Now I have been asked whether ceasing to make internal accounts has anything to do with violence. Last week the dangers of violence were explained in relation to the delicate work of transformation carried out especially in the Middle Laboratory. Violence injures new thoughts and feelings being formed by the Work in us. It injures the New Man, the New Woman. It was said that if one could see what made one violent with another person and if one could find by observation the same thing in oneself, the violence would vanish. It would cancel out, as do plus one and minus one, which add up to exactly nothing. Blaming another, making internal accounts against him, precipitates violence.
Now it amounts to this—namely, if I become conscious of all and everything in myself, I could not be violent about any unpleasant manifestation in another, for I would see it also in myself. I would see myself in others and others in myself. I would reach this degree of objective consciousness. It was mentioned that the Greek word translated as “forgive” means to cancel a debt, to remit, to write off in one’s account book what another owes. It has no sentimental meaning. To say one forgives another an injury or insult is not merely self-deception but also spiritual arrogance. It is as if one thought one could do. No, the only way is through a slow development of consciousness of what is in one by long self-observation, which will shatter one’s pet idea of oneself, but will release one—and others whom one had imprisoned in one’s hate and violence.
Maurice Nicoll, “The Middle Laboratory” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 5, p. 1586-1587).
Working Note: For Today’s Inner Effort
Orientation: Observe one internal account before it becomes violence.
What to Notice:
Blaming another person inwardly.
Rehearsing an injury or insult.
Feeling someone owes you an apology.
A wish to prove another person wrong.
Work Effort for Today:
When an account appears, look for the same manifestation in yourself.
Acknowledge it without argument.
Do not nourish the grievance.
Allow the account to be cancelled.
Remember: Find it in yourself and the debt loses its force.
For Your Reflection:
What if seeing yourself changed everything?
It’s natural to notice what troubles us in someone else. But occasionally, if we’re willing to look a little deeper, we catch a glimpse of the same pattern in ourselves. In that moment, something softens. The need to keep an inner account begins to lose its grip. Not because we’ve excused the other person, but because we’ve seen more truthfully. That kind of seeing quietly opens the door to freedom.
How does this show up in your own experience? Join the conversation in the comments below.
