S01E18 – I Am Neither This Nor That – Letting Go of Either Side

Introduction

Welcome back to Martfotai, a direct path to wholeness, inner freedom, and becoming.

This podcast explores the deeper waters of presence, awareness, and the natural unfolding of consciousness. It is a practical way of transformation built on direct experience, rooted in the Work of G.I. Gurdjieff, and refined for those ready to integrate swiftly and completely.

Today we take the penultimate step in The Great Unweaving.

In our last episode, “I Am Both This And That,” we learned to hold paradox without splitting, embracing apparent opposites as complementary aspects of wholeness. We discovered that maturity means holding tension without premature resolution, and that integration creates more life force than managing contradictions.

The mature person can be ambitious and content, confident and humble, independent and deeply connected. Recognition that what seemed like opposites were always complementary aspects of a greater wholeness.

Today, we explore what lies beyond even integration.

“I am neither spiritual nor practical.” “I am neither strong nor weak.” “I am neither independent nor dependent.”

The discovery of what you are before you decide to be anything at all.

Welcome to the freedom that comes from letting go of all sides.

[Pause]

Here’s something subtle to recognise. Even holding both sides can become a new form of identification. You become “the person who integrates paradox.” “The one who holds tension maturely.” “The conscious individual who transcends either/or thinking.”

Awareness creates new positions to defend, even around freedom itself.

The deepest liberation comes from stepping outside the entire framework. Neither this nor that. Neither integrated nor fragmented. Neither conscious nor unconscious.

What remains before you take any stance about yourself?

Section 1: The Sophistication of Spiritual Positions

When Integration Becomes Identity

There’s something delicate that happens as consciousness matures. The very qualities that represent genuine development can become  new forms of imprisonment.

You master the art of observing thoughts without attachment. Real development. Years of meditation and inner work create genuine capacity for witnessing. Yet gradually, you begin to maintain  this observing position, to defend it, to feel subtly superior to those still caught in mental reactivity. You become “someone who observes thoughts” rather than simply observing when observation serves.

This relates to what Gurdjieff taught about self-observation. One of Gurdjieff’s most prominent students, Peter Ouspensky, described this specific technique as the “double-headed arrow of attention” – a line with two arrowheads, one pointing outward toward observed phenomena, the other pointing inward toward the self, watching how you react to what you observe. This practice involves catching your triggers, noticing your automatic responses, taking snapshots of your mechanical patterns. The goal is to become aware of yourself whilst engaged with the world, breaking the state of “fascination” where attention becomes entirely absorbed by external objects. Yet even this witnessing capacity, profound as it is, can become another identity to maintain.You develop genuine capacity for paradox, holding strength and vulnerability simultaneously. Profound maturation. Yet imperceptibly, you start identifying as “the integrated person,” feeling different from those still struggling with contradiction. What was once natural wholeness becomes a spiritual achievement to maintain.

Gurdjieff taught about deliberately enduring the “displeasing manifestations of others toward ourselves” as conscious suffering for spiritual development. Yet even this profound practice can become spiritual positioning – you become “someone who practices conscious suffering” rather than simply accepting what arises.

The trap isn’t in the development itself. These qualities are real, the capacities genuine, the growth authentic. The trap lies in the positioning around the development, the subtle shift from natural capacity to spiritual identity, from being integrated to maintaining an image of integration.

This sophisticated positioning can persist for years, creating communities of people maintaining spiritual identities together, reinforcing each other’s positions, creating hierarchies based on who demonstrates the most consciousness or integration. The very language of freedom becomes a new form of bondage.

The Persistence of the Position-Taker

Watch the subtlety. Even recognising identification as a trap, the mind immediately creates a new position: “I’m someone who sees through identification.”

Even learning about non-attachment, you can become attached to being non-attached.

Gurdjieff spoke of the formatory apparatus, the mechanical part of the intellectual centre that compulsively divides everything into twos. Good/bad, spiritual/practical, conscious/unconscious. This creates false either/or thinking not because the universe is actually dualistic, but because our mechanical conditioning forces us to see in opposites.

The position-taker uses even the most profound insights to create new identities to maintain.

There’s no escape through more sophistication. Only through stepping outside the entire game.

