G.I.Gurdjieff

To become free of influences of the second, that is, the associative kind requires an artificial struggle. Here the law of repulsion acts. Where there is more, little can be added, and where little, more is added—that is, it is the reverse of the first law. With influences of this kind everything proceeds according to the law of repulsion.

This new method consists in the following: when thought is already here, we try to feel, and when we feel something, we try to direct our thought on our feeling. Up to now, thought and feeling have been separated. We begin to watch our mind, to feel what we think. We prepare for tomorrow and safeguard ourselves against deceit.

Realizing the imperfections and limitations of ordinary language, the people who have possessed objective knowledge have tried to express the idea of unity in “myths,” “symbols” and certain “verbal formulas” that, in being transmitted without alteration, have passed on the idea from one school to another, often from one era to another. “Myths” and “symbols” were intended to reach man’s higher centers which function in higher states of consciousness. The aim was to transmit ideas inaccessible to the intellect, and to transmit them in such a way that they could not be misinterpreted. “Myths” were intended for the higher feeling center; “symbols” for the higher thinking center. This is why all attempts to understand or explain “myths” and “symbols” with the ordinary mind, or the formulas and the expressions that summarize their content, are doomed from the start.