instrument deep within the emotional center that attunes to reality, and provides intelligence for suitable responses. It is the “still, small voice” which is not speaking against our self-involved fantasy of ourselves and our role, but above it. It is not some prepared set of ideas or dogmas. Conscience is our source of living intelligence, and we need only quiet the cacophony of competing voices to hear it. If we can hear it, we can obey it, for it is the voice of self.

In his system Gurdjieff points to a means of hearing the voice of conscience. He said we are all made up of many different selves— “I’s”—that compete for control, like so many monkeys in a car, each taking its turn in the driver’s seat, and steering the car in a different direction. But in our distracted state we don’t see when the I in charge changes, and are left with the illusion that our multiple personalities are one, integrated self.