“Self-Remembering, non-identifying, and non-considering are the things that can change our Being. But self-observation is first of all necessary because otherwise you will not be able to practice these three great things.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p1299

The Foundation of Inner Work

“Self-Remembering, non-identifying, and non-considering are the things that can change our Being. But self-observation is first of all necessary, because otherwise you will not be able to practice these three great things.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p1299

“Unless you practice self-observation, the Work is useless to you.” Commentaries, p1316-18

Making the Work Personal

“When it is said that this Work is to make you think in a new way it means that the ideas of the Work must begin to change your way of thinking, and you cannot expect this to happen until you have registered the ideas by hearing them many times that you will know them in your memory. The next stage is that you must apply these ideas to yourself through self-observation. Self-observation connects the ideas of the Work to yourself. If you do not practice self-observation the ideas of this Work will remain outside you as mere matters of memory. But all the ideas of this Work are spermatic—that is, they are very potent and can generate in you not only a new way of looking at things but a new way of feeling about things.” Commentaries, p793

A Ray of Light into Inner Darkness

“The Work says that self-observation is to let a ray of light into our inner darkness. What is this inner darkness? All that we take for granted that we are, the roles we play automatically, the self-justification, the pictures of ourselves.” “And what is the ray of light that self-observation brings into our darkness? The ray of light is consciousness. Observing something in yourself, you begin to separate from it. When you begin to observe yourself, you attract the influence of the Work, which has great power to change you.” Commentaries, p1316-18

“Self-observation let’s a ray of light into our inner darkness. If you let this ray of light in, it will gradually change you.” Commentaries, p1303

“In order to work on your Being, you must see something in your Being to work on. You cannot work on nothing. At first all is in darkness and you can see nothing in yourself. Conscious objective self-observation begins to let in a ray of light and you begin to see some things dimly. This light, created by the friction of self-observation, should gradually get stronger by practice until you catch sight of something in you clearly and beyond any doubt. You will probably be startled.” Commentaries, p173

The Path to Self-Knowledge

“In regard to Work on Being, the first aim in this Work is self-knowledge—Knowledge of one’s Being. This applies to everyone. Knowledge of the Work is one thing: self-knowledge is another thing. Without self-knowledge you cannot make any aim about yourself. Real self-knowledge as distinct from imaginary ideas and illusions about oneself can only come from direct and long-continued personal observation of the different sides of oneself. That is why this Work begins with self-observation.” Commentaries, p172

“To become more conscious of our lives and of what we are like, it is necessary to be in more conscious parts of centers—that is, in those parts that can see several things together, and not only one at a time. Self-observation leads to an increase of the consciousness of oneself, of one’s life, and from this aim becomes clearer. You begin to see what is wrong, not just at the moment, but what runs through your life. So to make aim from the mechanical parts of centers is quite wrong. Larger and more permanent aim must be based on self-knowledge gained through practical self-observation.” Commentaries p180

The Knife That Separates

“The instrument of self-observation is like a knife that cuts us away from what is not us. If you begin to see what it means to say: ‘This is not I’, then you begin to use this instrument.” Commentaries, p217

“You must never say: What I observe is ‘I’, but you must know that this ‘I’ that you observe is in you. Now all this belongs to not identifying. Self-observation carried out with the idea of not identifying with what you observe is the keynote of this system practically, and it is a very difficult thing to carry out. In fact, it may be a long time before you see what this method taught in this system really means. You know you must divide yourself into two, an observing side and an observed side—i.e. you must not identify with what you observe. This is the same as saying that you cannot change if you identify with everything that goes on in you—i.e. with every mood, every thought, every sensation, every form of imagination. And again this means that we have to take ourselves objectively. We have to take our psychology and all that lies in it objectively as we gradually observe it and gradually become more conscious of it.” Commentaries, p661-62

The Practice of Inner Attention

“You must observe yourself when you are alone, just as much as when you are with people. Self-observation is inner attention. Do not think that when you are alone there is no need for inner attention. When you are alone, quite different ‘I’s, different forms of imagination, different thoughts, different moods, come forward. You must not think that you are necessarily in good company when you are alone.” Commentaries, p256

“Self-observation must not be done with identifying. You must not identify with the idea of observing yourself. People get very identified with some word in the Work, such as self-remembering, self-observation, negative emotions, internal considering. This prevents them from understanding what such terms might mean.” Commentaries, p452

“Today I will try to be clever. I will let it do as it always does, but I will observe from further back. Mostly it will be necessary to remember sneakily, quietly—not trying too hard.” Annie Lou Staveley, Themes I, p2

Embodied Observation

“One of the first things that you can feel with, that you can begin to sense, when you’re using your sensation, is any sort of inner constriction or bracing, any kind of movement of defensiveness as if your turf is about to be violated, any sort of response like that really invites slowing down and taking a look at it. And by taking a look at it, don’t take a look at it with your head. Inhabit the position of the brace inside. Don’t immediately psychoanalyze it. But let the sensation of that flow through your being so you really get what’s happening. Then you can begin later to reflect on it.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont 2016 Three-Centered Knowing, 40:58 21-Friday Morning Teaching.

The Recognition of Nothingness

“Unless a man, a woman, can begin to realize their own nothingness as a fact of self-observation, nothing can take place in them.” Commentaries, p1098

“Without self-observation no change of self is possible. We hate to observe ourselves. Consider how you never do it. Amongst other things only the Light of increasing consciousness shed by self-observation and Work Memory can cure us of the strange illness of being a half of what we really are.” Commentaries, p1694

Beyond Self-Observation

“You can think of Self-Remembering as a kind of lifting oneself up from the uproar of things in oneself, or of going into another room and shutting the door and sitting down quietly. … It is only when this quietness begins that help can reach us from the higher parts of our own Centers … from the place of Self-Remembering.” Commentaries, p450

“Self-Observation without Self-Remembering is simply not good practice.” Commentaries, p450

“The feeling of Eternity enters into Self-Remembering, and does not enter into self-observation.” Commentaries, p943

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Logion 84
Yeshua says...
When you see your own likeness
projected into time
it makes you happy.
But when the time comes
that you are able to look upon
the icon of your own being
which came into existence at the beginning,
and neither dies nor has been fully revealed,
will you be able to stand it?

Logion 26
Yeshua says...
You detect a speck in your brother's eye,
but fail to perceive the beam sticking out of your own.
Remove the timber from your eye,
and you will see clearly enough
to extract the speck lodged in the eye of your brother.

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See this related Impression on Making Accounts or Internal Considering

Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020) unless stated otherwise. 

All quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)

Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.