"Conscience : The Search for Truth" by P.D. Ouspensky

This book, which in reality is five different essays put together, develops some of the topics that are present in Gurdjieff's and Ouspensky's writings and system.  The system is, of course, Gurdjieff's, while Ouspensky is the most advanced pupil.  There are passages from the "In Search Of The Miraculous" interspersed throughout, but most of the material is from talks and answers to questions that Ouspensky gave.

In the first part, “Memory,” Ouspensky gives some insights on memory formation and durability that are not yet discovered by modern neuroscience but ring true to one's experience.

In the second part, “Surface Personality,” principles of the self are explained and the false or surface personality explained, as a necessary but, in a correct setup, subservient part of the unified personality.  Unfortunately, the modern science called Psychology devotes most of its breadth to researching this surface or false personality.

In the third part, “Self-Will,” the difference between will, or Real Will, is juxtaposed to Self Will, or what is usually thought of as will in everyday language.  The real will does not exist in the vast majority of humans which are thrown around by the resultant of the sum of forces of all the vectors that are influencing them, without the possibility, even the smallest one, of a personal choice, except in trivial and non-consequential matters.  

In the fourth part, “Negative Emotions,” Ouspensky talks about the utter uselessness of negative emotions, which include angers, sadness, depression, patriotism, sports rooting and pretty much everything that saps and wastes energy rather than preserving and storing it.  He points out to a common misconsception that a man who exresess negative emotions (in the wider, Ouspensky sense), is honest and genuine, instead saying that such a person is weak and self-indulgent. 

The final part, “Notes on Work,” an emphasis is put that development on one's own is utterly impossible, but only through a school with a teacher on another level of being any kind of progress can be made.  Otherwise all work would be just in the imagination, i.e. imagining one is working instead or thinking about working, rather than actually doing the work.