If you are honest with yourself, can you say that you have ever really pondered for even a few minutes what does the term “negative emotion” mean? I doubt that you have, and don’t worry about it because very few of us have. The problem we are up against is that there is a great deal of speaking, thinking, and emoting about negative emotions in the Work due to contradictory understandings. For example, Rodney Collin said this about negative emotions:
"The miraculous in relation to negative emotions begins with the idea of second conscious shock—the transformation of negative emotions into positive ones. It begins for me with Ouspensky’s saying that if we had no negative emotions, we would have no chance of development, so they would have to be invented. They are our own inexhaustible raw material for transmuting into that divine energy which otherwise is incommensurable with our logical efforts."
- Collin, Theory of Conscious Harmony, 55
Aspects from the Work, such as I should not outwardly express negative emotions, or they should not be expressed immediately, or they are bad, all this comes originally from Ouspensky’s notes of what Mr. Gurdjieff said in early meetings. The way Ouspensky’s writings have been interpreted is that one should not have negative emotions and that one should attempt to stop being negative, as being negative shows you are identified, etc.
The effect of these beliefs about negative emotions from Ouspensky’s writings surprisingly ties directly to admonitions from parents, education and society, where early on, as children, we are also taught not to express negative emotions. Instead, we are taught to cover them over. Thus, negative feelings automatically remain within us as resentments or are automatically and unconsciously expressed, even against our wishes. As adults, most people move away from the nonexpression of negative emotions and have little control over their constant expression.
A major problem with attempts not to outwardly express negative emotions is that the inner experience of these emotions and their effects on my body and being still take place. When one tries not to express negative emotions outwardly, they are still expressed by the body. in addition, the attempt not to outwardly express negative emotion, even though it is expressed in the body, results in inner contraction of thoughts, other feelings, and the body’s musculature. Many of these attempts lead to additional bodily rigidity, other negative feelings and thoughts, all without an understanding of the cause of your negativity. Even though people never ponder what is really meant by a negative feeling or being negative, Work people come to the conclusion that “negative feelings” are bad and are to be struggled against. This is an excellent example of confirmation bias, in this case, thinking you understand something.
This brings up the need to really define negative emotions. What is a negative emotion? In the recent exploration of shame and guilt, Elizabeth endeavored to show that what we call negative emotions are emotions that actually serve to help us mediate our
environment. For example, the emotion fear can keep us from danger or harm as it mediates and helps us discern danger. Or anger, when warranted, is an empowering emotion that is a normal reaction to harm and can help us address the harm being done. We have developed some very unclear definitions of the meaning of negative emotions. In many ways, this results in people in the work attempting to stop something that's already going on inside them and becoming more critical of themselves and others who are “negative.”
The major difficulty we're up against when we look at negative emotions is how one can really study them. How can you study yourself objectively if you have a preconceived notion that what you are studying is bad or should be stopped? If you think about such a study for a few minutes, you will realize you cannot objectively study anything inside yourself if you have many preconceived notions of that what you are studying is bad and that you shouldn't have that emotion. This whole way of looking at negative emotions has been a major error in terms of the Work needed to deeply understand oneself.
We may find, as we go on into this exploration, that what one considers to be negative aspects of oneself really hold psychological treasures. If one views aspects of one's behavior as being negative or bad or needing to stop them, then this rich material belonging to our multifaceted psyche is lost to us. This not only can keep me from understanding myself, but can create two extremely negative effects on a person, both cognitively and emotionally. The negative cognitive effect encourages viewing myself in a black and white, critical way, rather than encouraging increasing my depth of understanding. Black and white thinking increases a formatory view of myself. The “negative” emotional effect is that I develop an overly critical and limited understanding of myself without any real understanding of how the different parts of my multiplicity came into being and what they really signify.
Another fundamental difficulty with this way of looking at one's emotions, i.e., as being good or bad, relates to how I come to view and relate to others. If you recognize that Gurdjieff’s work was connected had one core aim of reducing the automatic hatred people toward each other, then how can black and white thinking allow us to ever see other people as being caught in a psychic prison just as we are, i.e., automatic unconscious creatures who may hold the potential to become representatives of God?
