There is nothing more mechanical in our life than negative emotions. – P. D. Ouspensky

Negative emotions are an example of the wrong work of the emotional centre. They are unnecessary, and an important part of awakening is to free ourselves from their grip.

Negative emotions are things like fear, anger, envy, greed, sloth, and also pleasant things like enthusiasms, passions, and certain forms of love. They are based on identification and imagination---they keep us asleep.

The pleasant type are characterised by a tendency to turn into their opposites---for example when we end up hating people we were formerly `in love' with. Real emotions do not turn into their opposites.

Properly speaking, the emotional centre does not have a negative half. Negative emotions are tremendously powerful, despite being completely useless to us. We can poison our lives extremely quickly with them, destroying life-long friendships with a few words, or making disastrous choices because we are out to prove something.

When we study the Food Diagram, we can see that man is rather like a chemical factory, refining food, air, and impressions into much finer, more volatile energies. These finest energies are used by the higher emotional centre, and the higher intellectual centre.

When we express negative emotions, we plunder this store of finer substances. We can use up the factory's entire production for a day with one emotional outburst. It is possible to use even more energy, even damaging the factory beyond repair if we go too far (rather like the effect power surges have on computers). With this energy thrown away, we have no fuel available to think our highest thoughts, or to experience our highest feelings.

So the first part of work on the emotional centre is non-expression of negative emotions---to stop this energy leak. This practise is exceptional in the Work, in that it is permanent, and available to all. (The methods and form of the Work are continually evolving, so it is usual for an exercise to be set for a specific length of time, in specific circumstances to specific people, and then only on the basis that they understand exactly why they are doing it.)

As well as saving us energy, this practise also helps us in self-observation, because we need to resist our mechanics before we can see them.

The second part of work on the emotional centre is transformation of negative emotions. This is advanced work.

Briefly, we can see that the problem with non-expression of negative emotions is that we are still having the emotion---we are just not expressing it. If we are self-remembering at the moment when an impression enters that would normally cause a negative emotion, it is possible to use the resulting energy for ourselves, rather than seeing it disappear off down well-trodden paths. This is also known as the Second Conscious Shock. In the Work, long practice at non-expression of negative emotions and self-remembering are necessary before this becomes possible.

Negative emotions often originate in the instinctive centre. If we are tired, or hungry, or in pain, these inner sensations can often be converted into negative emotions by our imagination.

A cold, a headache, a late night or a missed meal are all enough to drastically alter our behaviour. We may be irritated by far less than usual. We may feel tearful at the slightest pressure. To work with this, we need to be more aware of the life of our instinctive centre. We need to remember our fatigue, our aches, and our appetite, so that we can digest impressions correctly. One way of doing this is to be small, to slow down, and be quieter. This gives our organism more time to operate, alleviating the unpleasant feeling of pressure everyday life creates in us when we are a little worse for wear.

First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. – Matthew 7.5

Negativity towards others is often caused by us seeing in other people exactly what we dislike about ourselves. This negativity is usually accompanied by thoughts such as, `I'm not like that at all!' and `How on Earth could they do/say/think such a thing!' Such negativity will paint the victim as a `something', where the `something' label allows us to think of the victim as being different to ourselves---labels such as fool, drunkard, monster, and so on.

These attitudes prevent us seeing what we, as humans, are really like; they prevent us from learning about and understanding the full variety of human expression. This we must do if we wish to become balanced men. We can tell that our reactions to others' shortcomings are subjective, because usually we are only bothered by certain things, and are able to remain calm in the face of other faults.

We need to remember that negative emotions are a general law on this world. That is to say, virtually all people will express them, will glamorise them, will accept them as the normal. The violence of our `civilised' societies stands testimony to this. After thousands of years of history, man can walk on the moon, can harness the power of the atom, but still is unable to avoid going into a rage when his food is not cooked properly.

So we should not be surprised when people are negative, and should not condemn them for it. We are all negative. To even begin to free oneself from this law takes great and continued efforts.

