Inner Taste

As we progress in the Work, we begin to develop inner taste, an inner sense or faculty that makes us realize when we are negative or identified.

“[By] inner taste you can recognize that you are lying or in a negative state without difficulty, although you are justifying yourself and protesting you are not. Here the whole thing turns upon whether you possess inner sincerity or not. If not, then best to give up the Work. Inner taste can be said to be the faint beginning of Real Conscience, because it is something that recognizes the quality of one’s inner state. Self-observation and inner taste are not the same but may coincide. The more you understand the work, the more it is arranged rightly in your mind and its meaning seen, the more does it pass into Real Conscience. It is sometimes said that if we had Real Conscience the work would be unnecessary for we would know it already.”

– Maurice Nicoll, Commentaries, “Concept of Conscience in the Work,” Jul. 16, 1941, Vol. 1, p. 41