S01/E21: “I Am Impartial” – Seeing Without Distortion or Preference

Introduction

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

In our last episode, I Am Striving, we explored Gurdjieff’s Five Obligolnian Strivings — the sacred obligations that naturally arise when consciousness recognises its true nature. We discovered how recognition becomes expression: caring for the body, perfecting Being, understanding universal law, paying for our arising, and serving others. These strivings showed us what conscious life looks like when awareness lives itself through human form.

And yet, even with such sacred obligations revealed, one great challenge remains: the human tendency to take sides. To contract around opinions, to defend fragments as if survival depended on them.

Check your jaw right now. Is it clenched?
Check your shoulders. Are they raised?
Check your chest. Is it tight around an opinion you are holding?

Most people spend their lives in this posture. The body contracted around positions they never consciously chose. Opinions masquerading as identity. Defenses carried as if they were life itself.

This constant taking of sides exhausts consciousness. It fragments perception. It makes genuine understanding impossible.

Today we explore what happens when you stop taking sides. Impartiality is clarity itself: fragments dissolve, perception is free of distortion or preference, and the imagined one who takes sides is seen to have never existed.

This is I Am Impartial.

Section 1: Active Clarity

First, understand what impartiality is not.

Impartiality is not indifference. This distinction is critical because most people confuse them.

Indifference dismisses. It turns away. It refuses engagement because nothing matters. Indifference is disengagement pretending to be understanding.

Impartiality is active clarity. Being fully present without bias. Seeing everything but preferring nothing.

Indifference says “I don’t care.” Impartiality says “I see clearly without needing things to be different.”

Feel the difference now:

Think of a situation where you feel indifferent. Perhaps some news story that doesn’t touch you. Notice the numbness, the withdrawal, the absence of engagement.

Now think of something you care about deeply but where you’re not attached to outcome. Perhaps watching a child learn to walk. You care intensely, yet you don’t force the process. You’re present without interference.

That second quality, engaged presence without attachment, is impartiality.

Impartiality participates fully in life. Votes in elections, helps neighbours, sets boundaries, speaks truth. But none of this captures consciousness. None of it becomes identity.

The higher centres and impartiality:

Gurdjieff taught that each centre has its function. The higher emotional centre brings conscience. The higher mental centre brings reason and impartiality.

Conscience is necessary but not sufficient. Reason requires the impartial stance, free from bias or personal view.

Impartiality is the ground for conscience and reason. Without it, the higher centres remain blocked. Taking sides, defending positions, and clinging to fragments closes the door to their operation.

To be impartial is to exist as your real self. In impartiality, fragments dissolve, perception clears, and the imagined one who takes sides is seen to have never existed.

Impartiality is the natural property of the higher mental centre, alongside Reason. It is a state of consciousness, not an effort. Like breathing, it happens by itself when nothing obstructs it.

Section 2: The Body Knows – Immediate Practice

Before theory, feel this in your body.

Right now, think of someone whose behaviour troubles you. Someone you’ve judged.

Notice what happens in your body. Where does the judgment live?

Your chest tightens. Your jaw clamps. Your shoulders rise. Your breath shallows. Your stomach turns. The body takes a side before thought arrives.

Now think of someone you admire. Watch what happens. Your chest opens. Your face softens. Your breathing deepens.

This reveals something crucial: partiality isn’t intellectual. It’s somatic. It lives in your nervous system, your posture, your breathing patterns.

You are not choosing to take sides. Your body is already contracted around positions installed by years of conditioning.

State-change happens in seconds:

Here’s what changes everything: this shift can happen immediately with practice, not after years of effort.

When irritation arises, pause. Rate the intensity: “This is a 7 out of 10.”

Simply naming the intensity creates gap. Now ask: “Can I choose to experience this as a 5?”

Shift your attention deliberately. Relax your jaw. Drop your shoulders. Breathe deeply into your chest.

Check again. Often the intensity has dropped through the conscious redirection of attention.

Try it now with something minor. Think of a small irritation from today. Rate it. Choose to experience it two points lower. Notice what shifts.

This is practical impartiality training. State-change through attention control.

Freedom through choice:

Partiality limits you to fixed responses. Impartiality opens freedom of choice.

Someone greets you on the street. What are your options?

The mechanical response: “Hello.” Automatic, scripted, no choice involved.

Impartiality reveals multiple responses: say hello, remain silent, or invent something new. “Good morning, friend.” “Lovely day.” Complete silence with a smile.

