True External Considering: Working on Oneself, Not the Other
It will be very easy for your attempts at external considering to turn into an increased form of internal considering. You must calculate second force—that is, the difficulties.
The More We See Ourselves, the Less We Judge
As long as you externally consider another person with a view to trying to change him or her—that is, as long as you think the other person should be different—you are not externally considering, but internally considering. The basis of internal considering is thinking that others should be different, and from this comes "making accounts" against others…
Stop Objecting, Start Willing: The Work of Inner Transformation
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.
The Inner Murmur: How Complaint Undermines Inner Work
Now, if I will to do what I have to do, I will not make inner accounts against others. But if I do what I have to do and all the time think that someone else should do it and that it is unfair that I should have to do it, then I am making internal accounts. That is, I am internally considering.
The Marshland of Self-Pity: Understanding Internal Considering
Whatever you have to do, will to do it and you will get through the job without becoming negative and so without being tired and without making internal accounts. This is one of the secrets of right work on oneself. Not only that: it makes force in you
Bringing the Work to Incoming Impressions
How can we bring the work up to the place of incoming impressions? In brief, by remembering the work emotionally. The more we through right self-observation feel our own helplessness, the more we realize our ignorance, the more we see our mechanicalness and that we are a machine, the more we perceive our own utter nothingness, the more emotional will the work become to us.
The Practice of Non-Critical Self-Observation
Remember that it is said that self-observation must be uncritical. You do not observe yourself in order to criticize yourself. If you do so it will at once stop self-observation and lead to internal considering.
The First Stages of Inner Work: Cleaning the Machine
The first stages of the Work are sometimes called "cleaning the machine." The Work tells you more about what not to do than about what to do. Now people often ask: "What am I to do?" On that side the Work says only two definite things: "Remember yourself" and "Observe or notice yourself." That is what you must try to do.