Neither Seeker Nor Finder

Consider the spiritual journey itself. For years, perhaps decades, you identify as a seeker. Someone who meditates, studies, attends workshops, follows teachers. The seeker identity becomes central to who you are.

Then breakthrough happens. Insight arrives. Understanding deepens. Often, the seeker identity transforms into the finder identity. “I’ve awakened.” “I understand now.” “I’ve found what I was looking for.”

The content changes, the structure remains identical. Instead of seeking, you’re maintaining what you’ve found. Instead of working towards realisation, you’re defending the realisation you’ve had.

Both seeker and finder are positions. Both create separation from what is actually here.

What remains before the entire spiritual story begins?

[Pause]

Section 2: The Art of Position Release

Seeing the Positions You Take

For the next week, notice how often you take positions about yourself throughout a single day.

Upon waking: “I’m someone who needs coffee to function.” “I’m a morning person.” “I struggle with mornings.”

At work: “I’m competent.” “I’m collaborative.” “I’m detail-oriented.”

In relationships: “I’m supportive.” “I’m independent.” “I’m a good listener.”

Each position requires maintenance. Each identity demands consistency. Each self-concept creates pressure to be someone particular rather than simply being available for what each moment actually calls for.

The Great Release Practice

Here’s a practice that cuts through all positioning immediately.

Freedom is “two ends of a stick,” you must be able to see both sides of yourself and ultimately let both sides go. You can’t let go if you’re holding one end.

Most people grip tightly to the qualities they want to be – intelligent, caring, spiritual, strong – whilst pushing away their opposites. This creates constant effort. You’re holding one end of the stick whilst trying to keep the other end as far away as possible. But the stick is one piece. You can’t drop half a stick. You can’t truly release what you’re identified with whilst still avoiding what you reject.

True freedom comes from releasing your grip on both ends simultaneously. Neither claiming to be caring nor defending against being uncaring. Neither maintaining intelligence nor avoiding stupidity. When you let go of the entire stick, what remains is the space that was holding it all along.

So, h ere’s how to discover that space directly, with the Great Release Practice

Preparation Sit comfortably with your spine naturally erect. Close your eyes or soften your gaze downward. Take three conscious breaths, allowing your nervous system to settle.

Stage One: Recognition Bring to mind a primary way you identify yourself. Perhaps as intelligent, creative, caring, disciplined, successful, spiritual, practical.

Notice how this identity feels in your body. Often there’s a subtle tightening somewhere, perhaps in the chest, shoulders, or jaw. There might be a slight performance quality, an unconscious effort to maintain the image even while sitting alone.

Feel the weight of this identity. Notice any sense of having to prove it, defend it, or live up to it. Observe how it creates a framework through which you filter your responses to life.

Stage Two: Release Now comes the liberation. Deliberately release both that quality and its opposite. Say internally, with full attention, something like:

“I am neither intelligent nor unintelligent.” “I am neither creative nor uncreative.” “I am neither caring nor uncaring.” “I am neither disciplined nor undisciplined.”

Use whatever qualities actually apply to your own identities. The key is releasing both ends of each stick – the quality you claim and the quality you avoid.

With each release, feel what happens in your body. Often there’s a profound exhale, as if you can finally rest from the exhausting job of being yourself. The monitoring system can switch off.

If resistance arises, if part of you protests “But I am creative!” or “I can’t let go of being caring!” simply notice the resistance without fighting it. The resistance itself is just another position trying to maintain itself.

Stage Three: Expansion Continue with any other significant identities you hold, using the same pattern of releasing both ends. With each release, notice what remains.

The secret here is that a human being is closer to nothing than it is to everything.

The goal isn’t to accumulate qualities but to empty yourself completely, have nothing in there that has its own agenda.

Stage Four: Resting in Emptiness After releasing your primary identities, sit in the spaciousness that emerges. This isn’t the emptiness of lack, it’s the pregnant void from which authentic response can arise.

What is here before you decide to be anything at all? Notice how presence is already complete without needing to be enhanced by identity.

Working with Resistance

During the release practice, you may encounter several forms of resistance:

Identity Panic: “If I’m not creative, who am I?” This fear reveals how completely you’ve identified with temporary qualities. Rest in the not-knowing. What you truly are doesn’t depend on any quality.

