Knowing Less, Seeing More

Remember that we see one another by our associations, once we become "familiar", as it is called, with each other. What we do not understand is that seeing a person by one's own associations with him or her has nothing to do with what the person really is. Try to see another person without associations.

That is the beginning of something new. And it so often happens that people have got quite wrong associations with others and never even catch a real glimpse of them. I personally have found in this Work that I "know" others less and less. Certainly I would never say: "I know this person—I have known this person all my life." That is exactly saying, in so many words, that you know nothing save your few associations with the person.

Maurice Nicoll, "Internal Considering and External Considering XII: On Being Passive” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 296)