Polarized black and white thinking creates barriers between me and others, increases my buffers, feeds egoism and self-centeredness, and keeps me identified. Rather than being able to see another person as a kindred spirit, as someone who is equal to me in many respects, I look at them as being good or bad, and such a view makes it impossible to actually see the full person. By characterizing negative emotions as being bad emotions limit your view of yourself and others.
The original suggestion Mr. Gurdjieff described for Ouspensky was for individuals to attempt to stop the immediate outward expression of a negative emotion. According to Ouspensky, Gurdjieff says this is a place where we can work and not imbalance the human machine. But what was Gurdjieff really referring to by the term “negative emotion”? Was he referring to our whining or complaining about our lives, the weather, the government, etc., as examples of negative emotions? Perhaps such relatively harmless complaints were what he was referring to. If one looked at these types of complaining feelings, one may find that these feelings feed negative or false personality. But again, we need to study these emotions as they are occurring within us to see if, in fact they are related to false personality or perhaps buffers. Most importantly, these types of slightly unpleasant emotional displays, such as complaining, are relatively harmless. Whereas attempts to “stop” more powerful negative emotions such as fear, anger, or shame or grief may be injurious to the human organism unless fully understood.
The nonexpression of negative emotions has become a psychic cornerstone of the Gurdjieff Work. However, in my opinion, this aspect of Work is widely misunderstood and can lead to unintended negative outcomes.
Ouspensky emphasizes the nonexpression of negative emotions. Although Gurdjieff undoubtedly gave the fundamental basis for the study of the role and the significance of negative emotions, as well as methods of struggling against them, referring to non-identification, non-considering, and not expressing negative emotions. However, he did not complete these instructions, nor did he explain his statement, the conclusion that Ouspensky draws that negative emotions were entirely unnecessary and that no normal center for them existed.
I would point out to the reader that it is Ouspensky, not Gurdjieff, who states above that no real center for negative emotions exists. It does not appear that Gurdjieff himself made that statement. We must first ask, what is meant by negative emotion; specifically, what might Gurdjieff have meant by the term? Keep the question in mind. There is no doubt the nonexpression of negative emotions can produce a psychological effect and even produce energy for Work. However, some people more than others seem better able to make use of such nonexpression. Others, with a different psychological makeup, may experience some unpleasant results. Their emotional state may become unbalanced. Believing the nonexpression of negative emotions is good for everyone is like saying one size shoe fits all. Gurdjieff does not mention the nonexpression of negative emotions in any of his writings. However, Ouspensky speaks of it on three separate occasions in In Search of the Miraculous. The most important of these sections occurs the first time he mentions it. Ouspensky reports Gurdjieff as saying:
"In the sphere of the emotions, it is very useful to try to struggle with the habit of giving immediate expression to all one’s unpleasant emotions. Many people find it very difficult to refrain from expressing their feelings about bad weather. It is
still more difficult for people not to express unpleasant emotions when they feel that something or someone is violating what they may conceive to be order or justice." - Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 112.
Note that Ouspensky reports Gurdjieff as speaking of “immediate expression.”
Struggling to restrain the immediate expression of unpleasant emotions is a means of studying my reactive emotional habits and how I might waste energy. Gurdjieff uses the example of someone complaining about the weather. In this situation, a person might try for a few moments, instead of immediately complaining, to restrain himself, see what the experience is like, find out about where it is coming from, and notice its automatic nature. Then, although Gurdjieff did not say this, a person might express his annoyance and work to be present while doing so. In other words, holding back the immediate expression of an unpleasant emotion is a means for self-study, creating energy, and bringing interest and attention to your psychological structure; the aim appears to be not to immediately change your behavior but to study it. Gurdjieff is not instructing people to be good.
Ouspensky goes on to quote Gurdjieff as saying:
"Besides being a very good method for self-observation, the struggle against the expression of unpleasant emotions has at the same time another significance. It is only one of the few directions in which a man can change himself or his habits without creating other undesirable habits." - Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, 112.
