The Strange Idea of Changing Without Changing

To change, one must change. No one can change and also remain the same. To change one must leave, let go of, give up, what one was before. Yet we imagine we can take in new ideas and think in a new way and yet remain as we were formerly—a very strange view.

"You cannot attach the Work on to yourself as you are," said Mr. Ouspensky. "You must let the ideas of the Work change your thinking. To think that all you have to do is to remain mentally as before and merely attach this Work on to your previous ways of thinking as something extra is simply not to understand what this Work is about."

Maurice Nicoll, “On Consciousness" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 3, p. 1163)