Maurice Nicoll

To awaken means to realize one's nothingness, that is, to realize one's complete and absolute mechanicalness, and one's complete and absolute helplessness. And it is not sufficient to realize it philosophically in words. It is necessary for us to realize it in clear, simple and concrete facts, in our own facts.

Until we reach the stage of realizing our own nothingness, we cannot change. To begin to realize one's own nothingness as a practical experience is to begin to cease identifying with oneself.

It is a necessary part of this Work that everyone must eventually pass, to see in ourselves by sincere observation, how we cling to our negative emotions with one hand and try to free ourselves with the other. The Work inevitably leads everyone to the same places and the same experiences. We must reach the point of discerning our own helplessness, of realizing our own mechanicalness. And this, if it is not a negative experience, will bring us into a state of self-remembering. Through seeing our helplessness we attract help. For realizing our own helplessness puts us into the Third State of Consciousness where help can reach us.

I will also tell you a secret. We have to will one another: this is the beginning of conscious love.

Faith is a continual inner effort, a continual altering of the mind, of the habitual ways of thought, of the habitual ways of taking everything, of habitual reactions.

I will also tell you a secret. We have to will one another: this is the beginning of conscious love.