A Glossary of Fourth Way Terms by Rebecca Nottingham

The Work Terminology


1. SLEEP:
The Work teaches that every human being walking around in their daily life does so in such a subjective state of mind, at such a low level of consciousness, that it can be likened to a state of unawareness as intensely unreal as the state of actual sleep. This condition of Sleep applies to the whole of humanity and to each person. The Work teaches a system for Awakening from Sleep.
This state of Sleep, which applies to the psychological condition of every person, is also called Second State or Waking State. In this automatically functioning mode, you interact in the world, in your life, by reacting to everything according to the formation of your psychology. You believe that you are your personality and that your subjective opinions and attitudes and beliefs are right and true. You therefore invest yourself, give your identity to every response you have, remaining unaware that you are responding mechanically to the stimuli from life.


2. LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
The Work teaches that there are different levels of Consciousness, beginning with the state of literal physical sleep, which is called First State, to the Waking state of living your daily life in the world, which is called in the Work, Sleep, or Second State, all the way to a fully evolved consciousness characterized by permanent unity.

It teaches that everyone lives their life in First and Second States, but that other levels are available as well. Eventually it comes down to choosing what level you want to live at and express -- to which influences you choose to put yourself under.

Fully developed consciousness in a person, which means psychologically evolved, is characterized by Unity and Purity in their Being. It expresses their uniqueness purified, living in a permanent state of spiritual development, which is humble and self-transcendent and receptive to Divine influence.

The Work is a methodology for raising your level of consciousness, intentionally. That is why it is called self-evolution.


3. POSSIBLE PSYCHOLOGICAL EVOLUTION:
The Work maintains that a person can intentionally raise their level of Consciousness upwards through the ideas and practices and exercises present in the psycho-transformational teaching of the Fourth Way.

Since there are different levels of Consciousness, change from one level to another is possible. Development is possible. Development means evolution.

This development does not happen automatically or mechanically in life. It requires intentional and specific efforts from the individual. It manifests as a permanent change in a person to a new level of Being, a new quality of character, a new depth of understanding, a new emotional perspective.

It is called self-evolution because the development is built upon your own sincere efforts. You need to know what you are doing in the Work, and what you are aiming at. Then you can do the Work willingly, which is essential, aware and committed to your aim. Therefore, your Work efforts will build something new in you. Real change is possible. Remember that the direction of evolution is upwards.

This system teaches that every human being comes into the world with a particular kind of essence nature which is unique to the individual. This essential nature interacts with its environment and a personality is produced that is subject to many variables. The outcome -- Acquired Personality -- is the result of what the Work calls the first education. It is a necessary development intended to create a means with which to interact in life responsibly. It is the second level of Consciousness. It is not the end of potential development, however it is as far as most will go.

The Work is sometimes called the second education. It can only take hold in a person who has a mature Acquired Personality. This is called being a Good Householder, which simply put means being a responsible person in your life, to yourself and to the world as well. A person in this position can use the Work, this second education, to reconstruct an authentic Being, true to their essence nature . You can build a structure psychologically that can lift you above the mechanical stimulus-response level of Consciousness. Building this structure through personal efforts of practicing the Work will lead you into a new level of Consciousness and growth in Being which is the Psychological Evolution possible for humankind.


4. AWAKENING:
Awakening means raising your level of consciousness from an automatic stimulus-response mechanical level to that higher level of awareness possible within you. It means changing from a self-interest motivated person to a self-transcendent conscious person with an evolved level of Being. It means real change in the nature of a human being. It does not just happen. Each person has to create this change through specific Work practices and diligent efforts over a long time period.


5. REAL I:
It is Real I that is awakened by Self-Awareness. It is the who you remember in the act of full Self-Remembering. Everyone has Real I within them. It is the truth of your Being, but it remains inactive and powerless behind Acquired Personality. During the course of the Work, as you eliminate the Wrong Work in your Acquired Personality, Real I grows in presence. Self-Observation stands in front of Real I and informs it during its development. The growth of Real I is directly connected to the emergence of Buried Conscience as well. Self-Observation informs Real I, Conscience shapes it. True Personality expresses it.


6. TRUE PERSONALITY:
Real I expresses True Personality, which is your purified Real Self. True Personality is authentic and comfortable and flexible and is Externally Considerate. True Personality manifests humility. Your own personal sacrifice of mechanical self-interest creates the space where Consciousness and Being can be transformed and True Personality is revealed.


7. CONSCIENCE:

The Work teaches that there are two kinds of Conscience -- Acquired Conscience and Real Conscience. Acquired Conscience is different in different cultures and places and times and in individuals. The fact that it changes means that it is not objective or an expression of Unified Conscience. What may be seen as cause for pride in one era or culture may be cause for shame in another. Nicoll: Acquired Conscience is based on self-love, and self-love is based on fear.

