The Buddha's Rosary

CHAPTER XVI

INNER REMEMBERING OF ONESELF

Even though it seems incredible, when students observe themselves, they do not remember themselves.

Aspirants, without a doubt, really do not feel themselves, they are not conscious of themselves.

It seems implausible that when Gnostic aspirants self-observe their way of laughing, speaking, walking, etc., forget themselves. This is unbelievable, but true.

Nevertheless, it is indispensable to try to remember oneself while self-observing oneself. This is fundamental in order to achieve the awakening of the consciousness.

Self-observing oneself, knowing oneself, without forgetting oneself, is terribly difficult, but frightfully urgent in order to achieve the awakening of consciousness.

What we are saying here seems like nonsense.  People don’t know that they are asleep; they don’t know that they do not remember themselves, not even if they look at themselves in a full-length mirror, nor even if they observe themselves in minute detail.

When a person comes to profoundly comprehend that he cannot remember himself, that he is not conscious of himself, then he is very close to awakening the consciousness.

This forgetting of oneself, this matter of not remembering oneself, is really the causa causarum of all human ignorance.

We are saying something that needs to be deeply reflected upon. What we are saying here is very important and cannot be comprehended if it is read mechanically.

Our readers must reflect. People are not capable of feeling their own “I” while self-observing; of making it pass from one center to another, etc.

To observe ones own way of speaking, laughing, walking, etc., without forgetting oneself, feeling the “I” within, is very difficult, and nevertheless basic, fundamental, in order to achieve the awakening of consciousness.

The great Master Ouspensky said, “The first impression was that attempts to remember myself or to be conscious of myself, to say to myself, ‘I am walking, I am doing’, and continually to feel this I, stopped thought. When I was feeling I, I could neither think nor speak; even sensations became dimmed. Also, one could only remember oneself in this way for a very short time.” [1]

It is necessary to dissolve the pluralized “I”, to turn it into ash, but we must know it, study it in the forty-nine subconscious departments, symbolized among the Gnostics by the forty-nine demons of Yaldabaoth.

If a doctor is going to remove a cancerous tumor, he first needs to know it; if a person wants to dissolve the “I”, he needs to study it, become conscious of it, and know it in the forty-nine subconscious departments.

During inner self-remembering, in that tremendous super-effort to be conscious of your own “I”, it is clear that one’s attention is divided, and here we return once again to this matter of the division of attention.  One part of the attention is directed, logically, towards the effort, the other toward the Ego or pluralized “I”.

Inner self-remembering is something more than analyzing oneself; it is a new state, which can only be known through direct experience.

All human beings have at some time had those moments, states of inner self-remembering; maybe in a moment of infinite terror, maybe in childhood, or on some trip, when we exclaim, “And what am I doing here? Why am I here?”

Self-observation, simultaneously accompanied by the inner remembrance of your own “I” is terribly difficult, and nevertheless indispensable in order to truly know oneself.

During meditation, the pluralized “I” is always doing the opposite.  It enjoys fornicating when we try to comprehend lust; it thunders and rages in any one of the forty-nine subconscious departments of Yaldabaoth when we try to comprehend anger; it covets not being covetous when we want to reduce covetousness to dust.

Inner self-remembering is to be completely aware of all those subconscious processes of the “myself,” “oneself,” the Ego, the pluralized “I”.

To self-observe our way of thinking, speaking, laughing, walking, eating, feeling, etc., without forgetting oneself, or the inner processes of the ego, that which is occurring within, in the forty-nine subconscious departments of Yaldabaoth, is frightfully difficult, and nevertheless fundamental in order to awaken consciousness.

Self-observation, intimate self-remembering, initiates the unfolding of the spatial sense, which reaches full maturity with the awakening of consciousness.

The chakras mentioned by Mr. Leadbeater and many other authors are, in relation to the spatial sense, what flowers are in relation to the tree that gives them life.

What is fundamental is the tree. The spatial sense is the normal functionalism of the awakened consciousness.

Every truly awakened person can see, hear, touch, smell, and feel everything that happens in the forty-nine subconscious departments of Yaldabaoth.

Every truly awakened person can verify for himself, through direct experience, the dreams of other people; can see those dreams in people who walk down the street, in those who work in factories, in those who govern, in every creature.

Every truly awakened person can see, hear, smell, touch and feel all things of the higher worlds.

Whoever wants to experience the reality of all that happens in the higher dimensions of space must awaken consciousness here and now.