Breaking the Inner Prison: Seeing the Other Side

Try sometimes to see the opposite point of view to that which you hold. If the opposite is genuinely and with effort included in consciousness the sphere of consciousness is greatly increased and a number of unpleasant features in us disappear. Our one-sidedness, which causes our over-sensitive reactions and also our totally wrong ways of self-valuation, is replaced by a broader, fuller consciousness.

We can no longer insist we are right nor be cast down when proved to be wrong. We find it more difficult to be petty. In fact, we begin to escape from the prison of ourselves whose bars and gates result from our one-sidedness.

Maurice Nicoll, “Increasing Consciousness of Oneself" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 5, p. 1521)