Gurdjieff's Insight - How to Live to 300

The general psyche of every man on reaching maturity,
which begins on an average in the male sex at twenty years
and in the female sex at the beginning of the thirteenth
year, consists of three totalities of functioning which have
almost nothing in common with each other.
The course of action of all three of these independent
totalities of functioning in the common
presence of a man who has attained maturity takes place
simultaneously and incessantly.
All the factors making up and producing these three
totalities of functioning begin, and cease, to form in man at
different periods of his life.
The factors producing in man the first totality of
functioning, unless special measures are employed, are
formed, as has been established long ago, only in
childhood—in boys on an average until the age of eleven
years, and in girls until the age of seven.
The factors producing the second totality of functioning
begin to form in boys from the age of nine years, and in
girls even from the age of four years, lasting in different
cases a different length of time, approximately until the
attainment of maturity.
And factors producing the third totality begin to form
from the attainment of maturity, continuing in the average
man at present only until the age of sixty, and in woman
only until the age of forty-five.
But in the case of people who have consciously perfected
themselves to the so-called "all-centers-awake state," that is,
to the state of being able in their waking state to think and
feel on their own initiative, these factors still continue to
form in man until the age of three hundred years and in
woman until the age of two hundred.
The forming of all the factors for the function-ings of
these three entirely separate totalities of functioning
proceeds in people in accordance also with the universal
law of "threefoldness."
For the formation of factors of the first totality, there
serve as the "anode beginning," on the one
hand, all kinds of involuntarily perceived outer impressions
and, on the other hand, impressions resulting from so-called
"all-centered dozing"; and as the "cathode beginning" there
serve the results of reflexes of the organism, chiefly of those
organs having an hereditary particularity.
For the formation of the factors of the second totality,
there serve as the "anode beginning" outer impressions
taken in under a certain pressure and having thereby the
character of being intentionally implanted from outside, and
as the "cathode beginning" the results of the functioning of
factors formed from impressions of a similar kind previously perceived.
The factors of the third totality of functionings are
formed from the results of "contemplation," that is, from
results received from the "voluntary contact" of the factors
of the first two totalities, for which moreover the results of
the second totality serve as the "anode beginning" and the
results of the first totality serve as the "cathode."
One of the properties of such an actualization of all three
separate totalities of functionings producing the general
psyche of man is that which, by combinations of the
"voluntary contact" of the actions of these three independent
totalities of functioning, causes to proceed in one of them
the im-printation of those processes proceeding in the other
totalities, as well as those proceeding outside of the given
man which happen to fall into the sphere of the subjective
action of his organs of perception.
The pan of this property found in the common
presence of man, ordinarily perceived by people, is that
which is called "attention."
The degree of sensitivity of the manifestation of this
property or, as otherwise denned by ancient science, "the
strength of embrace" of this "attention" depends entirely
upon the so-called "gradation of the total state" of a given
man.
For the definition of this property in man, which is called
"attention," there is, by the way, found also in ancient
science the following verbal formulation:
"THE DEGREE OF BLENDING OF THAT WHICH IS THE SAME
IN THE IMPULSES OF OBSERVATION AND CONSTATATION IN
ONE TOTALITY'S PROCESSES WITH THAT OCCURRING IN
OTHER TOTALITIES."
This above-mentioned "gradation of the total state" of
man extends, as science formulates it, from the strongest
subjective intensity of "self-sensation" to the greatest
established "self-losing."
That totality always becomes the initiating factor for the
realization of a common function of the three separate
totalities which represent the general psyche of man in
which at the given moment this "gradation of the total state"
has its center of gravity.