Maurice Nicoll | Psychological Commentaries - V2:6 - The Meaning of Evolution in The Work

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:11]Hello there and good morning and welcome. Today we'll be reading a commentary from Maurice Nickel on the meaning of evolution in the work. And I will follow this up uh tomorrow hopefully. I'm going to just record and upload a video speaking about the same thing but from Uspensky's fourth way and in search of the miraculous. And if this is interesting for you, be sure to subscribe to the channel so you don't miss tomorrow's upload. But ultimately uh the meaning of evolution in the work which we're going to get into. It's about having more and more eyes interested in the work and more and more eyes in a sense forming to become real eye. There's this concept magnetic center where a group of eyes coalesce who are interested in working. Then that forms and develops into deputy steward which has control of a larger number a large group of eyes and can observe the other eyes. Then steward and finally real eye or master or atman or soul has control over the whole organism. And in Plato Plato says that the soul should rule the appetites and the body and not the other way around. the body and appetites shouldn't rule the soul. But in modern humanity, uh, sadly, it's been inverted. And Platonic, uh, Plato's ideal, the Platonic ideal of soul, ruling body, and appetites sadly does not occur. But we won't be getting into any Plato into this reading. This will be Gurge of terminology and speaking about evolution in a work sense. And so let us begin from birdlip May the 20th 1944.

[00:02:12]The meaning of evolution in the work.

[00:02:17]The doctrine of eyes is the most important part of the psychological teaching of this work. Unless a person begins to see that he is not one, he can never be otherwise than completely identified with himself. Just think what this means. I repeat that unless a person begins to see that he is not one but many different eyes, he cannot be otherwise and completely identified with himself in everything that he does and thinks and feels. Now such a man cannot evolve. Being fixed to himself as he is, he cannot separate himself from himself.

[00:02:52]When you speak to a man like this, he is very surprised when he is told to observe himself and he is quite incapable of understanding what it means. [snorts] And hello and good morning to you Steven. Nice to see you and I hope you're well on this fine Thursday.

[00:03:10][snorts] Now all evolution in the work sense depends on a certain number of eyes moving into new positions and gradually gaining and increasing control over the remaining eyes. If a man were just one and the same eye, it would be impossible of course for this to happen. The new position into which these eyes upon which a person's evolution depends have to move is towards a more central position in the person. And at the same time, if it is possible to explain it, they must have a special place. They cannot be on the same level as other eyes, they must be given a certain rank, a certain distinction, or as the work puts it, a certain valuation. Otherwise, immediately a man gets immersed in the affairs of life, making money, etc. These eyes will all get scattered and in a short time a man will not know what on earth this work is about even if he caught some glimpse of it before.

[00:04:09]Of course this depends on the kind of man he is. If a man has magnetic center if he has always felt that there is more in things than appears on the surface.

[00:04:20]If he has noticed that certain kinds of teaching very similar in nature have always existed which are quite different from those referring to the affairs of life then it will be possible for him to understand what it means to keep certain eyes in him away from the street from the level of the ordinary traffic. For a man who is purely material to whom everything real is merely what he can see and touch. This will be impossible.

[00:04:46]And so for the same reason individual evolution will be impossible. For a long time we can observe the struggle going on in ourselves with regard to the above situation.

[00:04:58]Sometimes individual evolution is defined in the work as a new growth of essence. Taking essence simply as something more internal than personality. It means that essence is a growth of something internal rather than external in personality. Personality surrounds essence and so is external. As we know personality that is the acquired side of us may so surround essence that a person becomes dead. He is completely cut off from essence. He may appear to be a very highly organized being or have a strong personality and so on and yet he is dead. Now when a man is held by personality there is no real man inside him. I would ask you to pay attention to what is going to be said. If a man is held by personality and by nothing deeper, he is not a man at all and there can be no individual evolution of him.

[00:05:51]When however a man is held by something internal to personality, he begins to be a man and is capable of an individual evolution into a conscious being. We are of course merely outlines experiments.

