The Work as Compass and Map

And for you who awakens even to one single thing that the work teaches it means that you are no longer the same person. In this way the work changes us. But the work cannot change anyone unless its meaning is felt. You can feel the meaning of the work through another at first, but the time comes when you must feel it through yourself.

And then every detail of the work becomes alive to you because you see it as a book of instruction, as a plan, as a map, and as a compass, that must be followed if you wish to awaken to another life and another way of living on this earth. Take quite simply this one single instruction: do not identify. Follow this instruction. Follow it to the end and see what happens and what changes take place in you and what light begins to reach you.

Maurice Nicoll, “On A, B and C Influences" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 36)