One problem arising from the `normality' of negative emotions is that work on them sometimes involves behaving differently to conventional wisdom. Sometimes people do appear to behave badly towards us, and it is very easy to feel negative towards them. If we voiced our anger and frustration, people would assure us that they would feel exactly the same in our shoes.

At times like these, it is especially important to remember why we are trying not to express negative emotions. We are not doing it to `be nice', or because it's `bad' to express negative emotions. We are doing it because we wish to study ourselves, and to save energy and time. We are doing it because we wish to wake up.

We must observe the fact that we enjoy our negative emotions. Being in a towering rage can feel dramatic and exciting. We feel energised, passionate, and more alive. Sometimes we are moved to eloquence as our tongue lets fly, and caution goes to the wind. The truth is, when the Work tells us not to be negative, our unspoken reply is, `But I don't want to stop being negative!' Giving up negativity is part of the price we pay for awakening. We have to give up something if we wish to make space for something new in our lives. We can hardly be receptive to higher forces when we are busy flaying someone alive with our tongue.

Also, we have to remember that being negative does not just mean having exciting passions. It also means being ruled by self-pity, depression, loneliness, boredom, dissatisfaction, inadequacy, and envy. We should not fool ourselves that saying we do not want to stop being negative means we could stop if we wanted to. We have no control, and cannot chose not be negative. Until we recognise this, we have no hope of changing.

Work on negative emotions becomes easier when we see that our repertoire of negative emotions is quite limited. Although our circumstances change throughout our lives, and we continually encounter different situations, the basic causes of our resentments do not change. This will be things like not being recognised for one's true worth, or thinking that one needs a change in one's life.

One student had been feeling bored and unappreciated in his job. He realised this was a negative emotion when he remembered that he had felt exactly the same about his college degree, several years ago. Although the justifications were couched in different term, the inner relationship to his main occupation had not changed. Recognition of these emotions can be enormously liberating, because we start to see where they are making the decisions in our life. We have an opportunity to live more intelligently, to stop fear and anger doing all our talking.

To be in a passion you good may do, But no good if a passion is in you. – William Blake

It is important to distinguish expressing negative emotions from standing up for oneself. Non-expression of negative emotions does not mean allowing people to exploit you. If someone is rude to you, or dominates you, or starts to bully you, you have to defend yourself, or you will store up only more of the same for yourself in the future.

When we notice people probing for weaknesses, a shot across the bows at that moment can prevent a full-blown war in the future. It is possible to be firm and direct without becoming identified, without becoming negative. We can see this in the way a good mother treats a naughty child, or in the way a good dog-owner disciplines their pet.

Every situation has a certain amount of power. Sometimes you are in control, sometimes the person you are dealing with is in control. We should not become negative when we discover people using power; rather we should learn the rules of the game, and play it intelligently, according to our aims in a particular situation.

To know when to stop is to preserve ourselves from danger. – Lao Tzu

Sometimes in our lives, certain people become huge obstacles for us. Their shadow seems to fall across our whole existence. Every word they say acquires immense significance. We live in terror of them, and entertain all sorts of absurd fantasies about what they will say or do next.

In these situations, we can end up with the unnerving feeling that we are in a play. We start to see every moment of our lives in relation to this drama. In this state, we may still be reminding ourselves that we should not be expressing negative emotions. Perhaps we do not allow ourselves to voice our feelings or change our circumstances, because we do not want to be negative, because we do not want to `fail'.

We need to be intelligent here, and consider our own capabilities. It is almost certain that there IS a charm for our fears, that we can change our inner relationship to this person. But remember that non-expression of negative emotions is just one line of work. If a situation really is making the rest of our work and our life impossible, we ought to consider the `failure' option, be that walking away, or something else. We may need to learn more before we can deal with certain kinds of situation successfully.

