Letting the Work In

The Work seeks to make a new arrangement in our minds and it can only do so when it is allowed to enter a person's mind. Nothing will enter anybody's mind unless they feel an affection for it, a desire for it. And this means in so many words that unless one has 'I's in oneself that wish to work, 'I's that have always felt there is something else, 'I's that can hear the Work, not merely through the ears, but through the mind and understanding—unless such 'I's exist, the Work can never enter, but if it does enter then it becomes a matter of choice.

One can always go with bad 'I's and even spend one's whole life in the company of such 'I's, or one can choose by very slow and gradual insight to notice bad 'I's and to prefer not to surrender to their power. It is in this feeling of choice, of preferring better 'I's, that Self-Remembering begins. One experiences the fact that by a curious kind of mental act, or if you prefer, an act of the will, it is possible to separate oneself from the immense morass of negative 'I's and, as it were, stand upright. This is a lifting of oneself above oneself, but, as was said, this is impossible unless one knows for certain that there are better states and worse states of oneself.

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