Purifying the Emotional Center of Negativity is one path to self transformation.

“It is in my thoughts and my feelings in which begins a possibility of ascent and descent. I must work to connect the idea of purification with this.” 
Annie Lou Staveley, The Plan is Good, p84

One of the tasks in the Work is the purification of the Emotional Center. Maurice Nicoll speaks of the Work depending on inner purity, which I would relate to the many talks on valuation and genuineness in the Work. “You must visualize yourself behaving rightly, not merely think it. This visualization is the connection between the Intellectual Center and the Emotional Center. It is remarkable that a little pure visualization helps everyone. Visualization is directed imagination.”  Commentaries, p468

Maurice points out that the parables are written in the language of Higher Emotional Centers. “It is not flat denial or flat affirmation that will help us, because we will miss all the many intermediate stages lying between these two extremes—all the inner octaves of finer meaning that we seek to become more conscious in our daily life. There is always so much meaning passing through us that we do not realize. The activities of the Higher Centers are continually passing through us. The Emotional Center, purified of negative emotions, begins to hear them.” Commentaries, p673

“It is particularly with knowing truth that emotional states are connected. Negative emotions can never see the truth that non-negative emotions can see.” p576 M goes on to say that negative emotions only see part of the picture. They form an extraordinary mess in the Emotional Center, which we are trying to purify. “All negative emotions on their cognitive side are always wrong. They see only one side.When followed very much they lead to hell.” Commentaries, p579 

This is useful to ponder. I think of negative emotions such as suspicion, resentment, and feelings of betrayal. They connect dots in a logical way that seems to show the truth. But M is saying that the connected dots are from only one side of the opposites and so can never be connected to knowing the truth. This is important to remember—even the most “clear” negative picture is flawed in this way.

“All judgment not founded in love will be inaccurate. All negative perception is skewed.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Vocabulary of Wisdom.

“And here I will remind you that the more negative ‘I’s you have that express themselves openly or privately in your thoughts of other people, the greater danger you are in that those negative ‘I’s you have nourished will turn against yourself. All negative ‘I’s that attack others are in us, and when we try to raise our level through inner work we will have to meet them all one by one, because they will turn on us with the same ferocity that they turn on other people. … Remember, also, as long as the negative part of Emotional Center is active in us there can only be either no connection or a very faint connection with Higher Emotional Center. The object of this Work is to purify ordinary centers for the reception of the influences of Higher Centers. First we must change Mental Center and think in a new way and then change the Emotional Center and feel in a new way about one another. This is the task that the Work lays down in so many words and it is a useless task to try to understand unless we feel there is a higher level attainable.” Commentaries, p651

Logion 26: 
Yeshua said, 
You see the mote in your brother’s eye, 
but you do not see the beam in your own eye. 
When you cast the beam out of your own eye, 
then you will see clearly to cast the mote from your brother’s eye.

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Note: All page numbers refer to Maurice Nicoll, 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.