[00:06:05]We are experiments in the creation of a self-developing being. At the same time we have to be able to live in ordinary life. For this reason personality is acquired which enables us to make contact with outer life and to do our work and so on.

[00:06:24]But this is only an external development. You can talk if you like about the evolution of the personality but this is not what the work means by individual evolution. Certainly this is a preliminary step and the richer the personality the more material the more inscribed roles in centers the more experiences the more knowledge the better. But this does not make essence grow. Essence can only grow through the weakening of the personality. From the ordinary state of an adult person where the personality is active and the essence is passive. A new state must be eventually reached in which the essence is active and the personality passive.

[00:07:04]You can understand that this is a very long journey and you can also understand that you cannot understand it right away. But it is very useful to remember it very often especially in moments of struggle. Now for the essence or inner part of us to grow and become gradually active, a man must be able to be utterly sincere with himself when the occasion rises. Essence cannot grow from anything false. I said that not I said just now that a man [clears throat] I'll try again maybe have a sip of drink.

[00:07:47]Now for the essence or inner part of us to grow and become gradually active a man must be able to be utterly sincere with himself when the occasion arises.

[00:07:57]Essence cannot grow from anything false.

[00:08:00]I said just now that as long as a man was held by the personality, he was not really a man, nor could he evolve individually. When a man is held only by the personality, everything he does is insincere, relatively speaking. It is pseudo. For instance, he gives something to the poor because he wishes to appear charitable. or he may do it in secret and yet in a false way in order to keep a picture of himself alive or in order to be found out later. Let us take a man who keeps the law only from the external side of himself. He will be afraid of loss of reputation of being arrested and so on. He will not do many things which he would do at once if these external restraints were removed. So you see that he is not really a man.

[00:08:48]Now when a person is in this state and a great many people are, they are really governed by fear of consequences. They will pretend and ever pretend to themselves that they would not steal, for example. But as soon as they feel they can do so without being discovered, they will proceed to steal in all the thousands of ways that it is impossible to do so nowadays. And if all external restraints were removed, law, police, government, social opinion, etc., They would simply do exactly what they wanted. Now when a man is bound by no inner restraints, if he has any conception of God, it will be of a god of fear and violence. It is quite possible to see what is meant here. To a man bound by nothing internal, God is fear and violence.

[00:09:36]Now when the internal or essential part of a man begins to develop, his conception of God, however vague it may be, changes. It changes from the negative sign of fear and violence to the positive sign of affection or interest or valuation. The internal essential part of a man cannot grow through fear because when a man does a thing because he is afraid of the consequences if he does not do it, he is doing it under the compulsion of fear.

[00:10:04]The case will be quite different when he does a thing from himself.

[00:10:09][snorts] Now what does it mean to be bound by something internal in the first place?

[00:10:16]It means that such a person will always maintain a certain integrity quite apart from outer circumstances. He will have a center of gravity in himself. He will not completely alter his conduct when external circumstances change or when there are no legal restraints or fear of police and so on. When a man has seen the truth of something for himself and feels it emotionally, it is no longer a question of the external personality but of a deeper inner side evolving. Many people take their impression of life from what happens in life. Such people lose their hope or become cynical very easily. The work teaches that everything simply happens in life and that life is a big factory used for cosmic reasons.

[00:11:04]And hello and howdy Graeme. I hope that you are doing well.

[00:11:10]Now when a person begins to see that there is something else and begins to see for himself the meaning of it, he begins to grow internally. A person may not manifest negative emotions because of external reasons. Socially, we are taught not to express negative emotions at least in public. But once the external restraint is removed, once the fear of social criticism is temporarily absent, a man or woman will express his or her negative emotions to the full.

[00:11:38]But if we have ever thought and seen deeply enough, we will realize what the work teaches about negative emotions, we will realize the truth of this knowledge we have been taught and realize it for ourselves. It is then possible to begin to work in a quite different way. the more essential part of a person will then begin to grow.

