Meeting the No-Side of Yourself

Now in the Fourth Way we are none of us protected lambs, spoon-fed children, and we have to undergo all the temptations of Yes or No individually in connection with esoteric teaching and all the ideas behind it, otherwise we have no real point in the Work.

It is sometimes said in the Work that you have to reach the stage in which you can be turned and twisted in every direction and yet you always eventually right yourself and point in the direction of the Work. Do you think this is possible unless you have met the No-side of yourself individually? One thing I am sure of, if you have simply said Yes to the Work without thinking about it, you will be overwhelmed by such a manifestation of No as I have indicated.

Maurice Nicoll, “The Work-Idea of Yes and No" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 2, p. 676)