It is very important to understand the difference between talking about negative emotions, and expressing them. It can often be useful to describe our negativity to someone else, so that they can help us see the attitudes behind this.

What is not useful, however, is when this discussion turns into a repeat of all the identification with unpleasant emotions originally experienced. Then we are simply re-expressing negativity, we are throwing more energy away, we are strengthening that certain undesirable something within ourselves. With enough repetition, this can become a negative attitude. This situation is actually far more common than the first.

We have all witnessed people describing their woes, and the intensity and passion with which they explain themselves. To describe an incident in one's past when one was negative dispassionately requires effort, because negativity is mechanical, and to avoid it, we have to cease being mechanical with respect to the circumstance that originally lead to our negativity. Often this involves changing our relationship to an event. It involves seeing something new, such as seeing that the person we are negative towards has done nothing unexpected---nothing we wouldn't have done in their shoes.

If we start to work in a group, we will certainly encounter and express negative emotions within that group. Sometimes we use work terminology to `score points', or to hurt people we are working with, or to impress the teacher. This occurs because the Work ideas have to enter through the lower parts of centres, and they become food for misuse by these parts in the same way as any other ideas does.

Another form of negativity is resentment of the teacher or the Work when things start to get harder for us. Seeing this negativity can help us see that going to meetings is not the same as being more awake. When we realise that all of our petty resentments and motivations appear in a group situation, just as in real life (if not more so), we will begin to realise that the Work is not in the meeting room or the teacher, but is inside.

The notion of "Avoiding the Expression of Negative Emotions" has been misconstrued in many expositions of the work and in many people's practice. The problem comes about with the semantics of the term "Negative Emotion." What is a "Negative Emotion?" Most people who read about this Work idea assume that a negative emotion is a "bad" emotion such as anger or hurt or sadness. They assume that a negative emotion is any emotion that seems to make one lose control, one that might make a person appear weak and reactionary.

When someone interprets negative emotions in this way, they very quickly set up a conceptual hierarchy of "good" feelings versus "bad" feelings. They tend to suppress the "bad" feelings and associate right conduct with the expression of "good" feelings. Their idea of proper work with the emotional center is only to express "approved" emotions. "Approved" emotions are only the ones that express a so-called proper relationship between oneself and the Work.

When groups engage in the practice of this particular interpretation of "negative emotions," the results are the often comical if sad manifestations of 4th Way groupies: self-seriousness, the fierce need to set people straight about the correct interpretation of the words of Gurdjieff or Ouspensky, the tendency to see Types rather than people, a work-ethic verging on self-flagellation, etc. These manifestations are all examples of wrong work on the emotional center. They are best understood as "Emotional Constipation."

A clearer understanding of the idea of not expressing negative emotions begins with the distinction between negative emotions and positive emotions. A positive emotion is a feeling or emotion that arises spontaneously in response to the immediate moment. The emotional center responds to the Universe with feelings. Whatever the particular feeling, if it arises genuinely in response to the immediate state of the Universe, it is positive.

A negative emotion is a feeling or emotion that arises in response to a thought, a memory, an analysis of past events. It is a feeling that arises in response to the activity of False Personality, (or as referred to in our own school, the Android).

It has no genuine connection with what is happening in the moment; it is a reflected emotion, generated by automatic or mechanical, as opposed to natural, organic processes; it is an artificial emotion. Hence the term, "negative." Gurdjieff has described the mis-wiring of centers, how the energy of one center can interfere with the activity of another center, etc. Negative emotions are the means by which the Android, or False Personality, is able to use the intellectual center to manipulate the energy of the emotional center.

Now this can understandably be confusing to an inexperienced student encountering this idea. For example, suppose you are engaged in a business deal. You might be satisfied with the negotiations at the moment and even pleased with the deal. Later on, as you begin to think about what happened, you may decide that you "left money on the table." You may start to feel manipulated and angry at the situation. In this case, the sense of satisfaction could well have been a positive emotion, while the anger later on is definitely negative.