[00:12:03]Let us look briefly at the idea of evolution as taught by the work and compare it with the modern idea of evolution. This work just as science teaches that evolution exists. The difference is that the work says that mechanical evolution does not exist save within already created types. In the case of some particular species of animals, those who are hardier will naturally or mechanically be selected and so tend to survive rather than their more weakly brethren. Also, the work says that a particular species of animal such as the horse can be bred by selection by man and so be improved. But it teaches there is no gradual mechanical turning of one species into another. A monkey does not little by little turn into a man any more than a so's ear gradually little by little turns into a silk purse.

[00:12:58]This earth so low down in the scheme of creation is subject to many influences apart from those already known such as solar radiations or cosmic radiations.

[00:13:10]All living things on earth in the thin film of organic life covering its surface were created by that level of that corresponds to the sun physically in the ray of creation at the point in the octave of the ray between far and me where a shock is necessary in order to transmit influences to the moon. But in creating this sensitive film this pain factory that's quite a statement isn't it? um especially for one who's suffering or interested in Buddhism where they say life is suffering or you've learned about luch that's quite a um statement isn't it this pain factory [clears throat] but in creating this sensitive film this pain factory the primary object of the sun was to create a self-developing being first of all all sorts of experiments were necessary all sorts of plans. For this reason, the work speaks of the solar laboratory. Finally, after many experiments, man himself was created as a being capable of an inner evolution. For this reason, in esoteric psychology, man is called a seed. As a machine, he springs from a seed into the womb. All this is given to him. This is his first evolution, the result of millions of experiments. But he is capable of a further evolution, an individual evolution through his own understanding and efforts. In every age, every epoch, every period of history, there is sown into the world esoteric teaching which gives the outlines of this further self-development.

[00:14:51]Man is born with a great part of his brain unused, a fact which no mechanical theory of evolution by selection and immediate advantage can explain. These unused parts of the brain represent his further possibilities of individual evolution. What is he going to build up in these unused parts? What ideas? In our epoch, we have had given the in our epoch we have had given the esoteric teaching of the gospels indicating the direction in which individual evolutions should take place at this stage.

[00:15:24]However, these teachings have been perverted and turned into something almost useless. Yet it is obvious that if people really were Christians in the sense that Christ taught, all wars and many other evils would cease. But what Christ taught and what Christianity teaches are two quite different things.

[00:15:45]Again, a couple of um powerful statements here. The um [clears throat] being the pain factory was it uh this pain factory and also what Christ taught and what Christianity teaches are two quite different things.

[00:16:09]So, a lot to unpack there in that um commentary. And of course, I'm not going to pretend or sort of say that I'm able to unpack it all.

[00:16:22]Ultimately, the thing to do would be to go listen to it again and unpack and and really focus in on on the sections that um drew your attention.

[00:16:33]But just to try and unpack it as best I'm able, he's talking about uh groups of eyes. He begins with talking about the eyes and how a a group of eyes have to coalesce. In in search of the miraculous, he speaks of this term crystallization.

[00:16:49]So imagine to begin with the group of eyes are just uh congregating together and they're all interested in esoteric ideas and work and awakening waking up and living a fully conscious life and so they're all just uh congregating mingling together. But over time they crystallize and form this thing this magnetic center. And normally about this time or at some point you will meet whether it's uh the Buddhist philosophy or esoteric Christianity or some neoplatonic form the writings of proclas maybe or if you're lucky enough you might discover the fourth way which arguably is the most modern variation of these esoteric teachings and is the most direct path to awakening. That's an opinion. Uh, sue me if you disagree and you think, "Oh, no, Orthodox Christianity is the way or Islam is the only way to paradise." We can have that um discussion and argument um we can have that argument in a different video. But then he goes on to talk about essence and personality and how if a man's essence is completely um swamped and overtaken by personality, Maurice Nickel in this reading says he's dead. He's a dead man because there's nothing true in him. It's all false personality which has been acquired and accumulated over time.

