Self-remembering is a spiritual exercise brought into modern times and the West by G.I. Gurdjieff. It has its origins in Ancient Egypt where it was called God-Remembering. For me it is the ultimate ‘reality’ test.
Self-remembering is not essentially difficult to do. The difficulty comes as with most spiritual exercises in remembering to do it.
Self-remembering involves dividing our attention between the external world and the internal world, focusing on each and bringing as greater awareness as is possible to both simultaneously, whilst also being aware that God sees all. It is a way of connecting oneself to the Divine to the external world and to our internal world, bringing them into a sort of unity within oneself.
Self-remembering is probably best practised in conjunction with the STOP exercise. The STOP exercise as the name suggests requires that at any given moment of the day, you say to yourself, STOP while you methodically take stock of your internal and external situation. You STOP and observe your breathing, your physical self, what you are feeling, what you are doing and what you are thinking. Self-remembering is a natural follow on from this exercise because you have already in a way abstracted yourself from whatever situation or activity you find yourself in to take a mental inventory of your inner state.
Take something like a flower, or some other object that holds your interest and examine it in your hand. At the same time as observing the object very closely-- it’s colour, it’s size, it’s shape, its function, observe your physical self. How you are sitting or standing, the pressure of the chair you are sitting on, and all the physical sensations you are aware of, smells, sounds, colour, light. Whilst you are focused on both the flower or object and your physical self, bring into your awarness the idea that the Divine is also watching you, watch the flower. This creates a three way exchange, you watching the flower, watching yourself and the Divine watching you.
God-Remembering in Ancient Egypt was often depicted in hieroglyphs by people waving with their hands raised above their heads as if waving to God and opening themselves up to the Divine. This picture (above) was the closest I could find to something like that. It is of Akhenaten, worshipping and making offerings to Ra.
