maurice nicholl on the fourth way:
Let us take the Work-idea of Yes and No and recall what is said about
this. The Work says that Formatory Centre—i.e. the mechanical part
of Intellectual Centre—which we ordinarily use and call thinking can
only work in terms of Yes or No. Through constantly using this lowest
part of the thinking centre everything is divided into Yes or No. You
know how people argue from Yes or No. One man says a thing is so and
another man says it is not so. One man says a thing is true and another
man says it is not true, and so on. All the world is divided like this.
You have only to listen to most forms of ordinary conversation to realize
that it is based on this division of Yes or No. The Work says that in
Higher Centres this contradiction of Yes or No does not exist because
in the consciousness belonging to Higher Centres there are no con-
tradictions—i.e. there is no Yes or No—but there is a union of the two
which the Work calls Yes and No. Obviously our ordinary thought and
language utterly fail here. They cannot comprehend or describe that
state of consciousness and understanding that belongs to Higher Centres.
But if we cannot grasp this you will agree with me that our ordinary
language is based on a sharp division of Yes or No, and our ordinary
thinking is similar. This means that we always exclude one side of a
problem in favour of the other side. So we have to take sides all the
time and are regarded as weak if we do not. So we divide ourselves into
opposite camps as the whole world does, and we continually hypnotize
ourselves by saying that a thing surely must either be true or not true or
that a person is either good or bad, and so on. All this is the work of the
formatory part of the Intellectual Centre which can only think by
means of opposites—that is, by comparison—and has no idea how to
draw the opposites together and find a third solution which is neither
Yes nor No but Yes and No.
The whole thing lies in this third solution. It is sometimes said that
this Work is imitating the work of Higher Centres. Now, since all
opposites are united in a harmony in Higher Centres and there are no
contradictions, it is clear that thinking only by the aid of that lowest
instrument of thought, the Formatory Centre, will certainly not be
imitating Higher Centres. What is this third solution? It is not com-
posed of either Yes or No but of some combination of Yes and No. We
are told that this "Yes and No" is the language of Higher Centres and
this must mean in some way that Yes and No are united into a third
thing, a third solution unknown to us, which is neither Yes nor No, but
some harmony or union of two opposites, so that each opposite vanishes
or loses its identity and a new thing appears that we cannot compre-
hend. Let us call this third thing X. Then Yes + No. = X. Our
ordinary solutions to problems are Yes or No. We do not know X.
I sometimes think that Sly Man knows this X and how it is rightly
reached. But we can be sure that if ever by accident we stumble on this
third solution to some problem we will probably get a sudden force
from Higher Centres, which deal only in X, no doubt much to our
surprise. But if we solve our problem only by either a heavy Yes or a
heavy No, no doubt we will not get any help—not being clever enough.
You remember how often in the Gospels the clever person is mentioned,
the five clever virgins, the clever man who built his house on a rock,
and so on—the word being so badly translated as "wise". Yes, I am
sure there are clever and right solutions to things which escape our
heavy one-footed formatory thinking. And, since the Gospels have been
mentioned, think only of the parables. Are they in terms of Yes or No?
Are they not in another language—in fact, in the language of Higher
Emotional Centre? However, people get impatient with them and say:
"Why cannot they say exactly what they mean in plain, sensible,
downright language—that is either Yes or No?" But are we sure that
what we call plain, sensible, downright language is either so plain or so
"sensible" as we suppose? Does it express all sides, or full meaning, or
full truth, or is it one-sided and inevitably so? In any case, we can
grasp that the language and ways of thought and connections of ideas
in Higher Centres are quite different from our ordinary forms of speech
and associations, and infinitely more comprehensive and inclusive.
We make a dogmatic Yes or a dogmatic No—but experience shews us
that this one-sided solution is always useless, always wrong. We
have therefore to be far more careful—or more clever—in leading
ourselves out of some inner or outer problem. It is not a flat denial or
a flat affirmation that will help us, because we will miss all the many
intermediate stages lying between these two violent extremes—all these
inner octaves of finer meaning that we seek to become more conscious
of in our daily life, all these sources of new meaning. I was going to say
new and undreamed of meaning. But I fancy that often these finer
meanings, finer solutions, are just what we do dream of without realizing
it, not understanding the marvellous language which is so similar to
that of parables. There is always so much meaning passing through us
that we do not realize. The reason is that the activities of the Higher
Centres are continually passing through us, only we cannot hear, cannot
contact them—not having a fine enough receptive side. The Emotional
Centre, purified of negative emotions, begins to hear them. But when
we are identified and negative it cannot. So that is a good reason to
work against states of negativeness and identification. By the way,
just think of the solutions you make to problems when you are negative.
There is nothing very clever about them, is there? Or again, when you
are violently enthusiastic. In both cases you try to solve things through
one or the other opposite—through No or Yes—in accordance with
how the pendulum swings, from side to side. I am sure myself that
such solutions are valueless and in fact are not solutions at all. But
we all have many 'I's that think they are, and these 'I's tempt us to
make impossible violent decisions that we cannot keep and by which
we only torture ourselves. No, it is only when the pendulum is just
one side or the other of the middle point that we can see where solutions
may lie—and not when the pendulum has swung to its full extent in
one direction or the other. The truth is that we are not usually conscious
save in the extremes of the pendulum where we identify most. But by
self-observation we become slowly more conscious in the middle region
of the pendulum-swing and here something can be done. Here we have,
as it were, to create a conscious pendulum, restricted in its movement,
that swings a little one way and then a little the other way—and this
by an effort of mind, by a pressure of will. This restriction is possible
only when you no longer for one moment believe in the extreme violent
swings of the mechanical pendulum—that is, when you absolutely
reject all violent and excited decisions of any kind. One must not listen
to the 'I's at either extreme of the pendulum. This we probably can
all agree to from our own personal work on ourselves. But what does
this to and fro movement of the restricted pendulum mean? It has to
do with Yes and No.
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