The Rope from Above

Unless you begin to realize your own nothingness, you cannot do this Work. You will not jump to catch the rope let down from above to save you. But all this takes time: and we must take the Work, stage by stage, in our gradual understanding of it…

To be offended is extremely easy. It is a mechanical reaction. Not to be offended, or to transform being offended, is difficult. It requires conscious effort. It requires a lot of thought, a lot of inner adjustment, a lot of remembering what one is like oneself, and so on, to transform the first impact of being offended. But that is real work on oneself.

Maurice Nicoll, "Internal Considering and External Considering VI” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 270)