The Search for the Neutralizing Force

It is difficult to find the Neutralizing Force of the Work. A long search for it is inevitable. Everyone having attained sufficient conviction that the Work is something real and that it leads to a goal, has to enter upon this search, alone, for himself or for herself. It can never be communicated in a direct way, any more than can the taste of an apple to anyone who has never tasted one.

The long period of search for the Neutralizing Force of the Work begins when you realize that you are not working in the right way. This realization is a passing feeling, a momentary taste. It is not a thought. It is only through understanding, which means seeing for yourself why a thing is necessary, that inner development can take place.

Maurice Nicoll, “The Neutralizing Force of the Work" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 5 p. 1711)