The Gurdjieff Work

My students Christie Atkinson-Meyers, Etzel Gardena, David Gabriel, and John Price were especially helpful in suggesting clarifications and expansions of an earlier draft of this work, and my wife, Judy, provided the indispensable support and encouragement (as well as much editorial assistance) needed to create this book. Special thanks are also due to David Daniels, Henry Korman, Claudio Naranjo, Kathy Speeth, and others who taught me much about the Gurdjieff work. 

Gunther Weil is now the director of the Media Center of the University of Massachusetts, but he s also been running the Gurdjieff group in Boston. He is closely identified with the Gurdjieffian work. He has put out records, he has tried to create art movies, he s lectured on the acculturation of the psychedelic experience. 

The Fourth Way of spiritual development, which Gurdjieff represented, combines the other three ways, aiming at developing all three brains in a relatively equal and harmonious fashion. This is obviously desirable in and of itself, as well as setting the stage for the development of an entirely different kind of center for the self, the center that we call the Master in the parable. Various characteristics of Fourth Way work will be discussed in the remainder of this book, and some have been mentioned already, although not specifically identified as such. One of the primary tasks of self-observation, discussed in Chapter 17, is the personal observation of the different flavors of the three brains and of the wrong work of one brain for another. 

Most Gurdjieff work does not encourage active development of love and compassion until after years of practice of more basic work. If love and compassion were cultivated at the beginning, before you had much understanding of your own mind and feelings, it would probably result in the growth of more illusions that would further support false personality. 

In reading this book, note that Ouspensky did break with Gurdjieff and so indeed presents fragments, not a complete system, as he honestly indicated in the book and in its subtitle. Ouspensky was a brilliant intellectual, probably in the unbalanced way described in Chapter 14, and I believe the break came when he could no longer deal with the emotional aspects of Gurdjieffs work. Try to compensate for the overly intellectual tone of the book as you read it. 

Ouspensky also wrote a much shorter introduction to Gurdjieffs work, The Psychology of Man s Possible Evolution (latest edition, New York Random House, 1981). I recommend reading this before starting In Search of the Miraculous. When you are familiar with these two books, you may want to read Ouspensky s The Fourth IVay A Record of Talks and Answers to Questions Based on the Teaching of G. I. Gurdjiejf (New York Random House, 1971). 

Webb, ]. The Harmonious Circle The Lives and Work ofG. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, and Their Followers. Boston Putnam, 1987. 

Take the ideas and practices in this book as stimulation. If they resonate with something in you, try them out. Do they fit in your personal experience. Do they expand your understandings. Do they need modifi-cation. Are they appealing to the better or worse sides of your personality. Should some be rejected. As Gurdjieff emphasized, you should believe nothing about his teachings or, for that matter, my version of them. If the ideas and practices appeal to you, be open to them until you feel you have a basic understanding, and then test them. If they work for you, build on them and go on. 

Gurdjieff observed that it was easy to make his students carry out frightening, unpleasant, demanding tasks, but almost impossible to make them give up their suffering. I have observed the same thing with my students. Work on something unpleasant in themselves Yes. Be happy and nice to themselves for five minutes No way ... 

Specializing in the development of any one of these brains can lead to extraordinary growth. Gurdjieff spoke of spiritual paths that specialized in working primarily with one type of man as ways. Development on any of these ways is generally, but not always, preferable to no development at all. Focusing your efforts on a way that is intended for a different type of man than you are could be very inefficient, of course. 

Gurdjieff described many people as dead, even though they walk and talk, because their essence is effectively dead. The purpose of the Awareness Enhancement Training work was to... 

Thus the teacher must constantly study his students and try various methods to see what works best. Gurdjieff himself certainly experimented this way. Some experiments, of course, don t work, they don t produce the intended results. It is quite possible that some of the methods used by followers of Gurdjieff today are such fossils. 

The teacher must help strengthen the genuine growth motivation. Gurdjieff expressed this as helping strengthen those subpersonalities that are interested in the work at the expense of those who aren t. 

To make matters worse, Gurdjieff s ideas readily lend themselves to authoritarian interpretations that turn work based on them into cults (in the worst sense of the term), giving great power to a charismatic leader. 

Life Is Real Only Then, When ""IAm" (New York Dutton, 1982) is the third volume of the series, and very provocative. I would suggest this as later reading, after gaining thorough familiarity with Gurdjieff s work. 

This appendix is addressed to those who have found the ideas in this book appealing enough that they want to find and work with a development group that specifically teaches Gurdjieff s work. I do not believe this is the only way of personal and spiritual development, of course, but it is a powerful system that can be very helpful to some of us. 

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