Worrying: The Wrong Work of Centers

Worrying is the wrong work of centers. It is always useless. It is a form of inner considering—i.e. of identifying. It is a continual mixing up of negative imagination with a few facts and so makes only wrong connections in centers.

It is a sort of lying, among the many other kinds of lying that go on in us and mess up the centers. It is always easy to worry, as it gives a relief and is, as it were, a form of justifying oneself. It is close to self-pity and violence. Worrying is not thinking. The mind is driven by the worry, by the emotional state, and is obscured.

Attention to anything always helps, for directed attention puts us into more conscious parts of centres. Worrying is not thinking of others. It is not external considering. It is mixed up with oneself and this takes a long time to observe distinctly.

Maurice Nicoll, “Psychological Talk" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 137)