Everyone also possesses Real Conscience, but it is buried and weak and nearly inaudible. Real Conscience is the same in everyone and those who have developed it understand each other because they understand the same things through the enlightenment of Conscience. Nicoll: The growth of consciousness and the growth of Conscience must necessarily go hand in hand.
The Work teaches that Real Conscience doesnt have enough force for action. The process of purifying the Emotional Center, which is the foundational labor in the Work, reveals a greater degree of Conscience. Your Conscience grows in the Work through Understanding and the consequences of purification. It develops correspondingly with Consciousness and level of Being. Conscience is connected to spiritual direction, it recognizes Truth and Goodness and it helps to formulate Real I. It is active in discernment and in choosing self-transcendence.


8. BEING:
Roughly speaking, your Being is the quality of your character. Your level of Being is an expression of the nature of your psychology. Being is mechanical and present in everyone to different degrees. Being can be developed and indeed must develop in the Work along with Consciousness or there will be no right result from this process. You cannot possess a higher level of Consciousness which has been purified of negativity and selfishness and at the same time maintain a level of action in the world that express no change in Being. The nature of your character -- Being -- must be correspondingly transformed to a higher level, or Consciousness remains theoretical and has no power, no force. In the Work, Being is Goodness.



9. DIVIDED ATTENTION:
In order to practice the most important exercise in the Work, that of Self-Observation, you must first learn how to divide your attention, or rather that you can divide your attention. The idea of seeing a tree, and seeing yourself seeing a tree, is only part of the equation. You must realize that your attention is constantly engaged, moving from one event to another. Whether you are active in the world or not, your attention is engaged in a constant string of reactions to your life. Your thoughts, your feelings, your words, your actions, your attitudes, your opinions, your likes and dislikes, your moods or states are always taking all of your attention in one direction -- projecting these things into your life. This projecting has energy and it all flows outward like a twenty-four hour radio station emitting a constant noise.

When you use your divided attention to practice Self-Observation, you are creating an interior vantage point that can view all of the noise. It can observe both your actions in life and your underlying feelings and motives. Dividing your Attention in this manner takes Conscious effort. You have to make a Conscious choice and use intentionality in Dividing your attention to create the vantage point of Observing I. Simply learning the exercise of Divided Attention goes nowhere until you use that division to practice Self-Observation by dividing yourself into an observed side and an observing side.


10. SELF-OBSERVATION:
The practice of Self-Observation is the most fundamental exercise in the Work. You cant know yourself unless you observe yourself. Self-knowledge in the Work sense is essential for change and development.

Once you can divide your attention so that you have a new vantage point in addition to your normal awareness; and when what you can see from this new psychological position is your self acting in the world and your own psychological condition as well, then you have begun. This is somewhat like learning to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time, psychologically speaking. It takes attention, practice, and adjustments.

You do this observing from a new vantage point that you must make within yourself, from which you can see all of your behavior and the psychology which creates it. Nicoll: ...First you must try to see everything in yourself in a given moment. The emotional state, thoughts, sensations, intentions, posture, movements, tone of voice, facial expressions, and so on. This vantage point or new perspective is called Observing I. It is directed at your psychology and it shines the light of Awareness into the psychological mechanics which have been functioning in the dark.

Practicing Self-Observation must be refined as you proceed. Most importantly, you must learn to do it without becoming negative because of what you observe in yourself. This does not mean do not recognize what is right from what is wrong. It means do not get caught up in an emotional response to what you observe. If you do, you have lost your perspective and are stuck in an emotional state that will obstruct your progress and your ability to see with clarity.

Sincerity, being able to be honest with yourself, and focus are part of the nature of practicing Self-Observation correctly. You must accept beforehand that you have to be able to see what is wrong in order to change it. If you remain unenlightened concerning something within you that is preventing your development, then again you are stuck and cannot change. So you must be willing to observe all that is in you. You must practice Self-Observation frequently, diligently, tenaciously, sincerely, and uncritically.


11. VERIFICATION:
One of the first tenets of the Work is verify everything for yourself. You may need to have an open mind to grasp a Work idea, but you are not asked to accept anything that you cannot verify. This of course means that you have to DO the Work. The result will give you Verification. Verification is experiential understanding and it lives in your Work memory and gives it substance.


12. SELF-REMEMBERING:
Of all of the Work practices, Self-Remembering is the least understood and the most incorrectly practiced. One of the reasons is because Self-Remembering has many degrees and forms. Giving yourself the First Conscious Shock is a form of Self-Remembering as is remembering the Work ideas, and remembering your Aim. The practice of Self-Observation and of becoming present are also lesser forms of practicing Self-Remembering because they bring the Work to the point of incoming impressions and carry a taste of Real I.

Self-Remembering is making an effort to recollect what your essential Being is, your Real I, within the context of Scale and Relativity. It is a paradoxical experience in that you feel your nothingness and your uniqueness, and you also feel connected to all of Creation, an integral part of all that is. In a full state of Self-Remembering, Real I is who is present.

