The meeting commenced with a reading from Maurice Nicoll’s ‘Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky’, Volume 1, where the processes of the growth and development of ‘essence’ and ‘personality’, and how they can achieve a balanced development are described.
Ouspensky describes ‘essence’ is what is born in man, and ‘personality’ is what is acquired in man after birth. Normally, essence should overrule personality and then personality can be more useful.
In the reading it was explained that the growth and development of ‘essence’ and ‘personality’ could be explained as happening in three stages. The first stage is that man is born as ‘essence’ which is the real part of him, the part of him that can grow and develop. This part in him can only grow slowly and has not the strength to sustain itself for more than three or four years, and in order for it to grow further it must gather around itself ‘personality’.
The formation of personality around essence is the second stage and the future development of essence depends on the formation of a balanced personality around it.
The third stage is the further growth of essence, and the richer the personality the better eventually for the growth of essence.
This meeting generated much discussion about the nature of our identity.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
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