In another example, you may be in an emotional argument with your significant other. Your significant other might say something hurtful. Rather than show this hurt, you start telling yourself that the other person didn't really mean it. Eventually you calm yourself down to the point that you think the comment was even a little amusing. In this case, the feeling of hurt is the positive emotion and the feeling of calm amusement is the negative emotion.

Positive emotions are the domain of Essence and negative emotions are the domain of the Android. It takes a great deal of practice and a heightened sense of discernment to recognize in one's self the distinction between positive and negative emotions. So many of our buffers exist to shield our awareness from our own positive emotions. Most of us begin this work awash in negative emotions. We do not know how we really feel. Our feelings are entirely mediated by the Android. In a school setting, the practice of not expressing negative emotions is intended to break this cycle and permit us to begin to gather data on our positive emotions through Self-Observation. As generally formulated, however, this practice is incomplete. A better formulation would be: "make efforts to express positive emotions and not to express negative emotions."

Let us first examine the notion of not expressing negative emotions. Emotions and feelings are sources of energy in our organism. The expression of emotion represents the channeling of this energy throughout our organism. The part of ourselves that is responsible for channeling this energy gets turned on or brought to the fore. Any broadcasting of emotions from our organism engenders a reciprocal response from the Universe in the form of feedback. This feedback, whether from another person or from life situations themselves, is received by that part of ourselves that has been brought to the fore in our manifestation. This feedback then forms an impression that feeds the part of ourselves that was responsible for the manifestation.

When we express a negative emotion, the energy we broadcast to the Universe is directed by the Android. The reciprocal impression that we receive back from the Universe becomes food for the Android and allows it to grow. Growth of the Android means the creation of more I's and the deepening of mechanical behavior.

When we express a positive emotion, we bring Essence to the fore, and the energy we broadcast to the Universe is directed by our Essence. The reciprocal impression that we receive back from the Universe in this instance becomes food for the Essence and allows it to grow. Growth of Essence means the maturing of our true Selves and the deepening of Being. The challenge we face in a school environment with the expression of positive emotions is that this process will always seem to the Android as if we are losing control. It was to deal with this very danger of emotional vulnerability that we originally created the Android. The Android can be very crafty in coming up with ways to prevent us from expressing positive emotions.

The misunderstanding of the practice of non-expression of negative emotions described in the beginning of this article is perhaps one of the craftiest. In a school situation, real results come only when one is willing to "stick one's neck out." Sticking one's neck out means expressing positive emotions. As Gurdjieff said, "essence learns by demonstration." Even in a school, we can only learn by being willing to expose our young, immature Essence, through the expression of positive emotions, to the demonstrations of mature Essence that a only a genuine teacher can provide.

The practice of non-expression of negative emotions is very different from simply repressing negative emotions. To the best of one's ability, one attempts to observe fully the flow of such mechanical emotion in relation to the inner dialog of the Android. One attempts to observe and acknowledge the proceeding internal manifestation without giving any outward indication of this process. The benefit of this practice is that the emotional energy that would ordinarily have served only to feed the Android can now be used to feed one's efforts at Self-Observation. In this transformation, one's Observer is strengthened and one's capacity for discernment deepened.

When one merely supresses negative emotions, not only do they not go away, the energy required to maintain this suppression strengthens and makes more persistent these aspects of the Android. The negative emotion also then generally leaks out in other ways of which one may be completely unaware. Similarly, when one represses positive emotions, one also does so through the agency of the Android. The energy of these emotions becomes "stuck" and as mentioned above, one becomes emotionally constipated. The emotional center becomes distorted and dull.

