The Illusion of Life-Doing

This urgent illusory doing-impulse has to be overcome in the Work completely. It is a life-impulse, it is a life-thought, a life-feeling, and the paradox is that in life we always have a feeling that we can do and yet from the Work-point of view we are really doing nothing because all the time our level of Being is making us act mechanically in every situation and this we call doing.

For this reason the Work speaks about realizing our mechanicalness as one of the first steps towards greater Being.

Maurice Nicoll, “Commentary on One’s Level of Being" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 3, p. 846)