The Realization of Nothingness as the Beginning of Being

When the Work says that you must come to realize your own nothingness before you can be re-born, it does not mean that you must humble yourself and so on, but that you must by long self-observation actually begin to realize that you are nothing and that there is no such person as self. The object of this is to get into a position, psychologically speaking, between the opposites.

Why is it so important to get somewhere into the center of the pendulum and not swing to and fro? Because here, between the opposites, lie all the possibilities of growth. Here influences from higher levels reach us. Here, in this place where one can feel one's own nothingness and where one is therefore free from contradictions, influences and meanings coming from higher centers, which have no contradictions, can be felt. Not regarding yourself as good or bad, not priding yourself on being just or otherwise, not thinking you are well-treated or badly-treated, not being caught by either movement through identifying, you come into this mid-position. This is not easy! With personality active, it is impossible.

Maurice Nicoll, “The Opposites" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 1, p. 329)