You can reach up to this higher state in your consciousness of Self-Remembering and sometimes touch what you are reaching for briefly. This is so that you can know and verify that this higher state exists within you. It is through your personal Work that you can develop the ability to Remember yourself in the full sense and become your Real I.


13. NEGATIVE EMOTIONS:
One of the largest areas of study in the Work is the nature and activity of Negative Emotions. There are many good reasons to begin practicing Self-Observation by observing Negative Emotions. They have a strong recognizable energy and quality, they are preponderant, they lead you around and waste your energy, they obstruct conscious development because they anchor you to the lowest level of consciousness. They also lie.

The other good reason to begin with observing Negative Emotions is because the Work asks you to stop giving expression to all of your Negative Emotions from the beginning of your Work. In doing so, you will learn many profound truths about yourself. First you will have to notice your Negative Emotions after you have learned what to observe. This, you will find far too easy. You will be shocked to observe in yourself how many Negative Emotions you have and how they dominate and taint your life. Then you will discover to your horror, that you can only barely, sometimes, keep from giving expression to them. You will see how Negative Emotions arise against your will and intention; how quickly you are swept away by them, and how you justify having them. It is a great inner struggle and it will take time and development before you can transcend your Negative Emotions instead of just trying to repress them.

The following are some of the Negative Emotions that you are asked by the Work to observe in yourself: annoyance, criticizing, self-pity, impatience, malice, vengeance, frustration, complaining, feeling offended, irritability, envy, sadness, restlessness, boredom, depression, anger, smugness, indignation, hopelessness, shame, nervousness, melancholy, insecurity, embarrassment, dissatisfaction, and more.

Each of these is examined as you observe them. They are studied and worked against and eliminated. For example, if you observe that you are feeling annoyed, examine why. If the answer is because -- whatever -- is annoying you, then you are observing in the wrong direction. The source of the negativity is not outside you. Your Negative Emotions are ALWAYS your own responsibility. Virtually no external circumstance can MAKE you negative. There is always another way. With growth in the Work you become able to choose not to become negative. You will see upon observation that you are Negative because your circumstances dont meet the requirements you have. In the Work, you will learn how to release your requirements, not how to make your circumstances satisfy them. You will learn to accept not being satisfied by way of working against Negative Emotions. This state of acceptance detaches you from the dissatisfaction of not having your requirements met. Most of your Negative Emotions come from dissatisfaction. In studying them, you will find that the dissatisfaction is the product of having requirements that are not fulfilled. You will see that behind your requirements lie a bevy of self-interested motives and false presuppositions.

The Work will tell you to look at your Negative Emotions and identify them. Then you must look behind them to the place in your psychology where they originate. You can only do these two things by the means of practicing Self-Observation. Through Self-Observation you will see that the emotions of suspicion, jealousy, and insecurity, for example, are generated by fear. While the emotions are very real and the needs feel very strong, all of them are produced by self-interest...you want, you need, you feel, you dont want, etc.

The Work teaches you to transcend self-interest, consequently Negative Emotions have no source and cease to exist. Getting rid of Negative Emotions is the process of purification necessary for development to Higher Consciousness through the Work. Negativity uses and wastes your limited energy and attention and obstructs your path. While you are in a negative state you are effectively cut off from higher emotions, the psychological place you are aiming at. Negative Emotions are the lowest levels of Consciousness in action, the most mechanical level. In order to gain in Consciousness or raise your level of Being, you must become purified of Negative Emotions.


14. MECHANICALNESS:
According to the Work, everything that happens on earth happens mechanically, dictated by cosmic laws that cannot be verified. Mechanicalness, however, can easily be verified and Worked with.

Negative Emotions are the most mechanical level of functioning in a human being, and this can be verified by observing them. Negativity is very easy to observe. All it takes is seeing how a particular event makes you feel a Negative Emotion in response, repeated (for example, driving on the highway always makes you feel anxious) to verify that Negative Emotions and states are mechanical responses. You will notice that you become angry if you feel you are not being treated well enough and that you join in gossip, or you hear yourself lying or pretending or complaining, exaggerating, criticizing, slandering, etc. You notice how a negative topic introduced into conversation about bad weather, health, kids, bosses, doctors, etc -- will generate energy and everyone will join in telling their experience, creating a momentary wild fire of negative energy. This observation verifies that Negative Emotions are contagious.

Everyone is functioning according to their own personal agenda. Everyone seeks satisfaction, attention, appreciation, and acceptance. Everyone becomes negative when they suffer, when they dont get what they want. And it is all mechanical, that is, belonging to the lowest level of consciousness which is response to stimulus without awareness. All of the emotions in Acquired Personality are mechanical responses. That applies to each person and the whole of Humanity as well.


