Useful Suffering

A man, a woman, in this Work, must learn by self-observation that what they seem to be, what they pretend to be outwardly, is not what they are internally. Realizing this, they begin to suffer from the sense of contradiction. This is useful suffering. The outer and inner must conform eventually and become one—a unity.

You asleep take yourself for granted as a unity. When you begin to observe yourself, you realize you are two in the broadest sense—that is, what you pretend to be and what you are. Then you must eventually become a unity. Then outer and inner are the same. This is the first step.

Maurice Nicoll, “Positive Ideas in the Work" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 3, p. 989)