George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
P. D. Ouspensky
In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teachings
It must be understood that man consists of two parts: essence and personality.
Essence in man is what is his own.
Personality in man is what is “not his own”.
“Not his own” means what has come from outside, what he has learned, or reflects, all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory and in the sensations, all words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation — all this is “not his own”, all this is personality.
From the point of view of ordinary psychology the division of man into personality and essence is hardly comprehensible. It is more exact to say that such a division does
not exist in psychology at all.
A small child has no personality as yet.
He is what he really is.
He is essence.
His desires, tastes, likes, dislikes, express his being such as it is.
But as soon as so-called “education” begins personality begins to grow.
Personality is created partly by the intentional influences of other people, that is, by “education”, and partly by involuntary imitation of them by the child itself.
In the creation of personality a great part is also played by “resistance” to people around him and by attempts to conceal from them something that is “his own” or “real”.
Essence is the truth in man; personality is the false.
But in proportion as personality grows, essence manifests itself more and more rarely and more and more feebly and it very often happens that essence stops in its growth at a very early age and grows no
further.
It happens very often that the essence of a grown-up man, even that of a very intellectual and, in the accepted meaning of the word, highly ‘educated’ man, stops on the level of a child of five or six.
This means that everything we see in this man is in reality “not his own”.
What is his own in man, that is, his essence, is usually only manifested in his instincts and in his simplest emotions.
There are cases, however, when a man’s essence grows in parallel with his personality.
Such cases represent very rare exceptions especially in the circumstances of cultured life.
Essence has more chances of development in men who live nearer to nature in difficult conditions of constant struggle and danger.
But as a rule the personality of such people is very little developed. They have more of what is their own, but very little of what is “not their own”? that is to say, they lack education and instruction, they lack culture.
Culture creates personality and is at the same time the product and the result of personality.
We do not realize that the whole of our life, all we call civilization, all we call science, philosophy, art, and politics, is created by people’s personality, that is, by what is “not their own” in them.
The element that is “not his own” differs from what is man’s “own” by the fact that it can be lost, altered, or taken away by artificial means.