To summarize, proper work with emotions involves the effort not only to practice the non-expression of negative emotions but also to express genuine positive emotions. Both are necessary for proper Essence transformation. These are extremely powerful methods that are best conducted in the context of a school with a guide(s) who can help one cultivate one's ability to discern the difference between positive versus negative emotion. The superficial treatment that the "non-expression of negative emotions" gets in most public material on the Work is the worst form of wiseacring. It can easily lead to a severe distortion of the emotional center. If by some miracle one manages to still retain some wherewithal to continue in the Work after having practiced this pseudo-technique, then one will require a correspondingly larger kick in the pants to move forward than will someone lucky enough to be starting their Work uncluttered by such a history.

Tell a man that there are 300,000,000,000 stars in the universe, and he will believe you. Tell him that a bench has wet paint on it, and he will have to touch it to be sure. – Anonymous

Lying, in the work sense, is slightly different from lying as the word is usually used, a little more subtle perhaps. Perhaps we might think it is less damaging than what we normally consider as lying, but it is actually more damaging to one personally, as that without working to eliminate it, one can not expect one's personal work on oneself to go far.

Lying in the usual sense, is generally connected with a feeling of guilt and concealment. One knows one is doing wrong by telling something untrue. Lying in the work sense is often associated with a feeling of vanity, and it's easier to buffer that no harm is done by it.

By lying, in the work sense, I mean primarily talking about things one does not know, as though one does. Lying is associated with vanity, and also verification---verification being a possible cure. Lying comes from false personality, and the more you lie, the more you strengthen your false personality. Not lying can involve accepting humiliation, admitting one does not know everything, and thus opening the way to beginning to know things properly, especially oneself.

For example, when I was learning Japanese, I was talking about it to a friend who had studied Chinese. He said how knowing some Chinese helped him when he visited Japan.

For instance, he could guess the sign for Kyoto when he was trying to get on the right train in Tokyo to go to Kyoto, since one of the characters in Kyoto is the same as one of the characters in Beijing, and means `Capital', and Kyoto was the ancient capital of Japan. I immediately jumped to a superior position: `Oh, I've studied those characters in my class, the characters in Tokyo and Kyoto are the same, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference', with a `How stupid you are, how clever I am' in the back of my mind. False personality took the opportunity to bolster it`s position.

Later, I checked what I'd said, and found that I was wrong, only one of the characters in Kyoto and Tokyo are the same, not both. False personality was loath to even mention it to the other person, to apologize for `living'. (To apologize, for me, was an example of voluntary suffering).

Another example, I heard someone ask anther person `At confession, does the Catholic priest say “I forgive you your sins?”' The reply was `No, the priest says “Go and say ten `Hail Mary's' and ten `Our Father's', and your sins will be forgiven.”' I wondered if this was an example of lying, from the certainty with which the reply was given, as if from an expert. I can't say. It also could be an example of not verifying on the part of the questioner. The question may have been from the mechanical part of the intellectual centre, from some association with the previous topic of conversation. It could have been unnecessary talking.

If it was something the person really wanted to know about, the best way would be to find out by verification, for example, go to confession and listen to the priest, or go and find a priest who will discuss the matter of what confession and absolution of sins involves.

Here's another example. Someone was asking about the work of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, from a position of assuming it makes claims without proving them (making this assumption is lying, if you have not seen it to be true). He was saying `There are people who claim that there are three old women who are hundreds of years old, who live in a cave in India, and I don't believe that sort of thing…'. The answer `Well, you can go and look in the cave, see if they do or not, if you want to find out, and verify'.

The person was not interested in verification, he was lying, in a sense, even though common sense might indicate that it is unlikely there are no such old women. He was lying because he was talking from the point of view that he knew the truth, though he had not verified. Here, false personality is clearly evident, since really, the existence of such old women is neither here nor there, it was not really relevant to asking about this work, and would have probably no effect on this person's life or well-being.

Or recently, I was with a group of people, myself being the only native English speaker. Someone wanted to insist that the English used the word `cheese' as a farewell word, when saying goodbye. This was really quite obvious lying to a native speaker, `He doesn't know what he's talking about', think I. But to the others, what he said might have been an interesting piece of information for their false personalities to take in, and go home and tell to other friends. Vanity would display how clever it is. However, in this case, his statement was questioned, and finally we worked out he meant that Germans say `Tschuess'. He was talking about something he did not really know about, pretending that he did.