I believe this is where the problem really begins. The word “immediate” from the first quote has been left out. If a person struggles against the immediate expression of unpleasant emotions, it is not a big shift, and in fact can help in self-study. The unpleasant emotions Gurdjieff speaks of seem to be simple ones, such as constant complaining about one’s body or the weather or the unnecessary fears or worries that are peculiar to each individual. These types of negative emotions are very different from strong emotions such as anger, hatred, or depression. An unpleasant emotion may involve not liking the way someone sings, for example, or being annoyed that someone has not considered me, etc. However, a strong negative emotion such as anger goes far beyond my simple annoyance at not being considered. In fact, it may be perfectly justified for me to feel angry when I see injustice, such as the abuse of a child by an adult or the discovery of betrayal. Psychologically, we need to admit we do not really understand what the repercussions would be if we tried to stop the expression of an emotion such as anger, either outwardly or inwardly. If I struggle against the actual expression of a strong negative emotion and never express it outwardly, that is a very different situation from struggling with the immediate expression of an annoyance. It is also important to consider that if I do block the outward expression of a strong negative emotion, then what happens to it? Is this repression actually useful for my work?
I am unsure that Gurdjieff made the statement exactly as Ouspensky quotes him the second time. It goes against all current psychological understanding and my own experience. Nowhere can one inflict more psychological injury on him or herself than through the continued nonexpression of negative emotions. Attempting not to express major negative emotions can immediately alter our psychological ecosystem and
provide some very unpleasant surprises. For example, take anger and someone who gets angry and begins to be interested in understanding his anger. He must be angry in order to study his anger. This is not to say that someone who is constantly angry and expressing it might not benefit from an anger management course or learn how more usefully to express his anger. Because anger is a powerful emotion that Gurdjieff did not directly address, it may be useful to understand a little more about it.
The study of negative emotions and the possibility of their transformation is perhaps the greatest challenge of our species. I believe that unless we begin truly to understand negative emotions—especially shame, anger, fear, hate, and depression—our chances of survival as a species will continue to diminish. All these painful emotions, such as fear, anger, shame, or grief, are dysregulated in us to a certain degree due to our ignorance of these emotions in terms of how they begin, what they are about, how they feel in the human body, and their effects on oneself and others. All these emotions are hardwired in us and can be found in people in every culture. The problem may be that these emotions do not function as they were originally meant to in a normal being.
The Gurdjieff Work brings tools to this study of emotions that no other discipline offers. Many people have long realized the need to transform hatred, but the tools they brought to the job were insufficient. They may bring their knowledge to a situation, but lack
either sufficient self-knowledge or knowledge of the automatic, psychological structures of human beings. Academic research has not seriously discovered any means to study or understand how to work with hostility among individuals or nations. Diplomacy is only as successful as the individuals engaged in the mediation are wise, mature, experienced, committed, and, most importantly, conscious so that they can be awake to meet the waking-sleeping behaviors of participants. Rarely have any of these negotiators actually worked at transforming—or as I call it, “metabolizing”—their own hatred into something positive. Nor have these individuals worked on themselves. Perhaps this is the reason they can have only partial success working with others on the world stage.
Modern psychology focuses on the individual. Most of the time, this individual is interested only in getting through his suffering as quickly as possible so he can feel happier. The psychological community is just beginning to recognize the deeper relationship of psychology to the larger world, but psychologists and psychology lack a framework with which to view this larger world. Gurdjieff offered us a framework of the entire cosmos as the background to truly understand the psychology, purpose and possibilities of human beings.
Gurdjieff also brought the tools for studying human negative behavior and unconscious suffering. However, to begin this study, we need to be able to fully engage our own personal negativity. Engaging negativity does not simply mean finding ways to get around it, stop it or banish it to the netherworld. “Engaging" entails entering into the cave of negativity to meet the dragons, the guardians and the gatekeepers who guard the entrances and keep us from understanding the dynamics of our human behavior.
It is important to recognize that every emotion that we consider to be “negative” can actually be understood as a normal, needed human expression as a response to the world. Anger is actually a normal human expression of the recognition that harm has been done. However, that is not to imply that we should all be angry when we experience harm being done, but to understand the inherent intention of every emotion is important. Let’s look a little bit at anger to see what we might learn from it and how it could give more information about oneself if it were studied.
To understand negative emotions fully, we need to investigate the difference in the form a negative emotion can take such as: (a) identification; (b) repression; (c) projection; (d) sublimation; and finally, (e) the appropriate expression of negative emotions. Let us
focus on anger to flesh out some of these differences.
