What does Blessed are the poor in spirit mean in terms of finding the place between opposites?

“We must realize that we live on this planet between the Opposites. Our whole lives, ordinarily, are governed by the Law of the Pendulum. We all swing to and fro. When you are in one opposite you are unconscious of the other, and vice versa. You may have idle dreams of rising and rising, of progressing and progressing, of getting better and better, but all these are indeed idle dreams. You cannot escape from the opposites unless you know how to do so. You have to see both sides of yourselves and how one side helps the other side. This requires double thinking. One might even say it requires double consciousness. In other words, it requires self-knowledge. What do you think self-knowledge means? It means knowledge of all sides of yourself. What do you think self-consciousness means? It means being conscious of all sides of yourself. First ‘Know thyself’: then ‘Nothing in excess.’ What does excess mean? It means going too far to the right or to the left. But it means not only this. When you are too far to the right you are in excess and must go to the left. Nothing is more painful than excessive goodness. For example, take people who are excessively kind. Does it not at once arouse the opposite in yourself, just as people who are excessively cruel? Naturally all forms of vanity and pride (which form the false personality) enable us to think that we can do only good, and that we should be regarded with admiration. But I am afraid that finding one’s balance has nothing to do with pride or vanity. What is said in the strange reports of the Sermon on the Mount? Surely something is said about ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’? What does this mean? Have you ever thought how much your vanity and pride put you in the opposites? To be poor in spirit means not to identify with oneself. Now, supposing I only identify with what I think is the best side of myself, will I be poor in spirit? Will I then ever be able to walk on two legs? Will I ever be able to assimilate both sides of myself, both opposites in myself, and in others, and in life? When people say: ‘Thank God I am not as other men’, do you think they are one-sided? Certainly they have buffers which enable them not to see their contradictions. But if you can see both sides of yourself, what you call your good side and your bad, then you begin to be conscious in opposites at the same time.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p325

“Behind visible matter, in the regime of the atom, only two forces are met with—positive and negative—to begin with. They are opposites. It is very strange to think that this is so. Matter is built up of primary opposite forces. Do you see what I mean? The world appears out of a tension that is sometimes harmonized.” Commentaries, p327

“The just man is between the opposites, in a state of equilibrium. By knowing how to withdraw force from the opposites, his center of gravity is not pulled to one side or the other. This is only possible by reaching a definite feeling of one’s own nothingness, as was said. To feel one is something prevents one from reaching a position between the opposites. When the Work says that a man must come to realize his own nothingness before he can be re-born, it does not mean that he must humble himself and so on, but that he must by long self-observation actually begin to realize that he is nothing and that there is no such person as himself. The object of this is to get into a position, psychologically speaking, between the opposites. I mean that it has a definite object. 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. Sometimes, when the opposites are drained of force, as in severe illness, a person is brought into it. Then all his centers are in focus and he understands and sees clearly.” Commentaries, p329

“The harmonizing of the opposites is in the mediating force between them. Not that the Third Force is merely a union of the opposite forces. It is a distinct force to which we are not sensitive in ordinary states. It is called Neutralizing Force in the Work and Holy Spirit in the New Testament. At the top of the Universe is the Unity of the Absolute. Creation begins with the three forces or first trinity proceeding from this Unity. These three forces are equal. At the bottom of the Universe is the greatest antithesis to Unity. Here the opposites are most widely separated and there is no Third Force to reconcile them. So the Work speaks of the lowest matter in the Table of Hydrogens as being without the Holy Ghost.” Commentaries, p329

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Logion 22
Yeshua noticed infants nursing
and said to his students,
"These little ones taking milk
are like those on their way into the kingdom."
So they asked him,
"If we too are 'little ones'
are we on our way into the kingdom?"
Yeshua replied,
"When you are able to make two become one,
the inside like the outside,
and the outside like the inside,
the higher like the lower,
so that a man is no longer male, and a woman, female,
but male and female become a single whole;
When you are able to fashion an eye to replace an eye,
and form a hand in place of a hand, or a foot for a foot,
making one image supersede another --
then you will enter in."

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

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.