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into a coma. So can we call it consciousness? It is not. This state is not the state of self consciousness, it is just a constant tension between you and the world, between you and the thoughts. If there are no objects and no thoughts, you drop... and be unconscious. This is the third state, sushupti. And unless one transcends it, one cannot be called conscious.
Gurdjieff used to say that man has no soul. He used to say that you have got no self, because self means self consciousness; otherwise, how can you be said to have a self? If you are not conscious, how can you be a self? How can you be an individual? So Gurdjieff's teaching doesn't believe that every man has got a soul. He says, "Every man has got a potentiality he can develop, he may not develop."
If you become self conscious, then you develop the individual; then you become the individual. If you are not self conscious then you are just one object among other objects, and there is nothing more. Gurdjieff's teaching makes this central point the supreme point. He says, "Try to remember yourself without any object. Try to remember yourself without any object, without any relation to anything else. Remember yourself directly, simply." It is very arduous; in a way it seems impossible. You cannot remember yourself without in any way relating to something else -- Can you?
Can you remember yourself?
Can you feel yourself?
Whenever you feel, you feel in relation to: someone's son, someone's daughter, someone's husband, being rich or poor, belonging to this country or that, being healthy or ill -- but this is all in relation to something else. Can you remember yourself without any relation? -- unrelated? without any context? just you? It becomes inconceivable. Really, we have not known ourselves, we have known only in relation. And this is the miracle: you know yourself in relation to someone, who knows himself in relation to you. See the absurdity of it! Everyone knows themselves because of others -- and the others know themselves because of him.
Everyone is ignorant, but by being related with other ignorant people, you become wise. You know yourself because you know your
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