What is Beyond Inner Considering?

What is Beyond Inner Considering?

Before beginning to write this essay, I just experienced a moment of inner considering. I posted a link on this private group to another website. As I did, I felt an internal conflict and worried about the opinions of my peers. I found myself questioning whether my peers would think, “why am I confounding my readers with more resources?”

This small moment of doubt and hesitation is an example of what G.I. Gurdjieff called "internal considering." Instead of focusing on the objective value of the information, I became momentarily concerned about what others might think. I was prioritizing the approval of others over the Work itself. Recognizing this mechanical reaction of inner considering allows me to wake up from it. This example and these small moments of friction are some of our most valuable teaching moments and often happen in the middle of everyday actions. In the Fourth Way, we do not suppress these uncomfortable insights. Instead, we use them as material for observation and transformation.

Remember that when you feel offended you are beginning to internally consider. — Maurice Nicoll

Inner considering is one of the most inexhaustible generators of the many ‘I’s. When I find myself asking “should” I proceed in a certain way or do I feel “embarrassed” about something, I can be sure that inner considering is behind those ‘I’s and is keeping me asleep. Am I offended when someone criticizes my work? Should I confront my boss and say that I do not share her perspective on managing the office situation? Do I feel embarrassed to realize that a piece of food was caught between my front teeth during a job interview? Does my anxiety level rise, do I feel doubt and incompetence in front of my spouse when I attempt to assemble my son’s first bicycle? Am I embarrassed when I realize my memo sent to the entire company of five hundred people contained the misuse of the word “patients” rather than “patience.” This last example really happened to me and in hindsight is quite humorous. Keeping a sense of “conscious” humor can dissolve the inner considering ‘I’s and self-remembering can replace the identification with people.

An hour of external considering will free you from the effects of weeks of internal considering. — Maurice Nicoll

External considering can neutralize and be an antidote to inner considering. The main reason is that to be externally considerate, I have to already be in a higher state of consciousness in order to put myself in another person’s situation. That dreadful trip to the bureaucratic government office that gives you the runaround can be a training ground for external considering. Make the effort to stay present when the overworked Customer Service Representative behind the counter is less than cooperative after you have waited in line for two hours. If your inner dialogue is producing ‘I’s like, “I have waited in line so long they could treat me with more respect,” or “I am being so nice, they should acknowledge my good-natured approach,” or “They should be grateful I am not yelling at them,” – these ‘I’s are an indication of inner considering.

On the other hand, if you are able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, be kind and express no critical remarks, either externally or internally, and not feel a sense of superiority, but, as Maurice Nicoll advises, “if you work on yourself, when the other person is difficult, that will make the other person aware that you are different. But you must not shew it openly.” To externally consider someone and work against inner considering, I must change myself and resist mechanical reactions through self-remembering and my efforts must be invisible.

The chief means of happiness in this life is the ability to consider externally always, internally never. — G.I. Gurdjieff

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Mary Magdalene, Andrea Solario and Bernardino Luini, ca. 1524