Surrounded by the Horde

It is not a question of theoretically believing there is something higher, but of the actual perception of it in oneself, for the subject of this Work is this strange and complex thing called oneself. One can often observe a regular horde of unpleasant mean little 'I's that surround one and wish to drag one down to their level, to their way of taking everything.

And the act of transformation consists in being aware of this and not identifying because one knows, because one can remember, that there are quite different ways of taking things, even if for the time being one cannot get into those 'I's that know better.

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