When Being Becomes a Problem

The object of this Work is to awaken the Emotional Center which is the seat of the Will but that this is not possible unless the intellectual part of us awakens first. What does it mean that the Intellectual Center must awaken in this Work? It means to begin with that we no longer take the Work as something on the blackboard that we have to memorize. The next stage is that the mind begins to see the truth of the ideas of the Work.

When you begin to see the truth of this Work after years of personal work you pass into a difficult stage of it because the state of your Being does not yet become affected by the truth of the knowledge taught you by the Work that you see now through Intellectual Center. It might be said that this is really the first stage of the Work because then your Being becomes a real problem and the observation of your Being becomes a matter of real practical concern to you .

When you begin to see the truth of this Work for yourself, without the help of others, you begin to have your own source of work in yourself. It grows on you.

Maurice Nicoll, “On Keeping the Work Alive in Yourself" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 3, p. 842)