Generally, we manifest anger automatically in two ways that often intermingle with one another. In the first instance, you get angry with someone for an act of omission. This is a difficult type of anger with which to begin your self-study because you direct your anger at another person; you are always identified and feel justified in your anger. It appears he has wronged you, or you think what he has done will cause you some harm in the future. Inwardly, you are saying this person did not consider you sufficiently; you inwardly justify your feeling and often express it outwardly. I call this “reactive anger,” and it usually gets expressed. Because you don’t notice the anger coming until you are in the midst of the interaction with the other person, it is very hard to study. Moreover, the other person will usually have a reaction to your expressed anger. Thus, the situation can escalate in a way that will likely cause you to forget any aim of self-observation; you are identified, that is, completely attached to your anger.
In the second instance, you do not express your anger. Instead, you repress it, bottle it up and place it in an invisible psychological bag, the resentment bag, which you carry over your shoulder. This bag can carry only so much weight before you need to empty it
it. Some people are actually able to carry a steamer trunk on their shoulder—you should avoid them! Generally, you are not aware of the resentment bag’s weight until it is about to crush you, then you outwardly explode, projecting your anger onto someone else (this is projected anger). Whether repressed or projected, anger usually masks your more subtle feelings, such as you being hurt, feeling sad, fearful or ashamed. Often, the latter emotions that are born in past experiences are at the root of your anger and which you are unable to experience. You are usually unable to experience these earlier experiences because you have parts of your psyche that protect you from feeling and experiences other younger parts because they are too painful to experience. The angry part of you protects this wounded and pained part from being felt. Learning how to access and understand this young protected part is a practice to be learned. However, because of our tendencies to either repress or project or anger without the ability to deeply understand its source, people have not developed communication skills to effectively communicate anger in a useful manner—useful for both oneself and others.
We can experientially study the effects of our anger. One way to begin is to pay attention to the actual physical bodily sensations that accompany the emotion. For example, anger is usually accompanied by contracting and tensing the muscles of the chest, abdomen, arms, or face. We may also find tension in other muscle groups, in the neck and shoulders or the genital area. We may experience a residue of other, more subtle emotions that accompany anger, such as sadness, guilt, or depression, even if we feel justified in our anger. Often, the physical sensations surrounding anger may make one feel ill. We can start our study of anger with the study of the physical sensations and other emotions that follow or are there during an angry outburst.
Now, let us look more closely at repressed and projected anger. When you repress your anger, you push it down inside you, try not to show it, and in effect, you are attempting to stop it. However, you are still identified with your anger, and it hasn’t gone away. Followers of Gurdjieff’s ideas quite often miss the fact that they are still identified and justifying their anger, even if they are not expressing it. All you have managed to do is keep a lid on the anger. However, if you can remain in touch with your anger and be sensitive to the other emotions that accompany it, such as shame, hurt, sadness, fear, or anxiety that sit just below the surface of anger, then you may understand its real cause. But to do this, you must make a sufficient stop and be with that anger, allowing it to be present in you without attempting to stop it, criticize it, or do anything else with it other than be there with it. This is a process equivalent to going into the cave to meet the dragon.
Sensing your body will help you observe and distinguish what is actually taking place inside you. I advise to learn to sense your body when you are in the grip of anger. There is no need to attempt to change your feeling state. Rather, stay in touch with your body, using sensing to experience how uncomfortable and painful your experience of anger feels, and just stay with your physical sensations. You may find tensing of the muscles, weakness in the limbs, or a vague feeling of not being well, such as an upset stomach
or cold symptoms. If you are able to tolerate your anger and remain with it, you will receive understanding from the deeper part of yourself. It may come in the form of thoughts or other feelings or both. You need to be interested in the anger and may even learn that there have been similar instances throughout your life, and you may even find out when and where that anger started. This type of understanding is transformative.
The study of anger includes the study of the accompanying emotions that we shy away from experiencing. Accompanying anger are often powerful links to shame and hate. Shame is one of the most common emotions that underlie anger. The nature of shame makes it difficult to study because no one wants to experience it, even for just a few minutes. The latter is a reason we very easily default to anger rather than experience shame.
Projected anger is often more subtle than it first appears. For example, in my experience, part of me is constantly criticizing myself, monitoring my progress, and critiquing my life. At times, I get exceedingly angry with myself for the way I do something, especially if I do something stupid that may be seen by others (shame is at work here). I put up with my constant self-critiquing because I have no other choice nor any control over this critical part of me. However, just let someone else monitor or critique my behavior, and immediately, a button is pushed inside me, and I project my anger onto them.