Impartiality means flexibility. You can play any role required (serious, humorous, quiet, direct) without being trapped by preference. This flexibility brings spontaneity and lightness instead of being bound to mechanical scripts.

This freedom of response is the hallmark of impartiality. Life becomes possibility rather than reaction.

True impartiality always leaves space for choice. Mechanical reaction closes that space.

Anger arises. Under partiality, you become the anger. There is no choice.

With impartiality, anger is felt but held within awareness. Multiple responses open: express it cleanly, hold it in silence, transform it through understanding, or allow it to pass without action.

A real-world sign of this shift can be seen in how others perceive you. When impartiality is present, people often say: “You’re unpredictable — but in a good way.” You no longer follow programs or try to be right. Your focus turns outward, responding to the moment and to others, getting it right.

Section 3: Scale-Shifting – Dissolving the Middle Zone

Here’s something that transforms how you see conflict.

Imagine arguing with someone about which wall should be painted blue. The disagreement feels significant. Positions seem incompatible.

Now zoom out. See the room from above. Two people arguing about paint colour in one building.

Zoom further. Street view. The argument is invisible. One lit window among thousands.

Keep going. City from above. The building disappears.

Higher still. Country from space. Cities become clusters of brightness.

Further. Earth becomes a blue marble. Every human disagreement, every position defended, all contained on one small sphere.

At narrow scale, where ego operates, differences become absolute. But widen the view and something remarkable happens. The differences that seemed crucial reveal themselves as variations on the same themes.

Everyone arguing about politics wants safety and fairness. They disagree on methods.

Everyone fighting about parenting wants children to thrive. They have different theories.

Everyone taking spiritual positions wants truth and freedom. They follow different maps.

This isn’t relativism. Real differences exist. But most disagreement is actually different perspectives on shared values, amplified by narrow perception.

Try this now:

Think of your strongest political opinion. Feel the certainty.

Now zoom out. See your country from space. All the fierce debates happening on one small portion of one planet.

How significant does your position appear now?

Zoom back in. Your opinion is still there. But something has loosened. The desperate need to be right has softened.

When you can shift scale at will, partiality and fragmentation loses its grip.

Section 4: Non-Affectedness and Oscillations

Listen carefully to this formulation. It cuts to the core.

When we are affected, we do not exist. Only what affects us exists.

When something, politics, criticism, success, or failure, affects you to the point of identification, what you call “you” disappears. Only the affecting force remains. Consciousness has collapsed into content.

The news triggers rage. In that moment, there’s no “you.” Only rage responding to news.

A football match ends with your team losing. If devastation follows, where are you? Gone. Replaced entirely by the result of a game.

Impartiality means regaining existence. Remaining present whilst storms pass through. External events lose their power to dictate inner being. We become able to withstand pressures from outside, whilst maintain our sense of self and consistency.

Withdrawal means disconnection. Impartiality means freedom whilst remaining engaged.

Consider the football fan who discovers impartiality. The game remains engaging, even thrilling. But wins and losses no longer capture essential being. The fan can enjoy the match fully without suffering the outcome.

The whole spectrum:

Impartiality recognises the whole range of outcomes, not just the preferred one.

Most people oscillate between fantasy and catastrophe. “Either I’ll succeed brilliantly or fail completely.” This enslaves you to outcomes.

Real impartiality sees the whole spectrum. Best case, worst case, everything in between. All acceptable. All workable. None requiring your essential being to fragment.

Freedom comes from seeing all possibilities without attachment. Then nothing can disappoint or enslave you.

Oscillations—seeing the whole rhythm:

Life swings between extremes. Major and minor oscillations. Destruction and healing. Growth and decay.

Impartiality sees the whole cycle, not one side as “good” and the other “bad.”

A forest fire destroys but also seeds new life. Certain species require fire to germinate. What appears as disaster serves larger patterns invisible at narrow scale.

Personal crisis shatters comfortable illusions but opens genuine development. The breakdown you resist might be the breakthrough you need.

Impartiality doesn’t prefer the pleasant oscillation over the painful one. It sees both as lawful movements within one whole.

Recurrence and letting go:

Life repeats events. Setbacks, challenges, disasters recur. Impartiality means recognising these as recurring patterns, not personal attacks.

Your car breaks down again. Your relationship hits the same conflict. Work presents familiar frustrations.

The partial response: “Why does this keep happening to me?” Impartiality sees: “This pattern recurs. What does it reveal?”

Peace comes from: “I cannot do.”

