Inner Stop: Standing Motionless in the Mind

In the practice of Inner Stop, you stand motionless in your mind. Thoughts pass you, speak to you, ask you what you are up to and so on, but you pay no attention to them. You will see at once that Inner Stop is connected with a form of Self-Remembering.

The Inner Stop exercise is not the same as trying to stop your thoughts. Try to stop your thoughts; you will admit it cannot be done. But to stand motionless in your mind is another matter. You can stand internally motionless in the mind, just as your body can externally stand motionless in the world… You are then remembering yourself.

Maurice Nicoll, “Outer and Inner Stop" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 5, p. 1518)