You remember the parable about catching hold of the rope. If you find this rope in your own way, which everyone in this Work must do, then you will be held by something quite distinct from life and its vicissitudes. This is really called having a point in the Work. Other people may fail you, disappoint you, and so on. Outer life may assume very unpleasant forms. Yet you are held by something beyond life— that is, by a new force.

If you work on yourself in the presence of the Work—that is, in correspondence with the ideas of the Work—your efforts on yourself will be aided by the ideas of the Work in your mind. The ideas of the Work conduct very great force when they are taken in and become part of your inner thinking.

Suppose you have noticed that you are thinking of a person in a certain way, quite mechanically, as you always do, and these thoughts give you no force. Suppose even that you have become sufficiently sensitive to your inner life to realize that you are really losing force by thinking of this very person in this usual way.

When you begin to get force from the Work through your evaluation of it you must remember that it requires care. You may for days be unable to make proper effort, yet, as it was said, you know you are in some intermediary state. If you notice—if you have gone far enough—you are being tempted.

Not realizing that some center or part of a centrer can have force, we tend to feel exhausted when we need not be exhausted, the reason being that we live in a kind of rigid pattern of life and always do the same thing over and over again—that is, we live in very small parts. At that time Mr. Ouspensky was talking a great deal about thinking differently.

If you object to everything you will internally consider all day. You will make internal accounts against everyone. But if you will the existence of someone you object to, everything will change—miraculously. If you will what happens to you, you will gain force. If you object to what happens to you, you will lose force. This Work is about how to gain force.

Unless you have an aim, to make force by working against some mechanical or habitual side of yourself is not enough. One must work on oneself, deny oneself, so that the force goes into one's aim.