15. ACQUIRED PERSONALITY:
Conventionally, the term used in the Fourth Way is False Personality. There is no disagreement with the accuracy of the term false if there is no condemnation in it. However, the term ACQUIRED Personality is far more specific and informative with no condemnation implied. Nonetheless, Acquired Personality is unquestionably false.

The Work teaches that ever person is born into the world with an innate nature and unique being, and also with a purpose. This is called Essence. It is basically the who of your Being. But, since as an infant you are also a blank slate, so to speak, your experience shapes your Personality to a great degree. As your Essence interacts with the experience of your existence, the nature of your personality is gradually formed and acquired. This is necessary for normal development. But it is a limited level of development. There is a potential level of a higher Self available. The Work teaches you how to develop this potential higher Self.

In the formation of Acquired Personality, attitudes and habitual patterns of feeling and thinking and acting are created by imitation and environmental influences. This kind of personality formation is automatic and common to everyone while remaining idiosyncratic. It is not created purposefully or even with your consent. Your Acquired Personality is rather like the result of everything that was done to you during its formation. It is up to each individual adult to choose a path of self-development, to have Consciousness and authenticity, integrity and self-transcendence, and express their Real I in True Personality.

You have to observe your Acquired Personality in order to discern what is false and what is true to your Real I, your highest Self. In this Work process, your Conscience becomes more active and is able to discern between good and bad, right and wrong, true and false with increasing clarity.

The transformation of Acquired Personality is basically reconstructing your psychology to express your Real I, your highest Consciousness and Being. It means changing from a self-interested psychology to a self-transcendent psychology. The process is difficult because it involves deconstructing the ego, which is painful to the ego. It is destabilizing and therefore requires great strength of character and a strong need to change and have understanding in order to grow in the Work.

Acquired Personality is who you think you are. It is sometimes called your Imaginary I. It is defined by your attitudes, opinions, feelings, likes and dislikes, imitations, habitual responses and habitual ways of thinking and feeling and acting. It is the Acquired Personality that acts most mechanically automatically without consciousness or intentionality, churning out responses (energy) to stimuli according to the formation of your psychology. In the Work, all of what is false or wrong or negative in the Acquired Personality is observed and studied, worked against and separated from. This means long-term efforts.


16. IMAGINARY I:
Imaginary I is your identity according to the pictures you have of yourself as your personality. If someone were to ask you what kind of person you are, your answer would be a description of Imaginary I. You perhaps think you are a good old boy, or a loyal patriot, or an avant-garde artist, or an intellectual, or a fair and honest person, or a social activist, etc. These characteristics belong to Acquired Personality. They are not you.

Imaginary I has the illusion of unity but in reality it is the constantly changing mass of all of the Is. There is no one permanent I in control. But a man has one body and one name and a personality made of imaginary pictures, which leads him to believe that he is always the same -- this Imaginary I.


17. BUFFERS:
Buffers are like a psychological appliance created by Man in the formation of his personality to absorb the shock of contradictions in himself; in his views and in his words, his thoughts and emotions. They take the place of the Real Conscience we have as small children, in order to reconcile us with acquired Conscience. Ouspensky: Buffers make things easy for us. They prevent us from seeing what we are really doing and saying. If Man could see all of the dire contradictions in himself all at once he would feel that he is mad. Gurdjieff: He must either destroy the contradictions or cease to feel and see them. . . . . Buffers help a man not to feel Conscience.


18. SELF-LOVE:
Everything in the Personality is based on self-love, that is self-interest, and this is the only way that it can be. Self-love is based on fear. Basic urges motivate actions that express a need for power or control over your environment and circumstances. These urges arise from the instinct for self-preservation and are necessary in the first education.

If you think of self-love as the source of self-interested motives and you know that you have a mechanical Acquired Personality, then regardless of its nature it is all based on self-love since it is created to serve the self. Self-love will pollute your good actions with pride and merit-seeking. It will lead most seekers down a path that teaches them that development means the ability to get everything they want, that the manifestation of your desires means fulfillment. Self-love seeks attention by any means. It talks about itself and needs to be in the right, insists that it is right. Self-love exaggerates to flatter and inflate its good appearance to others and it takes offense very easily. All of these forms of Wrong Work arising from self-love are dealt with through Work practices and ideas and they lose power, and eventually they cease to be the motives that generate the actions of your Personality.


19. IMAGINATION AND PICTURES:
Imagination, which can seem to be a benign, insubstantial force actually has great power in your psychology. Your imagination is assisted by your Acquired Personality in forming Pictures that you have of yourself in your mind, things that you believe about yourself, and imaginary perceptions about what others think of you.

The truth is that imagination is actually completely insubstantial. It is imaginary. But the power and reign your psychology allows it fills it with force.

It is primarily the Imaginary Pictures that you have of yourself about what kind of person you are, that the Work deals with. This is no trifling matter. Your Imaginary Pictures are the expression of what you are identified with in your Acquired Personality and they are entrenched in who you think you are.