From that surrender, right action arises. Action that serves what’s actually needed rather than action driven by the illusion of control.

Section 5: Nothingness and the Mirror

Nothingness is the root of impartiality. Only when one is nothing can one be impartial.

Being “something”(invested, opinionated, identified) makes one partial. Being nothing leaves space for the higher to enter.

As long as you believe you’re “someone spiritual,” partial. As long as you believe you’re “someone who knows,” partial. As long as any identity claims consciousness, partiality operates.

King Solomon’s judgment illustrates this perfectly. Two women claim the same baby. Solomon offers to cut the baby in half.

He doesn’t decide from knowledge, from fairness principles, from legal precedent. He stands in nothing. From that emptiness, impartial wisdom arises. The real mother reveals herself immediately.

“I cannot do”:

A deep recognition arrives: man cannot do.

We lose impartiality whenever we still think we can control or change life. The illusion of doing maintains partiality.

True impartiality is remembering: you cannot do, only be and allow.

This doesn’t mean passivity. Actions still happen. Sometimes vigorous, sometimes gentle. But they arise from clarity about what’s needed rather than from “someone” trying to make things happen.

The mirror principle:

What is judged in others is a reflection of what exists within oneself.

Think of someone you judge harshly. Someone whose behaviour irritates you. Feel the judgment clearly.

Now ask: where does this quality exist in me?

Perhaps not in the same form. Perhaps subtly, perhaps hidden. But the judgment only activates because something within recognises itself.

The irritating colleague who interrupts constantly—you recognise your own subtle ways of not listening fully.

The arrogant person who thinks they know everything—you see your own investment in appearing knowledgeable.

Recognition doesn’t mean you become what you see. It means you stop defending against it. The judgment dissolves into understanding.

Sensitive neutrality:

Real impartiality balances inner freedom with outer consideration. Acting without self-interest, but with awareness of others’ needs.

Sensitive neutrality balances inner nothingness with outward consideration.

Example: refraining from criticism when it serves no purpose. Offering help without judgment. Knowing when silence is better than speaking.

Someone shares their political views passionately. They’re clearly identified with their position. The partial response might be to correct them, to argue, to prove them wrong.

Sensitive neutrality sees: this person needs to be heard, not converted. Impartiality listens without agreeing or disagreeing. Presence without position.

Section 6: Suggestibility and Verification

Impartiality resists being swayed by propaganda, blind belief, or mechanical reaction.

Suggestibility is human. We’re all subject to influence. But impartiality uses reason and verification to cut through manipulation or unfounded claims.

Impartiality demands personal verification and replication, not adopting ideas on authority alone.

The distinction that matters:

Impartiality distinguishes truth grounded in verifiable structure—mathematics, harmonies, replication—from mere belief or speculation.

Example: cosmic laws as taught in Fourth Way have mathematical support. The Ray of Creation follows precise ratios. Octaves demonstrate in music, physics, chemistry. These can be verified.

Contrast this with arbitrary belief systems that demand faith without verification. “Believe this because I say so.” “Trust this teaching because the teacher is enlightened.”

Impartiality asks: can this be tested? Can this be replicated? Does this align with observable structure?

The periodic table of elements demonstrates objective structure. Anyone, anywhere, can verify its patterns. Chemistry doesn’t require belief.

Ricky Gervais, a British actor and comedian, put this very well: if you took every holy book every written and hid or destroyed them, then took every Science book every written and hid or destroyed them, in a thousand years time those Science books would be back exactly the same, because the tests would always turn out the same…

Similarly, the octave structure appears everywhere,in music (do-re-mi), in light (spectrum), in development stages. This isn’t belief. It’s observable pattern.

Trust in structure over belief:

Impartiality means trusting what aligns with verified structure rather than clinging to subjective belief.

This doesn’t mean rejecting intuition or direct experience. It means distinguishing between what can be verified externally and what remains purely subjective.

Someone claims “all religions teach the same truth.” Impartial examination reveals significant structural differences. The claim doesn’t survive verification.

Someone demonstrates an octave pattern in three different domains. Impartial examination sees the pattern holds. This invites trust because it’s verifiable.

Section 7: External Consideration and Speech

Let’s look at Gurdjieff’s aphorism: The chief means of happiness in this life is the ability to consider externally always, internally never.

Notice the word ability.

This isn’t about doing it perfectly. It’s about developing the capacity itself. Only when self-importance is at zero—when you’ve become nothing, making the other a one whilst you remain zero—can this ability emerge. That’s impartiality.