This projection takes place because I have developed hypersensitivity toward anything remotely similar to my own critiquing. Although I cannot escape my inner critic, I will not tolerate criticism from someone else. When I feel criticized by another person, it may be that I have endowed that person with a projection of my inner critic—I now seem him as the critic. Then, I accuse him and shout at him or resent him, feeling fully justified in my anger because he has treated me so badly.
Sublimation defines a situation where an individual diverts the energy of a sexual, biological, or emotional impulse from its immediate goal to one of a more acceptable social, moral, or aesthetic nature. For example, a man sublimates his sex drive by redirecting his energy and becomes a great athlete or mountain climber. Sublimation is a very natural process, usually not harmful. Most of us use it unconsciously. It is a relatively harmless way to handle anger that all of us do and we can engage in activity that takes the energy of anger and uses it in a productive manner.
The way to handle negative emotions is to recognize them and be present to them as they manifest—not through an attempt to stop them, “not to identify,” or repress or project the emotion, but through containing and learning to “cook” in the energy of the emotion I am experiencing. When you are cooking in Gurdjieff’s soup, as someone once said, you have a chance to taste yourself!
The nonexpression of negative emotions appears to be an incompletely understood practice in the Work. Ideally, it is an intentional attempt to produce energy, learn to save energy and receive impressions of myself. In my opinion, it is an advanced practice that does not necessarily fulfill the aim it is intended to and can result in harm if practiced with too avidly. Many people in ordinary life already repress strong emotions a great deal of the time and it can create incredible disharmony in their lives. They are often taught to repress such emotions in childhood and this repression becomes habitual. There is a great deal we can learn about ourselves from the study of negative emotions, without attempting to repress or stop them. Negative emotions can present us with a rich field of new material. It is not advisable to take on the practice of nonexpression of negative emotions too early, and perhaps not at all if we can find a more appropriate method of using these difficult emotions for our work. As Collin says,
They are our own inexhaustible raw material for transmuting into that divine energy which otherwise is incommensurable with our logical efforts. - Collin, Theory of Conscious Harmony, 55.
Bibliography
Collin, Rodney. The Theory of Conscious Harmony. Boulder: Shambhala, 1984.
Ouspensky, P. D. In Search of the Miraculous. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1949.
“One cannot know or work for the future, only for what is now. Never allow what should be to become more important than what is.”
- Jeanne de Salzmann (George Adie; A Gurdjieff Pupil in Australia, p. 112)
It was while preparing an interview with Anthony Blake, along with my friend Michal Metcalfe, that I came across the book The Supreme Art of Dialogue: Structures of Meaning, where the author describes dialogue as something “not to be achieved”, but rather a shared experience that requires the suspension of our proclivity to act and adapt to unspoken hierarchies within a group. This would allow us to immerse ourselves in an experience led by the dynamics of interaction with oneself and others that take place at the very moment. Such notions helped me reorient the attitude with which I was approaching the idea that we can work “only for what is now.” I realized that most of my attention was being taken up by the expectation of a sort of “tangible” outcome from these conversations, which I implicitly expected to arise from the initiative of senior practitioners to whom, at some level, I was relating rather passively.
This experience sparked my curiosity about the multiple approaches to the idea of “working for the future”. Are there any collective and/or generational perspectives on this subject? And if that were the case: Which “club” would I belong to?
As I kept encountering people interested in discussing different aspects of the future of the Work, I decided to organize, in writing, my reflections about the current atmosphere of uncertainty that I noticed is prevalent in discussions surrounding this topic. Furthermore, I opted to use Work literature as a foundation to expand on these ideas.
N.B. - Much of what may appear as statements of fact shared in this paper are more akin to insights and personal opinions of an experiential nature. This makes them extremely challenging to conceptualize in an academic manner, unlike the properly documented bibliographic references used to support this exposition.
