The Birth of the Work-Mind

For a long time the Work remains external, as something on the blackboard of the memory. But after a time a person may realize it is quite true that he or she is asleep and has negative emotions, etc. Or they may realize some other thing, some other idea that the Work teaches. The Work asks us to think from itself—to have a Work-mind, a mind formed by the ideas of the Work, to see things from what the Work teaches about ourselves, others and life.

When the Work becomes emotional and ceases to be on the blackboard you find yourself confronted by it. You find such questions as: "Have you spoken wrongly? Have you spent the day in internal considering? Have you remembered yourself? Are you identified? Have you made any kind of Work-effort today? Have you observed yourself? Have you cancelled debts? Have you remembered your aim?" All these questions and many others begin to stand in front of you—between you and external life. You will then begin to understand what it means to think in a new way, to have another mind.

Maurice Nicoll, “Introductory Note to Commentary on Mind" in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Vol. 2, p. 545)