Directed, creative imagination is not what is being referred to here. The Work speaks about mechanical Imagination which is involved in most Wrong Work and perpetuates the consequential psychological malfunctions.


20. JUSTIFICATION:
Self-Justification is one of the most powerful forces which keeps us asleep. It is the activity of buffers. Always putting yourself in the right means staying in Sleep, not changing. Justification subtly alters things in the memory, emphasizing some and leaving others out. In other words, it lies. It is very important to the Acquired Personality which is based on self-love and needs to receive visible approval in order to maintain the Picture that Acquired Personality wants to present.

When you begin to observe Negative Emotions, your immediate response will be justifying them. You will feel quite right about being negative, placing the blame outside of yourself and you will feel relieved of the responsibility you have regarding Negative Emotions. This particular Wrong Work is easily recognizable and while it is hard to deal with in Work terms, it is something definite that you can observe and use in practicing the Work.

21. LYING:
There are so many forms of lying that they constitute an almost continuous condition of lying in our psychology. Lying is a great support in Justification and is always present in Negative Emotions. But every form of dishonesty is also lying. If you exaggerate your attributes to make a good impression, you are lying. When you pretend to have interest in or sympathy with or understanding of or knowledge about something, when in reality you do not, then you are lying. You lie about your thoughts, your feelings, your motives, your intentions, your whereabouts, your activities, your income, your position, your merit, your success, your character, your nature, your interests, your aims. Most of all, you lie to yourself about who you are and in believing you have consciousness and unity.

It is hard to discern lying since it can be so subtle and insidious, but it has a particular quality or taste in the psychology that also becomes recognizable. When you are seeking Truth, it becomes very easy to discard lying once you start to recognize it. It plays a large part in all Wrong Work because Wrong Work involves Negative Emotions which always lie.


22. KEEPING ACCOUNTS:
Keeping accounts is specific Work language for what is basically holding a grudge against a person or even against life. When you keep an account against someone, you have a memory about them filled with all of the actions for which you resent them. If you have a long-term relationship in such a case, you will remember only what validates your ill will and all of the times they offended you in some way. Careful reflection will show you that lying is active and that the underlying feeling behind keeping an account is one of feeling that you havent been treated properly so you didnt get your due. Therefore, the other person owes you. Or you may feel that life owes you, that you have never received the right opportunities or the good breaks, the worthy circumstances you deserve. These are some of the actions of Internal Considering.


23. COMPLAINING:
Complaining is like the background noise of your psychology. Once you start observing it, you will be shocked to find how much time you spend complaining, sometimes out loud, most often in your thoughts. Keeping accounts is a kind of complaining. Complaining is also full of lies. It is a one angled, tunnel vision, ungratified self-interested point of view.

Throughout your day, you will complain associatively about a number of things. Perhaps you start off each morning with the internal complaint of being tired. You can observe throughout the day complaining about your physical condition, traffic, your job, your boss, your spouse, your kids, the weather, fatigue, overwork, lack of appreciation. You can observe dissatisfaction (which is complaining) with your circumstances, your finances, your appearance, your position, your possessions, your relationships, what you have, what you dont have, how you feel, whether you are satisfied, gratified and comfortable. All of these are also forms of complaining.

Complaining is easy to observe, it arises from self-interested psychology that is constantly obsessed with being satisfied. It includes always only looking at the negative side of things and the background noise it forms is a constant stream of Inner Talking about your dissatisfaction with your life. Once you posses Scale and Relativity and some degree of developed Consciousness, you will see the pathetic nature of constantly complaining about not getting your way or having what you want, and how something so seemingly innocuous and justifiable can effectively obstruct transformation and Growth through the Work.

24. SONG SINGING:
Song singing is a specific Work term referring to an habitual set of complaining Is that repeat themselves in your psychology, the nature of which is something like woe is me. It may begin with an experience in the present, but that experience can trigger a set of Is that say the same thing to you over and over again throughout your lifetime. They are very familiar emotional states that have a descending quality. An example would be: your alarm doesnt go off, you wake up late and are immediately hurried, irritated, and you begin thinking Why does my alarm go on the fritz today when I need to be at work early? Why do things like that always happen to me? It seems like every time I have an important occasion, Im plagued with problems that day. You would think I could get a break just once and not have to deal with any extra hassles on an important day. But no, the harder I try, the more difficulty I have. It seems like bad luck is just chasing me down, running me over and I cant get away from it. If this keeps up, Ill never be a success. What am I talking about, Ill never be a success anyway. Its useless. This is ridiculous. Im tired of trying. Im tired of failing. I dont know how to get what I want and Im never going to be happy.

Very often, these kinds of songs will be about your difficult childhood or your painful relationships or your unsatisfied vocation. But they always say the same thing and it is always a sad song about your sad circumstances and your unhappy life. You will recognize them easily due to familiarity. After paying attention long enough to know what these emotional habits express, the only way to deal with them is to practice Inner Silence in relation to them.

