The Illusion of Unity

We are called by the same name all our lives. We think of ourselves as one, a continuous and indivisible entity. "This is my body." "These are the foods I like." "This is my way of thinking, these are my opinions and values." “That's just the way ‘I’ am.” The Fourth Way tradition, however, gives a different picture: every human being is fragmented, far from this perceived unity. He is a creature composed of many creatures. We'll write about these divisions later. For now, let's just mention what Gurdjieff and Ouspensky called “the many ‘I’s.” ‘I’ am sleepy. ’I’ am curious. ’I’ can't stand injustice. In these sentences we take it for granted that ‘I’ is a permanent, unified, and relatively unchangeable unit. But if we observe ourselves sincerely, we discover that this is not the case. In the morning I wake up and 'I' want to start a diet and lose ten pounds. In the evening, 'I' decide that I'm too hungry and, at least this time, I'll treat myself to a pizza. And, why not, ice cream, too. ‘I’ decide that today I'm finally going to tell that overbearing colleague what I think of him. A few hours later, in front of my colleague, 'I' don't have the courage to open my mouth. Distressed by the disorder of my house, 'I' decide that from today I will be extremely tidy, and I plan the new regime in detail. Returning from work, 'I' decide that I'm really too tired to put things in order, I’ll think about it another time, tomorrow. Thoughts, sensations, emotions follow one another in us ceaselessly, each appearing for no more than a handful of seconds—just like the men in the image shown here—and each one saying ‘I’. The figure on top is king for now, but the wheel keeps turning and in a moment someone else will replace him. Each one of them thinks it represents us in our entirety, but it only lasts a few moments. Then, three seconds later, along comes another one, who also thinks he is ‘I’. And so on. To claim that an ‘I’ lasts only a few seconds may seem exaggerated. But that's exactly what it is: three seconds on average. To see this frantic succession, however, one has to learn to observe oneself. To see the ‘I’s, one needs not to be totally immersed in them. We may experience a relative detachment from this continuous current through meditation practices, or activities such as a quiet walk in nature. A characteristic of the ‘I’s is that they are not under the control of our will, but follow one another automatically, by association. I want to get out of the house for a walk. I can't find the keys. This reminds me of my father, who always loses his keys. Which makes me think that I haven't called him in a long time. I should. Which reminds me of my old cell phone that needs to be replaced. How much is that model I want? Which, in turn, reminds me of the state of my bank account, which then leads me to think about the inequality between rich and poor in the world . . . It’s possible to spend a whole day in this associative state, a whole life. Associations follow one another involuntarily, without our control. It is precisely this involuntariness that defines imagination. The 'I's of imagination have the same uncontrolled nature as the images in dreams. And yet, while we experience them, we are convinced that we are awake. Ouspensky called imagination “the natural state of man” because it occurs automatically, without requiring any effort. A different thing altogether is the creative imagination of an architect who conceives of the design for a building: there is control there. A part of us focuses our thoughts on a specific task. Imagination is sometimes symbolized by rough waters. This uncontrolled flow of thoughts, sensations, and emotions that we do not will is what prevents us from being present now. Observing it and recognizing it is the first step toward getting rid of it.