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The Real Inner Wold of Man
Excerpt from the last unfinished chapter of
Life is real only then when 'I am'
by Gurdjieff
One who has never consciously "worked on himself," has two worlds; and if he has worked on himself, and has become a so to say "candidate for another life," he has even three worlds . . .
The full realization and precise etermination in man of that totality of functioning whose factors are constituted from impressions coming from outside is called the "outer world" of man.
And the full realization of the other totality, whose factors have arisen from utomatically flowing "experiences" and from reflexes of
the organism—notably of those organs whose specific character is transmitted by heredity—is called the "inner world" of man.
In relation to these two worlds, man appears in reality to be merely a slave, because his various perceptions and manifestations cannot be other than conformable to the quality and nature of the factors making
up these totalities.
He is obliged, in relation to his outer world as well as his inner world, to manifest himself in accordance with the orders received from any given factor of one or the other totality.
He cannot have his own initiative; he is not free to want or not to want, but is obliged to carry out passively this or that "result" proceeding from other outer or inner results.
Such a man, that is to say, a man who is related to only two worlds, can never do anything; on the contrary, everything is done through him. In everything, he is but the blind instrument of the caprices of his outer and inner worlds.
The highest esoteric science calls such a man "a man in quotation marks"; in other words he is named a man and at the same time he is not a man.
He is not a man such as he should be, because his perceptions and his manifestations do not flow according to his own initiative but take place either under the influence of accidental causes or in accordance with functioning that conforms to the laws of the two worlds.
In the case of "a man in quotation marks," the "I" is missing and what takes its place and "fills its role" is the factor of initiative proceeding from that one of the two above-mentioned totalities in which the center of gravity of his general state is located.
The "I" in a real man represents that totality of the functioning of his general psyche whose factors have their origin in the results of contemplation, or simply in the contact between the first two totalities, that is, between the factors of his inner world and of his outer world.
The totality of the manifestations of this third function of the general psyche of man also represents a world in itself, but in this case it is the third world of man.
And thus, this third world of man is, strictly speaking, as the ancient sciences understood, the real "inner world of man" as opposed to the real "outer world."
I shall call this third definite totality of functioning in the general psyche of man by the same name it was given in the distant past, that is: "the world of man."
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