25. INNER TALKING:
Inner talking is the vehicle for complaining and song singing and keeping accounts and justifying, among other things. It is the normal functioning of your psychology to be constantly engaged in either external or internal talking, or both at the same time. The subject matter varies, but the monologue is your constant commentary on your experiences and feelings and thoughts. Generally speaking, there is a negative quality as in the above examples, but there are many kinds of inner talking. It can be imagination, fantasy, day dreaming, or even positive subject matter and emotions as well. Through Self-Observation, you will find that Inner talking is going on inside you at all times.

In the Work, you will need to know what to make silent and to see whatever real perception may be present. In any case, Inner Talking is primarily an obstruction to receptivity. If you are full of comments, opinions, attitudes, and responses, how can hear from Higher Consciousness?


26. INTERNAL CONSIDERING:
Internal Considering refers to an enormously prevalent dysfunction of your psychology. It has mostly to do with feeling that you are owed or that you have been slighted or offended in some way or you fear that you might be. This term ties together many different kinds of emotional dysfunctions like keeping accounts and complaining and justifying, and many others. Vanity plays a powerful role in Inner Considering as does Fear. The psychological expression of it goes something like this: you arrive late at a party with a great story about your delay. Everyone is already engaged in conversations and activities. No one seems especially interested in inviting you to join them or in your great story. You feel slighted. You feel that these people arent treating you very well. They are not showing you the amount of interest, regard and appreciation you deserve. You feel insulted and offended and you begin to worry about what every one of them thinks about you. Do they like you? Do they notice that you are nervous? Can they tell that you exaggerate? Do they agree with what you are saying, approve of it, of you? Of how you look? What if they dont agree with you? Are they criticizing you, scoffing, dismissing, mocking, belittling you? These feelings are based on the unarticulated question in your mind that feels like am I satisfied? ....Are you getting your expectations and requirements of this event fulfilled?

Inner Considering is always saying things like I hope they like me; What if I make a mistake?; What do they think of me?; Was that an insult?; What did he mean by that?; I hope I dont embarrass myself; What if I do something humiliating?; What will they think?; Are they in agreement with me?; Is someone trying to make me look bad?; Why is that person not paying attention?. It moves very quickly into even more general Negative Emotions. Most often they are about how dissatisfied you are with your life and your circumstances and how unfairly treated you feel by them. You feel that you never got a break or that you have had exceptionally bad circumstances. You feel that you should have a better job and higher position and more ease in your life. You feel that life has cheated you out of the opportunity to have what you want. You think you havent received the proper share of consideration, appreciation, or compensation that you deserve from life and people.

This very complex, wide-ranging psychological Wrong Work is a huge area of study that you undertake in order to be free of it. Every form of Inner Considering is an obstruction to the development of Consciousness. Inner Considering keeps you focused on yourself and filled with your own requirements. This effectively eliminates the possibility of real personal development of transcended consciousness.


27. IDENTIFICATION:
In the Work, being Identified with something means giving the force of your belief to it and ascribing it to yourself. Primarily you are identified with yourself, with who you think you are. Therefore you are identified most with everything that defines you, i.e. your attitudes, your opinions, your politics, religion, national affiliation, cultural designation, as well as individual events and circumstances. This is the mechanical functioning of an unawakened consciousness. In Identification, the psychology goes from one associative thought to another, Identifying with each one in its turn, giving force to the Identification by believing what it says and asserting it.

You may define yourself as a good citizen, politically liberal, socially acceptable, patriotic, sound minded, honorable person. However you define yourself, it will be expressed in what you believe to be consciously formed attitudes and opinions and dispositions. However, these Identifications are not you and they were not formed Consciously yet they feel like yourself. They are at present who you know yourself to be. But they have been formulated in you without your conscious participation and therefore belong to the level of Sleep. If you can imagine for a moment that you have been struck with total amnesia, thereby you have no attitudes or opinions or preferences or any of the conventional ways to describe yourself, yet you still exist. You are not the things you have lost with your memory.

Identification is one of the most difficult areas to work with, it is the most powerful force keeping us asleep. It is subtle and insidious and powerfully tenacious because it brings you right up to the point of having to forsake your ego for the transcendent higher.


28. MULTIPLICITY:
One of the hallmark transitional points in the Work occurs when you have observed all of the previously described Wrong Work within yourself and you see the enormity of contradictions and insincerity therein. The Work teaches that your sleeping psychology is an unorganized mass of individual thoughts and feelings called Is. This is the doctrine of Is. To every circumstance in life, an I within you steps forward and says I in response -- without the presence of Real I or Consciousness or intentionality or unity. After a long period of Self-Observation, you notice that many Is are habitual and congregate in groups. You will observe how one I can contradict another I with no seeming discomfort, that you can go to bed full of Is of conviction to wake early in the morning and find only Is of complaint and resistance, justifying and rationalizing away the previous nights Is. You will se that your Is speak automatically for you in ways that you would not choose, were you able to choose. You will see how Is are constantly changing, expressing your mechanical responses to the stimuli in your life. You will understand that in saying I to something you are giving consent and energy to Identification.

