Chief feature: explanation
Real work, serious work, begins only from feature.
Mr. Ouspensky
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Chief Feature or Chief Weakness
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Chief feature—also called chief weakness—refers to the idea that each person has a primary psychological tendency which is mechanically inborn and which becomes the basis of their personality. As Mr. Ouspensky explains, chief feature is the axle around which false personality revolves. Another way to say this in Fourth Way terms is that imaginary ‘I’ is rooted in chief feature.
Mr. Ouspensky also explains that all of a person’s subjectively important perceptions, reactions, and decisions pass through chief feature and are governed by it. Chief feature is behind most attitudes about oneself, other people, and the world in general. It is also a harbor for self-justification.
The purpose of knowing about chief feature in oneself is to be able to distinguish it from consciousness. In this sense, chief feature represents artificial, subjective identity whereas consciousness is a person’s real, objective self. The first happens. The second must be nurtured and developed.
Chief feature usually corresponds to body type. For example, the lunar type is prone to the feature of willfulness, the saturnine type is prone to the feature of dominance, and the jovial type is prone to the feature of greed. Each type, however, regards its chief feature not as a limitation, but as a unique trait, a strength, a show of character.
Psychologically, people feel most comfortable in conditions conducive to their chief feature. For this reason, each feature seeks our certain circumstances and avoids others. The willful nature of the lunar type, for instance, is uncomfortable with being told what to do and therefore prefers to work independently. That way, it avoids the conflict of being told what to do. Venusian types, on the other hand, are prone to the feature of non-existence, which is characterized by a tendency to be indecisive and to rely on other people. Contrary to willfulness, non-existence prefers to be told what to do and is uncomfortable having to initiate a decision or take action on its own.
A large aspect of being asleep is that chief feature cannot see itself as such. It genuinely concludes that the feeling of ‘I’ which develops around it is consciousness.
The environment of a school is especially designed to show people the nature and extent of chief feature in themselves, while also enabling them to gradually surmount chief feature through right efforts on consciousness.
In psychological terms, ‘escaping’ means consciousness transcending the hold of imaginary ‘I’ in chief feature and coming into being on its own, separately.
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