With our usual ideas of life gained through contact with the senses we cannot undergo the transformation or new birth that the Work indicates. New ways of thinking are necessary and the Work gives them to us, but the trouble is that we do not think with them. We just put them down in notebooks.

The idea that Personality has to be made passive throughout life, and little by little, before inner development can reach any perfection, is one of the Great Ideas taught by the Work. Now unless your mind catches some of the Great Ideas of the Work you will not ever really comprehend what it is all about.

The first object of the Work is to make you think in a new way—to change your mind. As I said recently, you cannot do this if you persist in thinking about the Work from life—that is, with your outer mind. You must begin by thinking about life from the Work.

To do a thing willingly from a delight in doing it, will effect a change in you. And when you begin to take up your own "cross"—that is, the burden of some difficult thing in yourself that you have at last come to observe—and do it in such a spirit, then you will get results.

To work on oneself from the conviction of sin puts the Work into negative parts of centers, and to work in a negative way can lead to a worse state of oneself than not to work at all. Some tend to take the Work in this heavy way. But no one can fathom the delight people take in making themselves miserable and in enjoying their negative states.

It is only through some kind of delight, some feeling of joy or pleasure or some genuine affection or desire, that you can work and bring about any change of being in yourself. Fear, for example, will not act in this way.

All Work knowledge is to make you know in a different way. Some of you try to keep this Work alive in the present circumstances; others make not the slightest endeavor to do so. In fact, some of you think that the Work should be fed to you without your doing anything to earn it. This Work is about a new way of knowing because it is a new knowledge and you must all pay for it by effort.

Your aim then must be to work against the predominance of one center in you, which causes you to be lop-sided and prevents the other centers from developing. But if you have understood what has been said so far, you will see that in such a case it is only by seeing yourself and estimating your inner state in the light of the Work that you will become dissatisfied with yourself. Viewing yourself from life, there is no reason why you should attempt to be different from what you are.

To become No. 5 or 6 or 7 Man or Woman, you must first become No. 4 Man or Woman—that is, Balanced Man or Woman, one in whom all your centers work rightly—Intellectual, Emotional, Instinctive-Moving. Now to become balanced you must begin to notice what center in you predominates and interferes with the proper development of your other centers.

Start with one single thing that you have noticed and begin to watch it and try to work against it. But start with something you have no doubt about. Start with something clear and distinct and try for a time to observe it and not consent to it internally. Once you start, the way opens out.

"Can you give me examples of what personal aim means?" On the side of knowledge, personal aim means to become familiar with the ideas of the Work. On the side of Being, personal aim means to observe yourself in the light of the knowledge of the Work and apply it to yourself.

All personal aim on a small scale is a means, not an end. It is to make you think and awaken, to keep you awake. Aim is on different scales. Aim on a great scale is to be awakened from sleep, to attain inner liberation. But to say that this is one's aim is not enough.

It is really a tragedy to see a person in the Work, who really feels and wants the Work, quite incapable of realizing different 'I's in himself or herself.

And for you who awakens even to one single thing that the work teaches it means that you are no longer the same person. In this way the work changes us. But the work cannot change anyone unless its meaning is felt. You can feel the meaning of the work through another at first, but the time comes when you must feel it through yourself.

When people say to me that they do not know what to observe in themselves, one answer is: "Can you observe your negative states? Can you observe that you are negative?" Remember, as I said, if you are negative it is always your fault. Self-justifying has such sway over us however that it takes us years before we can realize what this means.

The Work begins by teaching you very earnestly that there are many 'I's in yourself. Unless you can bear to realize this, you cannot do this Work beyond a certain point. You cannot separate from yourself and if this is the case you cannot really grasp the Work. Everything will remain personal. You will be offended.

Now you must understand, all of you, that this doctrine of 'I's does not relieve you of all responsibility. Only a fool can imagine that. To reject 'I's or to select 'I's is a very real thing. To go with wrong 'I's must give you real pain, real suffering. This is useful suffering.

Suppose, for example, that you hear many times that you must observe your different 'I's and try not to identify with some of them? Well, of course, you can hear this day after day, and year after year, and say that you know all about that, and why is nothing else said. However, you have heard that the Work tells you here to practice a certain definite thing on yourself—now, at this moment—yes, at this very moment.

You remember the parable about catching hold of the rope. If you find this rope in your own way, which everyone in this Work must do, then you will be held by something quite distinct from life and its vicissitudes. This is really called having a point in the Work. Other people may fail you, disappoint you, and so on. Outer life may assume very unpleasant forms. Yet you are held by something beyond life— that is, by a new force.

Have you reached this stage distinctly, so that you constantly realize that there is an active side in you that will keep on taking charge of you at every moment and a passive side that can only look on and be conscious that this is so, and is quite helpless in the face of this active side?