Without Understanding, the Work Becomes Mere Words

As the Work is received with the understanding, it moves inwards in centers so that its truths are seen internally as truths. So does your attitude to the Work enlarge itself and you receive more force from your attitude. A small and narrow attitude to the Work can give only a superficial relation to it. The strength behind the Work from its foundations cannot communicate itself through small and exacting 'I's. Your own state of Being holds you up. Negative 'I's stand in the way.

But what especially holds many of you back is that you do not see the truth of what the Work teaches for yourself. The understanding is that which can see the truth. It is interior sight. It does not require confirmation from others. You merely see that a thing is so. This is understanding, the strongest force that one can develop.

Maurice Nicoll, "Observation of Attitude to the Work" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 5, p. 1738)