False Personality and Essence

In the Introduction to this book I spoke of the loss of our vital energies as the loss of the light that we once saw, but now can see no more, using the first two verses of Wordsworth s Intimations of Immortality. Let us return to that theme with the first two verses of Stephen Spender s I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great.  

I think continually of those who were truly great. 

from the womb, remembered the soul s history Through corridors of light where the hours are suns. 

Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition Was that their lips, still touched with fire. 

Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song. 

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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. 

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

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. 

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