Now in order to isolate ourselves from life, apart from what has been said above, there are three great Work-practices that aid in this. The first is Self-Remembering, the second is non-identifying, and the third is non-considering in the sense of not making accounts against others.

Now let us turn to another thing that we can and must observe— namely, the absence of Self-Remembering in oneself. Do you try to take life from the Work point of view or do you take it from your mechanical reactions to life ? If you bring the Work in between what happens in life and how you react to life, you will already be beginning to remember yourself.

Now when the Work begins to build itself up in you—which it will do if you do not internally deny it or if you do not put little value on it— a new point of will begins also and so a new point of being. It resists the stream of constant changing. As long as we follow each one of our passing desires—as long as we are slaves to every passing mood, we cannot form a new will.

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.

A question was then asked: "What then should I do?" This question always arises in everyone's mind. The Work-answer is about what you should not do. The question should be: "What then should we not do?" It is just here that the Work comes in.

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?

After a time in the Work you will begin to get tired of your customary thoughts—i.e. the thoughts that you ordinarily go with every day—but you must remember that you can think in a new way about everything, and here you must begin by including yourself.

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.

It is not a question of theoretically believing there is something higher, but of the actual perception of it in oneself, for the subject of this Work is this strange and complex thing called oneself. One can often observe a regular horde of unpleasant mean little 'I's that surround one and wish to drag one down to their level, to their way of taking everything.

Why do we think that things should always go right and why are we upset when they do not go in this way? Why is it we never remember about Second Force? The reason is that only 'I's that are in the Work can remember such things and that there lives in us a vast crowd of 'I's that have never heard of the Work and simply take things in their own way. It may sound very strange that we have in us crowds of 'I's that have never heard of the Work.

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.

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.

A man, a woman, in this Work, must learn by self-observation that what they seem to be, what they pretend to be outwardly, is not what they are internally. Realizing this, they begin to suffer from the sense of contradiction. This is useful suffering. The outer and inner must conform eventually and become one—a unity.

Remember that Real Will or Master comes down from a higher level and cannot reach the ordinary so-called waking state of consciousness. Something must be awake in one to have any contact and that means that there must be some state of Self- Remembering present. After a time one can begin to tell when one is asleep inside—i.e. when there is no kind of Self-Remembering taking place.

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.

The Work seeks to make a new arrangement in our minds and it can only do so when it is allowed to enter a person's mind. Nothing will enter anybody's mind unless they feel an affection for it, a desire for it. And this means in so many words that unless one has 'I's in oneself that wish to work, 'I's that have always felt there is something else, 'I's that can hear the Work, not merely through the ears, but through the mind and understanding—unless such 'I's exist, the Work can never enter, but if it does enter then it becomes a matter of choice.

Remember that you have to do this Work fresh every day. Every day it is necessary to make yourself conscious of the Work internally, to be aware of it, to think of it, to try to remember any small aim you have and to try to get what the day will teach. You will remember that the Children of Israel were fed by manna from heaven and were told not to keep it to the next day, so do not think that because you understood something yesterday you will always remember it. Everything is changing but the Work remains the same.

Take the parable of the Ten Virgins. They all had lamps— that is, teaching—but half of them had also oil in their lamps. These latter were accepted and the others were turned out. If you have a real point in the Work and understand it and act from it, this is oil, in what you have been taught, which is a lamp. You have your own oil.

After a time, when you can be alone with yourself and at the same time alone with this Work and its meanings, you begin to realize that you have no right to be negative and that you have no excuse for it. You see you have got to find some way out. You may not be able to prevent negative states from starting but you may be able to stop them. This is one meaning of what is called work on oneself. This can be called living more consciously. It can also be called walking instead of lying down flat.