When you see you are in the wrong—that is, when you get a little behind False Personality with all its Vanities and Prides—you take force backwards or interiorly into yourself and these moments of confession or separation from what is false will cause Essence to grow because you give it energy that would otherwise have gone into self-justifying.

The side of what we actually are, and the side of what we pretend and imagine we are, are two contradictory sides. These two contradictory sides, however, exist in everyone without exception. The action of the Work, once it is beginning to be wished for, makes us become gradually aware of this contradiction—over many years.

Worrying is the wrong work of centers. It is always useless. It is a form of inner considering—i.e. of identifying. It is a continual mixing up of negative imagination with a few facts and so makes only wrong connections in centers.

If you begin to see all this about your state of Being you are already much further on, however hopeless you may feel, than a person who has never caught such glimpses of himself or herself, because it is exactly this feeling of vacuum, of deficiency, of lack, that is the starting point of work on one's own Being.

We have to make effort in regard to stopping internally mechanical disliking and it was also said that this is not so difficult to do, once one can notice it at work by observation. One says "Stop" to it. One makes "inner stop" in regard to it, without arguing or self-justifying.

Now as regards the often-asked question: "Can you give me examples of what personal aim means?" On the side of knowledge, personal aim means to become familiar with the ideas of the Work. On the side of Being, personal aim means to observe yourself in the light of the knowledge of the Work and apply it to yourself. Personal work on your own Being begins when you notice something that the Work tells you about in yourself.

It is a remarkable fact that even after many years we do not really observe ourselves. Self-observation is turning the other way round from life. It is the employment of a new sense, an inner sense, called Observing I, which looks inwards at the kind of person one is.

But this Work tells you to observe yourself in the light of what the Work teaches, so that you can change yourself. That is, it starts inside you, like a spy, inside your heavily guarded fortifications. Yes, Observing 'I' is a spy.