Practical Concerns: “But I need to be reliable at work.” The practice isn’t about becoming unreliable, it’s about reliability emerging naturally rather than being forced through self-concept.

Spiritual Bypass: “I should be able to let go of all this.” Notice how even the effort to be “good at letting go” is another position. Let go of letting go correctly.

Advanced Position Recognition

Position-taking happens at layers most people never notice. Beyond obvious identities, there are meta-positions about positioning itself: “I’m someone who doesn’t take positions.” “I’m beyond identification.” “I see through all that.”

Watch for the subtle spiritual materialism that accumulates insights like trophies. The deepest positions are about consciousness itself: “I’m aware.” “I’m present.” “I’m awakened.” These are the most subtle traps because they use the language of freedom whilst creating new forms of imprisonment.

Integration Throughout the Day

Micro-Releases Throughout your day, when you catch yourself taking a position, do a quick micro-release: • Feel the position in your body • Breathe
• Release both that quality and its opposite • Return to what’s actually needed in this moment

The Position-Free Response Before responding in any interaction, pause and ask: “What would respond here if I weren’t trying to be anyone in particular?”

Often you’ll discover responses that are more authentic, more present, and more effective than anything filtered through the maintenance of a contrived identity.

[Pause]

Section 3: What Operates Without Position

The Body’s Natural Intelligence

Right now, without changing your position, notice your body exactly as it is. Whether you’re sitting, lying down, or standing, simply feel how the body is already here without needing a self to support it.

Notice how breath continues, how awareness remains, how presence holds everything, all without your help or identity.

Your heart beats without knowing it belongs to a successful person or a struggling person. Your lungs breathe without caring whether they belong to someone spiritual or practical. If you’re sitting, notice how your body settles without consulting whether you consider yourself grounded or scattered.

The body operates perfectly without requiring any story about whose body it is.

Now make any small movement – shift your position slightly, or if you’re able, change from sitting to standing or vice versa. Notice that the transition happens without consulting your identity. The body knows exactly how to move, when to move, how to settle, all without requiring a story about being someone who moves gracefully or clumsily.

The Intelligence Beyond Thought

When you stop positioning yourself as “someone who thinks,” something remarkable becomes available. Responses arise that surprise even you, emerging from a deeper knowing that doesn’t belong to anyone rather than from accumulated knowledge or personality patterns.

You might find yourself being gentle where you expected firmness, or direct where you anticipated diplomacy. You might discover wisdom emerging that doesn’t match your self-concept, or silences that feel more powerful than any words you could have planned.

These responses arise from seeing what each situation actually needs, freed from the filter of who you think you should be. They come from presence itself rather than personality, training, or spiritual practice.

Actions From Space

Action that emerges from no-position carries a different quality entirely.

Speaking without defending any viewpoint, words arise that serve communication rather than maintaining image.

Working without attachment to being competent or incompetent, skills express themselves without self-consciousness.

Loving without maintaining the position of being loving, affection flows without performance or need for return.

There’s a profound difference between acting from emptiness and acting from position. Position-based action carries the subtle tension of maintaining image. Empty action flows without resistance because there’s nothing to protect or prove.

[Pause]

Section 4: Work Without the Worker

The Prison of Professional Identity

Consider how positioning affects your professional life.

Identify as competent? Constant pressure to prove competency, defend it under challenge, maintain it even during the temporary incompetence required for learning something new.

Identify as creative? Unconscious demand to produce creativity, anxiety during dry periods, attachment to being seen as innovative.

Each professional position creates invisible constraints that limit natural responsiveness.

Skills Operating Freely

Without professional identities, something extraordinary happens. Skills operate without self-consciousness.

You can contribute without needing recognition for competence. You can ask questions without protecting an image of expertise. You can make mistakes without defending an identity of effectiveness.

The precision that emerges when someone stops being “the detail-oriented one” and simply attends to what requires attention. The insight that flows when someone releases “being innovative” and responds freshly to what’s actually needed.

The leadership that appears when someone drops all positions about authority or collaboration and serves whatever the situation calls for.

