13: Third state, self-remembering and mindfulness

In my experience it is the case that third state exists and is accessible to anyone who wants it. It is also my experience that the ability to enter the third state improves with practice. The use of it is to be able to step back a little way from situations in which one finds oneself immersed (or better, entangled—in the term Ouspensky used, identified), to gain a little objectivity. 

Third state does not abolish real pain. However it puts one into a different relation to it. The experience of discomfort at the dentist does not go away through self-remembering, but somehow the acceptance of the pain puts one a little more in control of one’s feelings about it. Just the pain without the imagination. This also applies to inner emotional pain: one acknowledges it rather than trying unsuccessfully to pretend it isn’t there or struggling with it like Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby. 

Third state is also a place of peace, as mentioned by Peter Ouspensky.

Some in the school used to make a distinction between self-remembering and third state, to the effect that selfremembering is the effort required to get to the third state. In my understanding the two are the same, although it is also true that in the beginning one tries very hard to remember oneself and usually passes most of the day forgetting, and after some years of practice one can slip into third state relatively easily. It works best if you don’t try too hard. But you have to try too hard to get to the point where you realise that trying too hard stands in the way of simply resting in the state. (It is similar to the paradox that if you want to attract a member of the opposite sex—or same sex—trying too hard will cause them to run away, and if you don’t try at all, nothing happens.) 

Is third state similar to mindfulness? I would say, probably yes. I don’t know much about the mindfulness movement but I was once talked through a mindfulness exercise called ‘body scan’ or something like that. It consisted of lying flat on the floor and gradually becoming aware of the sensations of the body, starting from the feet and working upwards. That is one way of coming into the present moment and letting the preoccupations of the moment drop away. Selfremembering might be described as a form of walking meditation to reach that calm state among the ordinary activities of everyday life.