Internal consideration exhausts. “What do they think of me? Did I sound foolish? Do they respect me?” All attention on self. Constant monitoring of how you’re perceived.

External consideration restores energy. “What do they need? What serves this situation? How can I be useful without agenda?” Attention moves outward. Simply considers what’s needed and responds.

Practical expression:

Small acts reveal this capacity. Greeting someone by name. Holding the door. Smiling at the person serving you.

These cost nothing but bypass self-importance entirely. They’re not techniques to become “nicer.” They’re natural expressions when self-importance is at zero.

A simple “thank you” spoken with genuine attention can shift someone’s entire day.

Conversely, reacting with contempt, mocking someone’s views, asserting superiority—these come from internal consideration. From the need to prove self-importance rather than serve what’s needed.

Speech, silence, and ego:

A key obstacle to impartiality is the urge to assert ego through speech. Always seeking to affirm one’s views or experiences.

Watch yourself in conversation. How often do you wait for the other person to finish just so you can share your story? How often does “that reminds me of when I…” interrupt genuine listening?

Training in silence and refraining from asserting self builds the ability for external consideration.

Sometimes the impartial response is silence. When someone is identified with a position, arguing only reinforces their identification. They defend more strongly. The position hardens.

Impartiality sees this and chooses silence. Or changes the subject. Or asks a question that invites reflection rather than defence.

There is a DOGTale by Russell A. Smith that says: “You may not be able to make another man conscious but you can at least try not to contribute to his sleep.”

Modern society pressures people into binary positions. Pro or anti. Left or right. For or against.

Impartiality resists this trap by holding silence, seeing both perspectives as fragments of the whole, or refusing to be captured by either side.

Section 8: The Three Centres and Inherited Positions

Impartiality cannot exist in one centre alone.

Your body can relax whilst your emotions rage. Your emotions can soften whilst your thoughts obsess. Your thoughts can quiet whilst your body remains contracted.

True impartiality requires all three centres working together.

Watch yourself when someone criticises you:

Your body tenses immediately. Shoulders rise, jaw clenches, chest armours.

Your emotions surge. Hurt, anger, shame, the urge to strike back or withdraw.

Your thoughts race to justify, explain, counterattack.

Three centres, three separate reactions, all taking sides independently.

This fragmentation creates what appears to be conviction but functions as partiality.

Bring them into alignment:

Think of recent criticism you received. Let the memory arise.

First, feel your instinctive centre’s response. Where does your body want to tighten? Don’t change it, just notice.

Second, feel your emotional centre’s response. What wants to surge? Let it be there without acting on it.

Third, notice your intellectual centre’s response. What story does it want to tell? Observe without believing.

Now align them:

The instinctive centre remains open. The body doesn’t contract around threat.

The emotional centre remains stable. Feelings arise but don’t demand immediate action.

The intellectual centre observes clearly. It sees without immediately defending or dismissing.

When all three centres align in impartial seeing, something extraordinary occurs. The body relaxes even whilst feeling deeply. Emotions flow without demanding change. Thoughts clarify without needing to be right.

Gurdjieff taught that real self-observation rests on three conditions: impartial seeing, direct observation in the moment itself, and sincerity. A genuine wish to see the truth regardless of how it appears.

What you defend you never chose:

Most of what you call “your views” were installed in you by others.

You didn’t choose to speak English. You absorbed it.

You didn’t choose your early political views. They were programmed at family dinner tables before you could think independently.

Yet now you defend these positions with your life.

Pick any topic you have strong opinions about. As you think about it, scan your body. Where is the tightness? Where is the holding?

That tension is partiality made flesh. The body defending territory that was marked by others.

True impartiality doesn’t start with changing your mind. It starts with releasing the body’s grip on inherited positions.

Section 9: Individual Collision and the Observer

Gurdjieff spoke of “individual collision,” the friction between what you believe yourself to be and what you actually are.

This collision awakens genuine conscience.

Most people avoid this collision. They maintain comfortable self-images through selective attention. “I’m a good person.” “I’m spiritual.” “I’m honest.”

Then life presents a mirror. You discover you’re capable of pettiness. Of selfishness. Of dishonesty in service of comfort.

The collision arrives. The self-image cracks.

Mechanical suffering follows: justification, denial, projection.

Conscious suffering is different. It holds the collision without resolving it through mental gymnastics.

“I believed myself incapable of this. Yet here I am, clearly capable. Both are true simultaneously.”