Service Beyond Position

Real service happens without maintaining any position about being helpful.

You can see what needs doing without needing to be the one who sees clearly. You can offer assistance without attachment to being helpful. You can step back when that serves, without protecting an identity of involvement.

Unprecedented effectiveness, because energy isn’t divided between doing the work and maintaining an image of being someone who does good work.

Living without professional positions quietly revolutionises how work happens. You can admit ignorance about your field without protecting an image of knowledge. You can ask for help without defending competence. You can change your approach completely without consistency pressure.

Work becomes an expression of consciousness exploring its creativity through your particular skills and interests, rather than a performance designed to maintain professional identity.

Section 5: Love Beyond the Lover

The Burden of Relational Positions

Consider how positioning affects intimate relationships more pervasively than you might suspect.

Identify as caring? You ‘ll feel pressure to demonstrate care even during times requiring space, even when tough love would serve better, even when your caring enables dysfunction rather than growth.

Identify as independent? There’ll be resistance to needing support even during moments calling for connection, even when vulnerability would deepen intimacy, even when interdependence serves the relationship.

Identify as understanding? Compulsion to comprehend rather than simply being present with mystery, pressure to be wise rather than genuinely confused, anxiety when facing the incomprehensible in your partner.

Each relational position creates invisible barriers to authentic intimacy because you’re maintaining an image rather than meeting what’s actually present.

The Performance of Love

Most people perform a version of love rather than simply loving. They’re being “good partners” according to some internal standard rather than responding authentically to what love actually calls for in each moment.

Notice how couples develop positions about their relationship dynamics. “I’m the emotional one, he’s the logical one.” “She’s organised, I’m creative.” “I handle conflict, she maintains harmony.”

These positions, once established, become rigid roles that limit authentic response. The “emotional one” feels pressure to always process feelings. The “logical one” feels pressure to suppress emotion. Both are trapped in partial expressions of their humanity.

But what if you’re neither emotional nor logical? What if your capacity for both feeling and thinking serves love more than maintaining consistency with a relational role?

Beyond the Performance

Watch what happens when a couple argues about money. If he’s “the practical one,” he must focus on budgets and solutions. If she’s “the feeling one,” she must express emotions and seek understanding. Both are performing their assigned roles rather than responding to what this particular moment needs.

Without these positions, real intimacy becomes possible between two people willing to be nobody in particular. You can be tender when tenderness serves, firm when firmness serves, silent when silence serves. Relationship becomes a space for life to express itself through two people rather than a negotiation between fixed identities.

[Pause]

Section 6: Beyond the Observer

The Final Position

Even the observer, that capacity to witness thoughts and feelings without being consumed by them, can become a position to maintain.

You learn to observe anger rather than being angry. Profound development. Yet gradually, you might begin identifying as “someone who observes anger rather than being reactive.” You develop the ability to witness thoughts without believing them. Genuine freedom. Yet slowly, you might start defending your non-attachment to thoughts, working to maintain the observer position.

The capacity that once freed you from identification can become a new form of identification. This is particularly subtle because the observer position feels so much freer than ordinary identification. Yet even this freedom can become a prison when you start maintaining it as an identity.

The Dissolution of Watching

Beyond the observer position lies something remarkable.

Anger arises and there’s no one observing it, no one being it, no one managing it. Just anger arising and dissolving in awareness that doesn’t identify itself as aware.

Thoughts emerge and there’s no thinker thinking them, no observer watching them, no manager controlling them. Just thinking happening in consciousness that doesn’t position itself as conscious.

This shift is profound. From “I am observing this experience” to “experiencing is happening.” From “I am aware of thoughts” to “thinking is occurring.” From “I am consciousness” to “consciousness is.”

The dissolution of the observer position marks the end of spiritual identity altogether. Meditation happens without a meditator. Understanding occurs without someone who understands. Awareness is present without anyone being aware.

This Very Moment

Right now, there’s hearing of these words. Is there really someone separate from the hearing who is doing the hearing? Or is there just hearing happening, with the sense of a hearer being just an afterthought?

What’s here before you divide this moment into someone listening to something?

Notice what happens when you’re simply present with these words without being someone who is present. How much more effortless it becomes when you’re not maintaining the position of being present.

