Скачать или смотреть P.D. Ouspensky - Chief Feature

excerpt from Chapter 7 of "The Fourth Way" by P.D. Ouspensky
source:https://archive.org/details/TheFourth...

Q. Are there many varieties of chief feature?
A. There are strange varieties and there are classical ones. One very common feature, described in many places in the New Testament, is when we see other people's faults but not our own. Then certain kinds of self-pity are very common. And there are also curious combinations for which it is sometimes difficult to find a psychological definition.

Q. Is self-remembering the only way to defeat chief feature?
A. Without self-remembering we can do nothing. It is the only way.

Q. Is blaming other people a feature?
A. It may be a feature. But what is it based on? On lack of understanding. If you begin to study psychology, you find that all causes are in yourself; there can be no causes outside yourself. You do not remind yourself of this often enough. One little part understands that causes are in you, but the larger part continues to accuse other people. At the bottom of every favourite negative emotion you will find self-justification which feeds it. You must stop it in your mind first, and then after some time you will be able to stop it in the emotion too. Lack of understanding is the first cause, lack of effort the second.

Q. Did you say that laziness can be a chief feature?
A. Laziness is for some people three-quarters of their lives or more. Sometimes laziness is very important and is the chief feature of false personality, and then all the rest depends on laziness and serves laziness. But you must remember that there are different kinds of laziness. It is
necessary to find these different kinds by observing yourself and observing other
people. For instance, there are very busy people who are always doing something, and
yet their mind may be lazy. This happens more often than anything else. Laziness is
not only desire to sit and do nothing.

Q. What is the best way to struggle with false personality?
A. Always do something which false personality does not like and very soon you will find more things it does not like. If you continue, it will get more and more irritated and will show itself more and more clearly, so that soon there will be no question about it. But first your struggle must be based on knowing—you must know its features, find what it particularly dislikes. One false personality dislikes one thing, another dislikes another thing. You must have enough strength in yourself to go against it.