This is lying to oneself, believing one is an expert, when one is not. It can prevent one from listening to people who really do know something, and can prevent one from learning, since one already believes one knows.

Lying to oneself can be a little different again from the above examples, that involved other people. In lying to oneself, one may believe, for instance, that one is always on time, when in fact one is always late. Buffers will prevent the truth from being seen, for instance, telling oneself that `This occasion is quite exceptional'. `I'm always on time, so this is excusable to be late for once.' `It's all the fault of so-and-so, if it wasn't for them this would never have happened.' One may even call to mind some occasion when one was on time, and take that as the example one mentally refers to.

Lying such as this is difficult to deal with. One does not want to see one's faults (again, vanity would like to believe we had none). If one persists in lying to oneself, one will not see one's true position, and if you can't see your current position, you can't change. Through being invariably late, one may miss many opportunities. But if one does not even know that one is late, one will not work to change things.

How can things become visible that we are blind to? How can we stop lying? In the case of lying to ourselves, we need to be open to other people pointing out our faults to us. If your friend is annoyed---`You're late again', rather than start justifying, buffering, and disagreeing, one could ask oneself `Is she right?'

We need to be willing to accept that we may not be perfect. Similarly in lying to others, one must be willing to admit to oneself that one does not know. To know, one must verify.

Fourth Way p. 14

Studying man in his present state of sleep, absence of unity, mechanicalness and lack of control, we find several other wrong functions which are the result of his state — in particular, lying to himself and to other people all the time.

• The psychology of ordinary man could even be called the study of lying, because man lies more than anything else; and as a matter of fact, he cannot speak the truth.
• It is not so simple to speak the truth; one has to learn how to do it, and sometimes it takes a very long time.

Q. Would you mind explaining what you mean by lying?
A. Lying is thinking or speaking about things that one does not know; this is the beginning of lying.

• It does not mean intentional lying — telling stories, as for instance that there is a bear in the other room.
• You can go to the other room and see that there is no bear in it.

But if you collect all the theories that people put forward on any given subject, without knowing anything about it, you will see where lying begins.

• Man does not know himself, he does not know anything, yet he has theories about everything.
• Most of these theories are lying.

Q. I want to know the truth that it is good for me to know in my present state. How can I discover whether it is a lie?
A. For almost everything you know you have methods for verifying. But first you must know what you can know and what you cannot. That helps verifying. If you start with that you will soon hear lies, even without thinking. Lies have a different sound, particularly lies about things we cannot know.

The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution p. 31

What is lying?

As it is understood in ordinary language, lying means distorting or in some cases, hiding the truth, or what people believe to be the truth. This lying plays a very important part in life, but there are much worse forms of lying, when people do not know that they lie. I said in the last lecture that we cannot know the truth in our present state, and can only know the truth in the state of objective consciousness. How then can we lie? There seems to be a contradiction here, but in reality there is none. We cannot know the truth but we can pretend that we know. And this is lying. Lying fills all our life.

People pretend that they know all sorts of things: about God, about the future life, about the universe, about the origin of man, about evolution, about everything; but in reality they do not know anything, even about themselves. And every time they speak about something they do not know as though they knew it, they lie. Consequently the study of lying becomes of the first importance in psychology

And it may lead even to the third definition of psychology which is: the study of lying.

Psychology is particularly concerned with the lies a man says and thinks about himself. These lies make the study of man very difficult. Man, as he is, is not a genuine article. He is an imitation of something, and a very bad imitation.

The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution p. 37

Lying is unavoidable in mechanical life. No one can escape it and the more one thinks that one is free from lying, the more one is in it. Life, as it is could not exist without lying. But from the psychological side, lying has a different meaning. It means speaking about things one does not know, and even cannot know, as though one knows and can know.