Toward the Unknown

In my search to see reality in myself, I may come to the door of perception. But it will not open, truth will not be revealed, so long as I cling to what I know. I need to have empty hands to approach the unknown.

At the outset I cannot affirm who I am. All I can do is begin to distinguish myself from my ordinary "I", to see that I am not my associations, I am not my feelings, I am not my sensations. But the question then arises: Who am I? I need to listen, I become quiet to mobilize all my attention and come to a more balanced state. Am I this? No, but the direction is good. From dispersion, I go toward unity. My search can continue. Yet I see the energy of my thinking, moved by all the thoughts that seize it, has neither force nor direction. In order to go toward the source of "I", it must be gathered and concentrated on one question: "Who am I?" I learn not to turn away.

I do not know who I am, and all that I know cannot be an answer. The unknown, the mysterious, cannot be discerned by the known. On the contrary, what I know, what I have learned, prevents me from discovering what is. The whole process of my thinking, the conditioning of the known, encloses me in the field of my thought and prevents me from going further. I find pleasure in this conditioning and security, and unconsciously cling to it.

I am unable to face the unknown. I feel it empty, like a void that must be filled. I have a constant tendency to fill it with answers, projecting a false image on the screen of my mind. I am afraid I will not find myself. And in order to resolve this uncertainty, to avoid dissatisfaction, I constantly allow something false to be affirmed. Yet I need this uncertainty, this dissatisfaction, as an indication from my feeling that shows the way back toward myself. It shows the necessity of being more sensitive to the one thing I turn away from, to accept emptiness, the void.

To approach the unknown would mean to come to the door of perception and be able to open it, and to see. But I can see nothing as long as I am taken by words, always putting a name on something and recognizing the object by its name. Words create a limit, a barrier. To enter the unknown, my mind must see this limit as a fact, without judging it good or bad, or submitting to its influence. Can I see myself without putting a word on what I see? I am at the door of perception with an attention that does not turn away.

I learn to listen to the unknown in myself. I do not know, and I listen, constantly refusing each known response. From moment to moment, I recognize that I do not know, and I listen. The very act of listening is a liberation. It is an action that does not flee the present, and when I know the present as it is, there is transformation. I go toward the unknown until I come to a moment when no thought moves my mind, when there is nothing outside myself. I do not know who I am. I do not know whence I came. I do not know where I will go. I doubt all that I know, and have nothing to rely on. All I wish is to understand what I am. Without words, without form, the body and its density disappear. I become as if transparent to myself. Now there is only room for purity, a quality as light as air. I feel that in the search for myself, and only in this search, lies my liberation.


- From: 'The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff' by Jeanne De Salzmann -