The Law of Three in Action: Seeing Beyond the Opposition

To be conscious in First Force is to know what one wants; to be conscious in Second Force is to know what difficulties stand in the way; and to be conscious in Third Force at the same time is to be conscious of how what one wants and what opposes it can eventually reach some solution. Each Force modifies the other and indeed so much so that in the final solution the result is never like what you set out to attain—i.e. it is never like the Active Force with which you started.

Nor, on the other hand, are the difficulties the same as you first were able to see them before the necessary Third Force or Neutralizing Force entered into the conscious sphere of experience and adjusted the relations of the First and Second Forces so as to make some manifestation possible.

Maurice Nicoll, “A Further Note on Personal Work: On Seeing Second Force in Oneself" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 2, p. 527)