One of the reasons this is a critical stage is because in seeing your Multiplicity you have the first glimpse of the magnitude of the Work and the magnitude of its requirements of you. It is a decisive point where you have to commit to the path of unity or decide to live with being a Multiplicity. Thereafer, you will have to make choices about every I you observe within yourself. You will have to work against inconsistency, and you will have to restructure your psychology with no Wrong Work left in it.

More importantly, the mere fact that you know through Verification that you are a Multiplicity means you can choose which Is are real and honest and which express your Real I. Knowing your Multiplicity eventually gives you the power to choose, thereby change.


29. SELF-AWARENESS:
All of the efforts you make to practice Self-Observation, Self-Remembering, not expressing Negative Emotions, and to be Externally Considerate are aimed at bringing you into a higher state of consciousness called Self-Awareness. Practicing Self-Observation over a long period of time and verifying the existence in your own psychology, of the Wrong Work of Inner Considering, lying, justifying, etc., will teach you to know thyself in the only way that matters. Self-Awareness is the beginning point of your potential. Before you reach Self-Awareness, you are too mechanical to be accessible to the influence of higher Understanding, with only rare, brief exceptions throughout your life.

With honest Self-Awareness, you can begin to choose to be real in every moment. It is the point at which real and permanent change in your level of Being can become tangible.

In this System, Self-Awareness, Self-Remembering and Self-Observation all belong to the same level of Consciousness which is directly above your normal consciousness. Each is a different kind of activity. They are not the same thing.


30. INTENTIONALITY:
Intentionality means acting with Conscious awareness. You must reach conscious awareness, even momentarily, in order to act with intentionality. Consciousness and Being manifested in Real I and True Personality act with intentionality.


31. NON-IDENTIFICATION:
Non-Identification is the movement of energy out of Wrong Work. It is the force between mechanicalness and intentionality. In order to be free to choose intentionality, you must be free of your own Identifications, free of your requirements. If you are motivated by selfishness or personal agenda, you are Identified and you are not free to make a pure choice.

Non-Identification is an effort that you make which releases force for transformation. It is that state of selflessness or emptiness or detachment that is referred to in this Work. It happens when you choose not to express or consent to your normal mechanical responses. During the Work process you can experience times of Non-Identification. This state is available to you in every moment when you sacrifice your own requirements in order to act from Conscience, intentionally. It is the state you are seeking in doing the Work.


32. SACRIFICE:
In order to get into a state of Non-Identification, you must sacrifice something. In the Work, you sacrifice everything false or wrong and selfish or negative that belongs to Acquired Personality for self-transcendent consciousness. When you sacrifice your personal requirements and desires, you will find you can reach Non-Identification with the force you have withdrawn from Identification with your own agenda.

Understanding the idea of sacrifice correctly is critical to a straight path. The Work teaches that you must pay for what you receive, and this is correct. What you have to sacrifice in order to Work on yourself is your self-interest, your Acquired Personality with all of its screaming opinions, likes and dislikes, attitudes and hatreds. In doing so you can reach a higher state of consciousness called Non-Identification. It is only from that point that you can formulate right action. So the sacrifice that you must make in order to develop in the Work is a psychological sacrifice of ego to make room for the growth of consciousness and the receptivity to higher influences. Every effort you make to let go of an Identification is a sacrifice. Every effort you make to practice Self-Observation is a sacrifice. Every effort you make to not express Negative Emotions is a sacrifice. These are the sacrifices that are required by any authentic developmental path, in this case the Work. Nothing else can produce any gain in consciousness. You cant buy your way into it and you cant do external work that will get you there. Sacrifice is an essential, emotional/psychological effort. It has force and it leaves space for growth.


33. SUFFERING:
The Work teaches that there are two kinds of suffering -- Necessary Suffering and Unnecessary Suffering. They both feel quite the same and we generally dont differentiate between them. Your suffering over a public humiliation, for instance, may be as severe as your suffering over the loss of a close friend. So it is critical to start observing the difference.

Everyone suffers nearly continuously throughout their lifetime, regardless of their circumstances. And there are valid reasons for Real Suffering in everyones lifetime. However, the Work teaches us that the vast majority of our suffering is unnecessary. Unnecessary Suffering arises from unsatisfied requirements and desires on our part. Real Suffering is bearing the loss of love, the death of someone close, meaninglessness, real heart deprivation, illness, etc.

Unnecessary Suffering is what you study most in the Work because it is what you have to sacrifice. Your Unnecessary Suffering arises from your Acquired Personality and its Wrong Work. All forms of Inner Considering are Unnecessary Suffering. All forms of Negative Emotions are Unnecessary Suffering. All forms of justifying, fear, worry, and insecurity are Unnecessary Suffering. The sources of all Wrong Work are addressed in doing the Work, and are gradually eliminated.

