The Illusion of Being One

Why do we think that things should always go right and why are we upset when they do not go in this way? Why is it we never remember about Second Force? The reason is that only 'I's that are in the Work can remember such things and that there lives in us a vast crowd of 'I's that have never heard of the Work and simply take things in their own way. It may sound very strange that we have in us crowds of 'I's that have never heard of the Work.

It sounds strange because we will keep taking ourselves as one and find the greatest difficulty in moving away from the power of this illusion and catching a glimpse of our multiplicity of being. Even such a glimpse is called in the Work a moment of Self-Remembering. It is called a moment of Self-Remembering because it is a moment of realizing one's mechanicalness. To realize emotionally one's mechanicalness is called a moment of Self-Remembering, whereas to be identified with one's mechanicalness, to be identified with every 'I' that takes charge, is called a state of sleep.

Maurice Nicoll, “Self-Remembering" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 2, p. 603)