For most people, even for educated and thinking people, the chief obstacle to their attaining the state of consciousness called Self-Remembering lies in the fact that they think they possess it already. They think that they remember themselves in everything they do and in everything they say, and they not only think that they are conscious at every moment and aware of themselves but believe that they are conscious of their inner lives also and fully aware of all the thoughts and emotions that pass through them in a continuous stream.

Now the Work teaches that you have to do certain things which takes the form of not doing certain things as, for example, in general, not identifying—that is, not putting your feeling of 'I' into all your mechanical reactions. So the Work consists for a long time in not doing things, according to the instructions laid down so clearly in this Work on its practical side.

The Work teaches we can awaken, we can remember ourselves, we can change ourselves. How then is all this possible? It is only possible by following what the Work teaches. The Work begins with self-observation whereby gradually we may realize how we are machines and how we react mechanically to everything.

The Work teaches us that we have to go against our mechanicalness and also how this is impossible unless by long observation we can see our mechanicalness. This is the introduction to the Work. A man, a woman, who cannot observe themselves and their mechanical behavior cannot work on themselves. They take their mechanical behavior for granted, being certain that their automatic condemnations, their criticisms, their prejudices, their contempts, and so on, are absolutely right. In short, they take life in the only way they can as long as they do not observe how they take it.

This urgent illusory doing-impulse has to be overcome in the Work completely. It is a life-impulse, it is a life-thought, a life-feeling, and the paradox is that in life we always have a feeling that we can do and yet from the Work-point of view we are really doing nothing because all the time our level of Being is making us act mechanically in every situation and this we call doing.

Here no question of doing in the Work-sense enters. IT is doing. In my case Nicoll is doing; in your case Smith, Robinson, Brown is doing. There was a question: "Well, how can I do in the Work-sense?" The answer is that you cannot do as you are in a Work-sense. "Then, what am I to do?" "Realize that you cannot do. Realize the mechanicalness of your Being."

Have you noticed the rigid man, the rigid woman, who always thinks in the same set way, always says the same thing, always expresses the same opinion, like a parrot? Perhaps you may have, but I advise you first of all to notice yourself in this respect. Are you a parrot?

We therefore find ourselves in the position in this Work of being able to see better than we can do. In certain situations we have flashes of understanding in which perhaps we see quite clearly what we should do and yet we find it impossible to do what we have seen.

Second Force is in the nature of things, and is not an evil god but an aspect of God in which you have to fight with Him in order to develop. Perhaps you will understand that without Second Force no one could grow internally.

Our receptive side is greater than our doing side. We therefore find ourselves in the position in this Work of being able to see better than we can do. In certain situations we have flashes of understanding in which perhaps we see quite clearly what we should do and yet we find it impossible to do what we have seen.