There is one more element that needs to be mentioned here. Doing the Work is taking on intentionally additional Necessary Suffering with the aim of development. Doing the Work practices and exercises causes Necessary Suffering and it needs to be done willingly. Accepting the process is Necessary Suffering and sacrificing your egocentric psychology for self-transcendent psychology is Necessary Suffering. You do this for a purpose when you are in the Work.


34. INNER SEPARATION:
Among the practices and exercises in the Work, we are given tools as well to use against any Wrong Work that we observe. These are psychological tools applicable to your psychological development.

First the Work asks you to practice Self-Observation. You are instructed to observe the Multiplicity of Is, the degree of Wrong Work in your psychological condition, and watch passively as you begin to know yourself in a new way. But what then? Once you have seen your Acquired Personality and have sensed your Real I, how do you reconcile them? What can you do about the Wrong Work that you observe within yourself?

The Work gives us a practice called Inner Separation that is a psychological effort you make to step back from your mechanical functioning and view it as only mechanical functioning. In doing so, you strengthen the observer of the mechanics -- Observing I. The effort to distance yourself from mechanical behavior weakens its force. This is a subtle psychological exercise. You see repeated mechanical behavior and you do not say I to it. You do not assent. Your rob it of force. It moves away from you. It amounts to reaching for detachment or taking one step in the direction of Non-Identification. Every effort of this nature helps to separate you from your False Personality.


35. INNER STOP:
Another valuable tool that the Work gives us is called Inner Stop. It can be considered the first movement of effort toward Inner Separation and Non-Identification. When you observe Wrong Work in yourself and you know through Verification that this is Wrong Work that you wish to change and that the first effort of change is to stop the Wrong Work, you can practice Inner Stop. If you observe yourself justifying, simply stop saying the words. If you can successfully stop some Wrong Work in process, then you have the choice in that moment to move toward separation from that Wrong Work. Elimination of it happens by not consenting to giving it your attention. First you stop, then you can move toward Inner Separation. You can use methods of remembrance of the Work and your aim or some other intentional activity to assist you in changing direction at that point.

36. INNER SILENCE:
In the Work, Inner Silence is a very specific psychological exercise. It is not the inner silence commonly referred to when speaking of a transcendent state above the noise of the Multiplicity. It is not the general inner silence of a still, inactive mind. It means to remain silent in your mind toward one specific thing.

As you practice Self-Observation, you will begin to see definite, repetitive groups of Is that are harmful or dishonest or even dangerous. You will observe yourself singing your song. You will observe an account you are keeping against someone. When you have a definite set of Is that you have recognized repeatedly over a period of time through Self-Observation, you can practice the Works version of Inner Silence in relation to these familiar sets of Is in order to disempower them. The practice of Inner Silence goes something like this. You are aware that there is an account raging in your head against another person. Fueled by Negative Emotions, it has its own momentum. Its energy is actively present as are the consequent Negative Emotions. To practice Inner Silence, stop giving voice to that particular set of Is. Every time an I arises that belongs to keeping an account against that person, you give it no words either literally or more specifically psychologically. You do not let your thoughts touch that place in your psychology and you do not let your tongue touch that place because if it does the words will pour forth. So in practicing Inner Silence, first, you give no words to the specific Wrong Work. You give it no attention, even if you still sense its presence. You refuse to acknowledge or have your attention drawn into it. But most importantly, you do not allow yourself to speak the words even in your mind.


37. EXTERNAL CONSIDERING:
If you persevere in the Work and develop on its path, and when you have reached some degree of self-transcendence, you will begin to be able to practice External Considering intentionally. The Work asks you to practice External Considering from the very beginning of your efforts. At first, this seems mostly an issue of exaggerated good manners, but as you go through the process of the Work, your Understanding of what it means and what it takes to be externally considerate in the full sense is beyond your capacity for a very long time.

To be externally considerate, very well includes sensitive manners. But it asks you not only to be polite, it asks you to understand the other persons position. It asks that you view the circumstances from the others point of view and that you treat the other person with intentionality that expresses good will -- Conscious Love. It may require being active or it may require being passive, or even withdrawing. Every day, every bit of time you spend in the company of others becomes an opportunity to practice self-transcendence through External Considering. As you do this exercise and develop in the Work, you begin to have an organic Understanding of what it means to be asleep. And as you begin to awaken yourself, you will find it becomes very easy to forgive other people for their condition because you know what being asleep is like. It is full of suffering.
External Considering requires a good deal of practice and study that will be useful to you when you gain enough consciousness to choose self-transcendence. But the essential nature and foundation of External Considering is based in forgiveness. It is forgiving people for being asleep. In doing this, you release them from your requirements and you both become free. It means giving others ease and whatever consideration needed. Acting intentionally from Conscience with Understanding and right actions -- to do what is Good.