Evaluation and the Awakening of the Emotional Center

The Work says very many things about evaluation. For example, it says that the octave of inner development, and so change of level of one's Being, begins with the Note Do, which is termed "Evaluation of the Work". The Note Re is application of the ideas to oneself. The Note Mi is realization of personal difficulties. The Work also says that its ultimate aim is to awaken the Emotional Center.

We can understand without great difficulty that evaluation is, at its root, emotional. To evaluate is to feel that something is important, valuable. To think a thing is valuable is quite different from feeling a thing is valuable. Theoretically, many things may be valuable, but they are not valuable to you unless you feel their value. To find this Work, to sit and hear it, even to know a little about it, does not mean that you value it. In that case, the Work cannot act on you. You do not swallow it. So it is not in you.

Maurice Nicoll, “Evaluation” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 3, p. 1224)