Actually in the Work knowing is unknowing what you thought you knew. When you begin to unknow what you were sure you knew you are undergoing a change of mental outlook, you are undergoing a change of mind, you are undergoing metanoia (meta- beyond, nous-mind). In this Work you have to get out of your mind, you have to get out of what you imagine you know. Try to see what you imagine you know and notice especially where you judge other people. You judge others from what you imagine you know. I would like you all really to reflect on what you think you know for certain.
It is amusing sometimes to see how people broadcast their opinions about other people in this Work. This is because they think they know. The idea that work consists in unknowing is foreign to them and as a result they take the Work from what they think they know. They are sure they are right, by their acquired opinions. They never think of examining how these opinions have arisen and what mechanical influences from father and mother created them. The result is that you have a person who is always judging and condemning, or approving, from a purely mechanical level. This person thinks that he or she knows. To imagine that one knows anything is in the nature of an illusion.
Maurice Nicoll, “Unknowing” in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 5, p. 1756-1757).
Working Note
Today, notice every moment you feel certain you already know; instead of following that certainty, let it become a question and remain there for a little while.
Today’s Aim
To loosen the grip of imagined knowledge through sincere self-observation.
Notice
The impulse to judge another person.
How quickly you explain someone’s motives.
Opinions that feel beyond question.
The feeling of being unquestionably right.
A quiet willingness not to know.
Practice
Whenever you catch yourself making an inward judgment today, pause before completing it. Ask yourself, “What am I assuming I know?” Do not answer too quickly. Stay with the uncertainty long enough to observe the movement of your own mind.
This unknowing is itself the exercise.
Remember
A mind that knows too quickly leaves no room for seeing.
The Weekly Aim
“I will observe the ‘I’ in me that wants to be right.”