[Pause]

Section 7: The Simplicity Beyond Positions

Life Without the Burden

Without position-taking, daily life becomes remarkably simple.

You respond to what’s in front of you rather than maintaining consistency with who you were yesterday or who you plan to be tomorrow. You speak during moments calling for speech, remain silent during moments calling for silence, all without defending any identity around being talkative or quiet.

Preferences arise for certain foods, environments, activities, without creating identity around the preferences. You can like classical music without being “someone who appreciates classical music.” You can enjoy solitude without being “an introvert.”

What emerges is true impartiality – being unfragmented, with all three centres – moving, emotional, intellectual – operating in concordance. All centres empty and free of tension, not occupied by agendas that take your place.

Consider King Solomon faced with two women, both claiming the same baby as their own. When he suggested cutting the child in half to resolve the dispute, the real mother immediately cried out to give the baby to the other woman rather than see it harmed. Solomon stood in ‘nothing’ without opinion, judgement, or personal agenda. From this empty state, perfect wisdom emerged that served the situation. Pure impartiality allowed pure reason to function.

Natural Effectiveness

Something remarkable happens to effectiveness without trying to be effective. Actions flow more smoothly because they’re not filtered through self-consciousness. Communication becomes clearer because words aren’t chosen to maintain an image. Work improves because skills operate without the interference of professional identity.

There’s a principle at work here: the more still you become, the more movement in others becomes visible. By becoming more still than surrounding activity, clarity emerges. When you’re centred, you can watch what Gurdjieff called “a parade of false personalities” in others without getting caught up in reactive patterns.

Living without positions is quietly revolutionary. You can admit ignorance without protecting an image of wisdom. You can change your mind without consistency pressure. You can be different today than you were yesterday without apologising for growth.

A New Way of Being

When you stop taking positions about yourself, life doesn’t become bland or passive. It becomes immediate. Responses arise that surprise you with their authenticity. Actions emerge that serve situations perfectly without the interference of self-consciousness.

You discover that what you’ve been working so hard to become, you already are when you stop trying to be anything at all.

The freedom lies in recognizing that you are the space where all positions dance – unchanged by any of them, unthreatened by any of them, completely free of all of them.

The Eternal Unchanging.

The exhausting performance of being anyone in particular was always optional.

[Pause]

Conclusion: The Penultimate Recognition

This episode represents the penultimate step in The Great Unweaving. Having learned to see through false binaries, integrate apparent opposites, we now discover the freedom that comes from stepping outside all frameworks entirely.

Next week, our final episode in this arc: “I Am None of That at All,” where we explore what cannot be touched by thought, label, or form. What remains after even the recognition of being neither this nor that dissolves into pure presence.

The Freedom You Weren’t Seeking

Stepping outside all positions about yourself, something becomes available that you weren’t seeking.

Something simpler than peace, happiness, or freedom emerges. The recognition that life was already living itself perfectly before you started trying to help it along by being someone in particular.

The effort to be spiritual or practical, conscious or effective, loving or wise – all of it was like trying to help the sun shine or the rain fall.

During the cessation of that effort, what was always already here becomes obvious.

The Space That Never Chose

You are the space where all positions appear and dissolve.

The consciousness that includes both seeking and finding without being either.

The presence that witnesses all identities without identifying with any.

The awareness that remains unchanged whether you’re being somebody or nobody, something or nothing, this or that.

[Long pause]

Freedom before taking positions.

For the Week Ahead

Each morning, sit quietly for a few minutes without deciding to be anyone. Notice how presence is already here without effort, without identity, without story.

Throughout the day, simply catch yourself when you slip into performing any version of yourself. In those moments, return to what’s actually here before you add the story of being someone experiencing it.

Before sleep, rest as the space where all the day’s positions appeared and dissolved – unchanged by any of them, unthreatened by any of them, free of all of them.

You are what remains when the performance ends. You are what was never performing. You are the stillness in which all positions dance.

I’m Gary Eggleton, and this is Martfotai.

Thank you for walking this path with us.

Visit martfotai.com for our weekly newsletter, guided practices, and soon to be, premium extended teachings.

You are the space where all positions appear and dissolve.

[Closing music]