[00:18:20]But essence can grow. So he sort of shifts from um eyes to essence and personality. And when we uh come back to views from the real world over the weekend, we will pick up uh body oh body, essence and personality and then just essence and personality. So two uh lectures from GEF on this same subject if you're interested that will be coming on Sunday. But then he moves on to say you know that all historical philosophies and religions with any substance anyway came with the same message to wake up and that's becoming more clearer and more clearer and more clearer for me as I continue my study and research.

[00:19:12]But as I just said a moment ago, the fourth way arguably is the most modern interpretation or the most modern offering of this path of awakening, which is maybe why it feels um so may it feels like it has such promise for me anyway because I've verified in my life um certain things that the work tells us to verify and I've seen other people verify it. So this is just anecdotal evidence of course. But if a group of people uh not not together in a work group sense but uh disperate over different parts of the world all verify that this work when they understand it more and value it more brings more benefits to one life. Well, it's not to be taken lightly. And uh Steven Lan, if you're still there, uh I could uh Google it.

[00:20:15]Actually, I'll Google it. I don't want Stephen to be working harder than he needs to. Uh Steven Lan comments about Yeah. How far from the sixth commandment to America and Israel? So, I'm going to just get up. I don't have the Ten Commandments um to um to to pull up, but I'm going to get the sixth one. You shall not commit murder brackets kill. And that's absolutely right, Stephen. What a great comment.

[00:20:49]What a great comment. And I believe Steven is referencing this final sentence, right? But what Christ taught and what Christianity teaches are two quite different things. So Jesus would probably take that another step further, wouldn't he? Because in the gospels Jesus says um what [clears throat] does he say the seventh commandment you shall not commit adultery but Jesus updates the law if you like and says even if you think about adultery even if you think about fornicating with the neighbor's wife you've already committed it.

[00:21:27]So you could argue that Christianity Jesus would say even the thought of committing murder is is a terrible sin and as Steven's saying murder, destruction and war is rampant today.

[00:21:45]But if we look at uh these esoteric teachings that Maurice Nicole is pointing out and you can find any uh me many varied esoteric teachings they all would say wouldn't they in a particular time of crisis with wars uh ignorance is rife unconsciousness uh division then these teachings are necessary more required and have more potential to reach more minds like a meme, right? The meme plex. It it it yeah goes out. Any mind receptive to awakening will hear it and well, who knows? Inshallah, God willing, uh more more and more people can wake up. But I think uh the bottom line is uh you know, my awakening, that's what I should worry about. Of course, I'm here sharing these wonderful readings and texts on YouTube because um something in me is not enough for me just to be in my cave uh a hermit studying the books and and making intense efforts to wake up. There's something in me that wants to share it with other people, which is why I'm here reading these uh these texts and speaking about awakening and speaking about Gerif and now beginning to write my own stuff. But [sighs] that was the meaning of evolution in the work. As I said, tomorrow I will share some more information uh from chapter 7 of Uspensky's fourth way and chapter 3 from Wensky's in search of the miraculous and sort of package those together in a nice uh nicely bound uh packet of information for people to consume.

[00:23:43]And I hope that's interesting for you too and that it inspires you to continue your efforts, your observations, your self-remembering, your conscious labors and intentional suffering, your external considerations and non-identifications and all the other things that we are exhorted to do in this work. So my friends, thanks for joining. Graham, Stephen, it's always lovely to see you, my friends, and I hope that you're doing well.

[00:24:14]And that's all. So, more coming up over the weekend. We'll be back on Sunday with views from the real world to read more about body, essence, and personality and essence and personality.

[00:24:28]And then the journey continues. So, thanks again for being here. I hope you enjoyed that reading. Many more readings from Maurice Nickel to come. We're pro progressing through volume two of the five volumes. But for now, I'll say enjoy the rest of your day. Those just coming in, forgive me. We have now finished, but you can always watch on catchup or go and explore the channel for all of the many varied and wonderful readings. Take care now. Bye.