On one occasion when Mr. Ouspensky was talking about how we identify with every emotional state, he gave as a supreme formula: To non-identify take nothing seriously except the Work. Now in regard to being negative and having an unpleasant emotional state towards a particular person—supposing you have got to the point of being able to observe that you are in an unpleasant emotional state, and this of course means that you do not quite identify with it, so let us suppose that you are slightly conscious of being in a negative state towards a particular person—how are you going to deal with it? Here all the work that you have done personally comes in.
Try to formulate what it is that makes you negative as regards this person and then look into the book of your own self-observation, into your own records of yourself—that is, into your Work-memory—and try to see whether what you find so difficult to bear in this other person is not something that you also have in yourself. Realizing that you are just as difficult in yourself as the person that you criticize produces instantly the magical feeling of surrender, of cancelling, of freedom. But in order to do this, you must use the Intellectual Center. In other words, you must think: Here comes in a very good example of what thinking in the Work-sense means, and I can assure you that whenever you think in this way it will give you the greatest feeling of freedom that you have ever experienced.
Maurice Nicoll, “Work on the Emotional Center” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 3, p. 812).
Working Note: For Today’s Inner Effort
Orientation: Use negative reactions for self-observation.
What to Notice:
The beginning of an unpleasant state toward another person.
Inner emphasis on another’s fault.
Forgetting similar manifestations in yourself.
Loss of Work-memory during criticism.
Work Effort for Today:
When negative emotion begins, pause before agreeing with it.
Look for the same thing in yourself.
Think from the Work instead of from the reaction.
Allow the feeling of cancelling to appear quietly.
Remember: Do not take the negative state as “I”.
