The Food of Impressions in the Work

You must understand that from the Work point of view the food of impressions is the most important food of all. Ordinarily people can live with ordinary food and air and very few impressions, but if you begin to work on yourself you must think a great deal about what it means to take in more impressions. One way to take in more impressions is to try to look at things without associations. This is a very interesting method. Another way is to see everything happening in life in the light of the Work—that is, to bring the Work up to the place of incoming impressions.

But you must remember that everything tends to become mechanical. In consequence, if you can find a way of taking in impressions more fully, you must not expect it to continue to give results. One has to be clever.

Maurice Nicoll, “On Taking Impressions in a New Way" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 2, p. 574-5)