From a historical perspective, people of the so-called Work’s “Fourth Generation” could hardly appeal to any particular inherited mystique in order to set the foundations of a collective identity, despite their connection with any specific Work lineage through their teachers. Having developed our concept of the Work based on the understanding of third generation students, it is safe to say that we will never be able to establish an authentic dialogue with previous generations as long as we keep holding on to the notion that our degree of closeness to G.I. Gurdjieff automatically translates in a higher level of connection with his teaching. Over time, the tendency of communicating Work ideas as a dogmatic, self-contained corpus “collected-into-one-whole”2 increasingly applied away from its original sociocultural context, is one of the biggest challenges encountered by those practitioners who recognize the contemporary relevance of the message that lies at the heart of Gurdjieff’s legacy and wish to transmit it:
“The strangeness of the psyche of your favorites in respect of the religious teachings which arise in this way among them, manifests itself in this, that they already from the very beginning understand ‘literally’ all that has been said and explained by these genuine Sacred Individuals actualized from Above and they never take into account in which environment and for which case this or that was said and explained.” - BT, p. 696-697 (Chapter 38 – Religion)
From a linear perspective, the “Fourth Generation” represents a rather unsettling period for the Gurdjieffian tradition. During their lifetimes, our teachers witnessed one of the most accelerated paradigm shifts in modern history; from the rise of the microchip revolution to the decimation of all prevailing ideologies of the 20th century. What they received as “The Work” about half a century ago, has seemingly followed the same fated path that has pervaded everything touched by the Western mind and its long list of ideological -isms: The gobbling up of any attempt to raise humanity’s level of consciousness in a never-ending deepening of the “kundabufferian” dream.
Many of our predecessors in the Work currently find themselves in an uncertain place, somehow mourning the galloping loss of a system of knowledge that allowed them to effectively explore the Gurdjieffian idea of cultivating a soul within the rising tides of a world crystalized in its own materialism. What is now being experienced as an accelerated decline of the initial vibration brought by G.I. Gurdjieff, continues at an ever-increasing rate, despite efforts to accurately pass down the teaching to our newer generations, who struggle to sustain its continuation due to a combination of factors. Among these, the very nature of our overall current social and historical circumstances is currently playing a central role. We are presented with a dissonant scenario in which a pervading pessimism interacts with a lingering sense of hope trying to find a way forward, a torch that in my opinion, is held by a rather reduced group of senior practitioners.
Regardless of these differences, there seems to be a common feeling of stagnation surrounding discussions about the future of the Work. The only clear reference points are found in a relatively recent past, approximately equivalent to one generation, when our social coexistence was still defined by hegemonic standards rarely questioned in mainstream media. Despite the Work’s timeless character, it is impossible to conceptually escape our current zeitgeist, or as Rodney Collin stated regarding Man’s ontological nature “His lifetime is himself” .
In Jungian terms, we are in “choppy waters” when it comes to exploring and understanding our personal mythologies, especially considering that the collective ethos itself is going through a rather intense but silent transformation. This shift has been accelerated by the adoption of mass communication technology in everyday life coupled with the steady advance of a transhumanist philosophy that—due to its apparent scientific grounding— slips right through the gated foundations of our modern-day weltanschauung:
“Although the rapid advances in biotechnology often leave us vaguely uncomfortable, the intellectual or moral threat they represent is not always easy to identify.” - Francis Fukuyama (Transhumanism, pp. 42–43)
The difficulty in identifying these “intellectual or moral” threats, rooted in the over-persistent use of 20th century frameworks, contributes in large part to the atmosphere of confusion and uncertainty that characterizes this moment in history. The deep discomfort generated by the lack of material to adequately conceptualize and therefore deal with the influences that are currently being processed by our psyche -which cannot be channeled through the pathways already etched in our mental landscape - are usually modulate
The Work, understood as a system seeking the discovery and development of Man’s real possibilities, paired with the corresponding ability to “respond to the real sense and aim of his existence” (BT, p. 369) through the balancing of our intellectual, physical, and emotional functions, has at its center, the cultivation of what are consequently called three centered experiences. This intrinsically dynamic concept can only fit artificially into a theoretical framework seeking to conceive it as an intellectual object susceptible to be dissected and analyzed at will. In this regard, the idea of “saving” something could hardly refer to the Work, but instead, to the preservation of the ideological constructs built around it and its corresponding influence in our relationship with its traditional teaching mediums and/or methods of practice.
This consideration could help us understand the different attitudes towards the concept of “Saving the Work”, which range from a declared disbelief in this idea, to fully formed action plans mostly based on online groups and virtual platforms.
