False personality

Many people distort their perceptions in the opposite way, of course. They see sinister implications behind actions that are quite innocent. Their automatized simulations of reality highlight the negative instead of the positive aspects of the situation. Indeed, one of the fundamental types in Gurdjieff s system of false personality types sees such sinister possibilities in others behavior all the time. ... 

The pattern of an identity state is fairly suble until some event or events, external or internal, occur which are an important stimulus for some other identity state. Emotions are common triggers of changes in identity states. The usual range of identity states that we function in, ordinarily called personality, was called false personality (which will be discussed in Chapter 15) by Gurdjieff because the identity states were... 

Some people may use one or two of these for almost all their defense needs. That is, they have a chief form of defense that is central in the structure of their false personality. But we all use many of these defenses on occasion. We will look at them primarily in relation to the goal of waking up from consensus trance. I have not attempted to cover all defense mechanisms or all their subleties, but more information about them can be found in any abnormal-psychology text. 

Reaction formation is a leaping to the opposite in order to deny an unacceptable desire or feeling. The initiating desire or feeling is not directly experienced the machinery of false personality automatically steps in and an opposite feeling or desire is strongly experienced instead. The reaction is formed almost instantly, without any feeling of effort. 

Self-observation, especially the disciplined type discussed in Chapter 17, can provide knowledge about isolated aspects of mental functioning, but without a deliberate effort to compare and contrast observations, the observations themselves may be stored in an isolated fashion, so they have little impetus toward producing change. One major type of false personality pattern centers on this kind of isolation defense. This type is very good at self-observation, does it habitually, yet is little affected by... 

I suspect partial and brief regressions are much more common than is recognized. Regressions demonstrate the arbitrariness of our false personality. All the elements of our younger selves are available by adding the sense of This is me to them, we resurrect a younger self. 

Gurdjieff expressed this traditional dichotomy as the conflict between essence and false personality. 

We can sublimate some aspects of our essential nature that are not allowed direct expression to partially salvage them. A few may persist because our culture happens to value them. For many aspects of our essence, their energy is either lost altogether or sublimated into false personality. For too many of us, too much of essence withers. 

This exemplifies why Gurdjieff called personality false personality. A culture has its own ideas of the way people should be, and these ideas often take little heed of an individual s unique potentials. For most of our cultural history, the woman in our example would receive little or no education in anything, much less mathematics and music, would certainly not be allowed to use her body joyously in gymnastics, must less be trained in it, and would end up having lots of babies whether she actually liked this particular potential or not. Her quick temper would get her in trouble because it threatened male dominance, quite aside from its generally troublesome qualities. A few people are lucky many of their essential desires and talents correspond to what is wanted in their culture. For most of us, regardless of sex, much of our essence is denied. 

We are our false personalities, and yet... There is at least some essence still alive, still reachable. If there weren t, you probably would not be trying to grow. There is hope of real change. 

This section has been about the nuts and bolts of false personality, the way it developed, the habits and defenses that sustain it. To really change, false personality must die. But not in a harsh, punitive way, not by way of superego attacks—they are part of false personality too. The death of false personality should be a transformation process, a recycling process, a skilled process based on the knowledge gained through extensive self-observation. 

The idea that false personality must die is misleading when the superego takes it up and uses it as fuel for more mechanical attacks on you. Yet the metaphor of death is quite accurate in another way, for the magnitude of change possible (and required) for full awakening is indeed like a death and rebirth. As so many spiritual traditions have said in one fashion or another, Except ye become as little children. . 

This is a resolution that must be constantly reinforced, as it goes against the tide of the automated processes of false personality and easily weakens and is swept under unless you actively toillto know. Besides requiring will, it requires patience. It is definitely not the case that there are a few things it would be advantageous for you to know and you can find them out in a few weeks of effort. There are enormous numbers of things to know, and the commitment to self-observation should really be a commitment to an attitude to take actively for a lifetime. 

Self-observation can be done from the level of false personality. One IJ observes aspects of its behavior. In the case of partial or full coconsciousness of I s, something likely to come about with dedicated practice, one I can observe some of the functioning of other I s. Ordinary mind pays attention to ordinary mind. You can see something more clearly than normal but may not see the biasing characteristics you bring to the observation or notice that you are getting absorbed in the observation. 

Second, an obstacle to effective prayer is our inability to be consciously intense. Ordinary emotions, triggered by external events and reacting predictably and mechanically with our automated false personality patterns, may temporarily produce strong desires, strong formal or unwitting prayers, but external events change and the instigating desires disappear. 

A person in a life-threatening situation may genuinely and intensely pray, Dear God, save my loved one s life and I will never sin again The loved one recovers (an event that may or may not have any relation to this prayer), the stress disappears, and the promise never to sin again fades away. We do not remember (all of) our selves. This lack of control over emotions is related to the alterations in our false personalities, of course, since most false personalities have specific emotional cores. 

As I write this in my ordinary state of consciousness, though, I can dimly and partially remember insights and understandings I have had in some altered states of consciousness. At times it has been perfectly obvious to me that we are not separate, isolated beings, that we are a part of a divine plan, that our prayers come from our deeper selves, which are also a part of that plan, and that our prayers are answered in the ways that are best for our evolution. The lack of answer to a prayer from some aspect of false personality can be the best possible answer. From the altered-states perspective I know how limited my ordinary-state perspective is and how foolish I am, in my ordinary state, to identify completely with my ordinary-state perspective as if it were all of the truth. 

The kind of topics for conscious prayer will obviously be rather different most of the time from what a prayer from some aspect of false personality would be about. As our understanding of our true nature and needs grows, our prayers could become far more appropriate. 

Because others are usually less predictable than your own mental processes, and even likely to clash with your automated desires, they function as alarms that are harder to habituate to. Indeed, people whose ordinary manifestations irritate us can sometimes be the best sort of people to be in a work group with. Their constant stimulation of our false personalities will keep us from settling down into a deep, comfortable sleep. We will look at the positive functions of the work group in this regard. 

Further, there is usually a pure or clean quality to this kind of attention. It is free of hidden agendas you are being perceived more as you really are, to the best of the other s ability. This kind of attention is inherently nourishing. It feels as if it feeds the real, essential you rather than any of your false personalities. This is all very rewarding. 

This is not to say that there is some fixed and learnable way that an awake person acts. Indeed a more awake person would be flexible and less predictable than someone in consensus trance, although the differences are often rather subtle. By studying the behavior of the teacher in the context of observing and remembering yourself, however, you see new possibilities in situations other than those that flow mechanically from the machinations of your false personality. This gives you an opportunity to further study your personality and to pick up a certain feel for flexible, more aware functioning. 

Most Gurdjieff work does not encourage active development of love and compassion until after years of practice of more basic work. If love and compassion were cultivated at the beginning, before you had much understanding of your own mind and feelings, it would probably result in the growth of more illusions that would further support false personality. 

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