Not Told—But Seen: The Necessity of Inner Understanding

The Work acts on Being according to our understanding of it—our level. Nothing can take the place of understanding. Being told is not the same as seeing.

Here are some very deep formulations about wrong aim and will. Will made from False Personality, however, is interesting to study. It fails, of course, but that does not mean it is necessarily wholly wrong. But it has no soil, no depth. As an aim descends in depth it changes. It becomes more essential. It becomes an aim without words—a wordless thing—a direction one seeks to go in, rather than a phrase. Yet it must start with some kind of phrase, some sort of word-command, some formulation.

Maurice Nicoll, “Commentary on Will" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 2, p. 481)