Rememberance ~ Awareness upon Remembering

In'saan meaning 'Man' in Arabic: A literal term meaning 'One who forgets' -- Awaken and Remember the Lord who created you!


1. "Conscious Breathing"

Each breath taken with heedlessness is dead, and each breath taken with worship and presence is alive and connected with the divine presence. While this is devotional in tone, the relevance to both traditions is self-evident.


2."Watch Your Step"

Lower your gaze to your feet. This will screen out many distracting and disturbing images throughout the day, and is also a sign of humility. From the Gurdjieff aspect, the practice could help prevent many of the more destructive "identifications" that seize us at each moment creating ever widening ripples of associations and daydreams. This exercise sounds deceptively simple. Just try it!


3. "Journey Homeward"

The journey from the world of creation to the world of the creator is made in two stages: first, the external journey is to locate a true guide; and second, the inward journey is to cleanse the heart while enjoying the guidance. Phrased in terms of the Work, find your teacher and begin the task raising your level of being and cleaning your machine.


4. "Solitude in the Crowd"

There are two kinds of seclusion: external and internal. The external requires solitude for set periods of time in order the carry out specific exercises. The internal seclusion means to be outwardly with people, but inwardly with God. The Naqshbandi Way includes both, but typically emphasizes the second. Gurdjieff followers widely quote the related Sufi ideal, "Be in the world, but not of it!'


5. "Essential Remembrance"

This practice is rather like some of the "sensing" exercises prescribed in the Gurdjieff Work. The phrase, "la ilaha ill-Allah," (there is no God, but God, is repeated many times. With each word of the phrase, the chanter "says" each word from a different part of his body in a particular order.


6. "Returning"

This is the practice of remembrance of Allah (dhikr) with the aim of achieving unity. An invocation to instill an awareness of the oneness of God is a key element of mysticism in general - to a Gurdjieff follower, alerted to the fatally fragmented state of his own being, the search for unity takes on a special importance.


7. "Attentiveness"

This is the practice of safeguarding the heart from bad inclinations. Such vigilance, maintained continuously for even fifteen minutes, is considered a great achievement. For Gurdjieff pupils who have struggled with the exercise of not expressing negative emotions, the difficulty of blocking them nearer to their source can be readily appreciated.


8. "Recollection"

This term corresponds to the actual accomplishment of raising the heart into the divine presence. It marks the point of liberation from egoistic, evil and imaginary thoughts. With this sustained act, reality, unity and truth are fully embraced. This seems to echo some of the stations attributed to the higher numbers of men described in the Gurdjieff teaching and their accompanying degrees of permanence.


Esoteric teachings of Naqshbandi