This holding, this refusal to discharge tension through reaction, builds capacity.

Try this:

Think of something irritating from your day. Traffic, a colleague’s behaviour, technology failing.

Feel the irritation. Don’t suppress it. Simply feel it fully.

Now, instead of obeying the irritation, simply hold it. Notice the urge to react, complain, fix, avoid. Don’t judge the urge. Don’t obey it either.

Just hold the tension of wanting to react without reacting.

This holding is conscious suffering. It feels uncomfortable because your system is trained to discharge tension immediately. But something is being built. A capacity to remain present under pressure.

This is how impartiality develops practically. Through thousands of small moments of conscious suffering that build the muscle of presence.

When the observer dissolves:

Everything we’ve discussed assumes there’s still someone being impartial. Still a self choosing to see without bias.

But the deepest impartiality transcends even this.

Think of a moment when you were completely absorbed. A sunset that captured you entirely. Music that dissolved the sense of separate listener.

In those moments, was there someone being impartial? Or did impartiality simply remain when the one who takes sides temporarily vanished?

You are not apart from others. You are not apart from life. You are not apart from what is seeing through your eyes right now.

When this is seen directly, impartiality becomes effortless. There’s no one left to take sides. No separate self to have preferences. Just wholeness, meeting itself in every moment.

Feel this now:

Stop trying to be impartial. Stop trying to see clearly.

Just be here. Breathing. Aware. Present.

Notice how life continues perfectly without someone managing it. Your heart beats. Your lungs breathe. Awareness knows what’s happening without effort.

This awareness that requires no management, no improvement, no taking of sides—this is what you actually are.

The impartial seeing you’ve been cultivating through practice isn’t something you achieve. It’s naturally what remains when the one who takes sides stops operating.

Section 10: Integration Practices

The Scale Practice (Immediate—as needed)

When strong reaction arises, pause. Rate the intensity: “This is an 8 out of 10.”

Simply naming creates gap. Now choose to experience it as a 6, then a 4.

Shift attention deliberately. Relax jaw, drop shoulders, breathe.

Check again. This trains immediate state-change through conscious attention.

Body Check (3 times daily)

Pause. Scan your body. Where are you taking sides right now?

Shoulders raised? Jaw clenched? Chest tight? These are signals of partiality.

Simply notice. Seeing itself begins the loosening.

Role-Playing (Weekly)

Once weekly, deliberately shift your physical presence. Walk like someone who just won the lottery for ten minutes. Notice how posture shapes state. This reveals the falseness of fixed identity.

Evening Reflection (5 minutes)

Review one moment from the day when partiality operated.

Where did the body contract? What did the emotions demand? What position did the mind defend?

Each moment of clear seeing weakens the automatic machinery of taking sides.

The Three-Day Impartial Fast

For three full days, fast from defending any position.

When someone expresses a view you disagree with, notice the urge to correct them. Don’t act on it. Don’t suppress it. Just observe the urge arising without feeding it.

When you catch yourself defending a position, pause and ask: “Who benefits if I’m right about this? What am I protecting?”

Verification:

You’ll know the fasting is working when disagreement no longer creates tension in your body. When someone’s opposing view becomes interesting rather than threatening.

Every time you refrain from taking sides, something higher has space to appear. That is the taste of impartiality. That is the beginning of freedom.

Conclusion: The Foundation

Impartiality doesn’t occupy a middle ground between extremes. It includes all extremes without being captured by any.

It is the foundation of clear perception, the ground of genuine wisdom.

This quality prepares the ground for next week: “I Am Martfotai,” whole, neutral, present.

Martfotai consciousness cannot be embodied whilst still caught in fundamental partiality.

Key recognitions:

Impartiality is existence. Without it, you are only your opinions.

Impartiality is not indifference. It is freedom to choose, beyond bias.

Nothingness enables impartiality. Being “something” makes you partial.

“I cannot do” is the doorway. Impartiality arises when you surrender control.

When we are affected, we do not exist. Only what affects us exists. Impartiality restores existence.

State-change happens in seconds with practice, not years.

The ultimate goal, as Gurdjieff taught, is to transcend the mechanical, reactive existence of ordinary life and achieve a unified, conscious being through disciplined effort. Impartiality is the foundation. Without it, genuine development cannot occur.

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

Thank you for this exploration.

Watch where you remain caught in parts. Where you take sides against yourself or others.

This is Martfotai. I’m Gary Eggleton.

Impartiality is existence. To live impartially is to live freely.