The Transformation of Sound
The Work of Transformation
Ouspensky once suggested that the Work could be called “Psycho-transformism.” It’s a logical suggestion.
“Transformation” means one thing changing into another. Chemistry shows molecular transformations like sugar to alcohol. Even radium slowly turns to lead. Alchemists dreamed of changing base metal to gold. Often, this wasn’t literal; “alchemy” was code for secret teachings about transforming a person – mechanical man, violent and nature-serving – into a new, higher type. This “base metal” to “gold” mirrored man’s latent potential. The Gospels have similar notions: man as a seed that can grow, or rebirth.
This teaching views man as a three-storey factory processing three “foods”: ordinary food (ground floor), air (second), and impressions (top floor).
The food we eat is transformed. Life is transformation. Living things convert substances. Plants turn air, water, and salts into food. Organic life itself is a vast transforming agent.
When we eat, food is changed stage-by-stage into substances our existence depends on. The “instinctive centre,” our organism’s inner intelligence, handles this. Digestion is transformation. In the stomach, food changes – this first stage is termed the passage of “Do 768 to Re 384.” It’s a basic example. Everyone gets that meals are transformed. But if food hit the stomach and nothing happened? The body couldn’t use it. An undigested potato can’t feed the brain.
This “nothing happens” situation is largely true for the third food: impressions. They enter but mostly remain undigested. They arrive as “Do 48” and stop. Little transformation occurs. Nature doesn’t require us to transform impressions. But a person can, with knowledge and understanding of why it’s needed.
Most people think external life provides what they seek. But life arrives as impressions, “Do 48.” A key realization in this work is that these impressions must be transformed. There’s no “external life” as you imagine. You constantly receive impressions. See someone you dislike? Impressions. Someone you like? More impressions. Life is impressions, not the solid material thing you believe is reality. Your reality is your impressions. This is tough to grasp. You might insist life exists “out there,” separate from your impressions. That person in a chair? You think they’re objectively real. No. Your impressions of them are what’s real for you. No sight, no visual. No ears, no auditory. Life comes as impressions, and here you can work on yourself – but only if you realize you’re working on your impressions, not external life. Without this, you won’t get the “First Conscious Shock.” This shock concerns these impressions – our only link to the outer world, which we mistake for actual things. You can’t transform external life. But you can transform your impressions, the third food. So, this system says a transforming agency is needed at the point of impression intake. This is the core of psychological transformation; this is where work begins. It’s the First Conscious Shock because it’s not mechanical; it needs conscious effort. Grasping this means starting to cease being a mechanical person, a mere tool for nature.
Think about all the efforts taught here, starting with self-observation. All practical work aims at transforming impressions and their results: negative emotions, moods, identification, considering, inner lying, imagination, difficult ‘I’s, self-justifying, sleep states. So, self-work is like digestion; both transform. A transforming agent must form where impressions enter. This is the First Conscious Shock, generally called “remembering oneself.” If, by understanding this work, you treat life as work, you are self-remembering. This state transforms impressions, and thus, life as it relates to you. Life stops acting on you mechanically. You think and understand anew. This is your transformation’s start. Thinking the same way means taking in life the same way; nothing changes. To transform life’s impressions is to transform oneself, achievable only through a new way of thinking. This work gives that. For example: if you’re negative, it’s always your fault. The whole situation, as sensed, needs transformation. This requires entirely new thinking.
Life continually causes reactions. These reactions are our personal life. Changing your life means changing your reactions, not outer circumstances. But unless we see that outer life enters as impressions causing stereotyped reactions, we can’t see where change is possible, where to work. If your life is mainly negative reactions, that is your life. Transforming impressions to prevent constant negative reactions is the task, if you wish to work on yourself. This demands self-observation where impressions enter. Then, you can choose: let impressions fall negatively and mechanically, or not. Choosing “not” means living more consciously. If you fail to transform impressions at entry, you can still work on their results, blunting their full mechanical effect. This needs a definite feeling for, an evaluation of, the work. It means bringing the work to that entry point where impressions usually trigger old reactions. We’ll discuss transformation more later, but no higher level is possible without it. The idea of transformation implies different levels exist and refers to passing from one to another. Development to a higher level requires transformation.