A considerable part of the reluctance towards the idea of “rescuing” the Gurdjieffian tradition finds its source in the recognition of the work on sensation as the basis of any solid Work effort, literally representing the embodiment of this teaching. This aspect acquires an even greater relevance in western culture where most education models promote a segmented development of our functions with a clear emphasis on intellectual progress at the expense of the often neglected physical and emotional needs of the individual.
The relevance of the Work’s sensorial aspect has been reflected over the decades by the inclusion in regular practice of different types of activities carried out collectively, such as manual work, music, and the practice of the Sacred Dances or Movements. The latter being one of the main forms that makeup the practice along with group and one-to-one mentoring meetings, the study of ideas and the practice of the sitting and inner exercises. Essentially, in Fiona Denzey’s words, “there needs to be something for each centre”, to practice “the three Pillars of the Work, which are attention-sensation and relaxation”.
To properly practice the Movements, groups require a minimum infrastructure that includes a physical space suitable for a dance class, a knowledgeable pianist, and a qualified instructor, who must not only be deeply engaged in the practice, but also carefully trained in the context of a recognizable lineage. Naturally, these requirements are particularly hard to meet for online groups, especially those made up of members located in different cities and countries.
Faced with the impossibility of providing these basic requirements or to offer their members alternate ways of incorporating physical work in their collective efforts, online initiatives do not seem to be viable transmission channels for the Work in the long term, particularly if viewed as a teaching corpus. Despite these limitations, it is important not to discard the potential of online groups altogether, as they represent a valid introductory starting point for a digital generation that would otherwise remain oblivious to the Work’s existence. It also remains a great alternative to explore more heterogeneous dialogues between practitioners.
Today, the most respected Movements Instructors cast a disapproving eye towards the spreading of this discipline through online videos. Here we find people with more, or less connection to the Work, teaching in isolation from the entire corpus of the system. The end result of this decontextualized popularization of the Movements, is the watering down of one of the strongest Work practices available to us.
Besides the well-founded concerns that this picture may raise, the positive response from the public to open initiatives to explore the Movements seems to be a clear sign of an interest that should be further cultivated. If adequately managed, this first approach to the Work could represent an opportunity to properly introduce it to a wider audience, in the hope of ultimately reaching those seekers whose motivation could result in the development of a serious interest in Gurdjieff’s teachings.
This reformulation of the traditional sequence of assimilation of the system, would be partly justified by the way in which contemporary seekers look for prospective paths of development being social media, a pre-eminently visual tool, their main source of information. It is also important to consider that, for many practitioners, the Movements represent the most attractive and distinctive aspects of Gurdjieff’s Work, given their potential to enable a more comprehensive understanding of concepts and ideas locked in the system.
“I think that they are probably Gurdjieff’s unique contribution: the attention created by a whole class moving as one.” - James George (The Chronicles, June 27, 2003)
To the best of my knowledge, this flexible strategy has been adopted by some groups in South America and a handful of senior instructors (acting in a personal capacity) to assist people who teach Movements outside the traditional settings come closer to a proper understanding of the discipline. This cooperative attitude seems like a step in the right direction since it responds pragmatically and coherently to the current conditions. Unfortunately, these are still isolated initiatives that do not compensate for the absence of a centralized system to certify Movements Pianists and Instructors, which over time, has created an unfavorable scenario for practitioners who have decided to explore Gurdjieff’s Work beyond its formally institutionalized channels.
In our current scenario, creating appropriate conditions for more exploratory approaches to the Work, is a task that can make a real difference for the future understanding of Gurdjieff’s teachings. Let us remember that the idea of indefinitely participating in a specific group, with the same people, was not a concept promoted by G.I. Gurdjieff himself.
Assisting the efforts of those who - mainly through online initiatives - are trying to bolster a horizontal atmosphere of exchange, could help reignite the spirit of what we have up to now known as “The Work”. This could be one of the keys to having a natural dialogue with this tradition, where the participation of our awareness should always prevail over “any piece of knowledge”. This way, we could channel our good intentions by “making ourselves available” to what is slowly unfolding. For me, herein lies the hope of keeping alive what the Gurdjieff Work has shown to so many people over the years, the possibility of:
“(…) crossing from the stream which is predestined to disappear into the nether regions into the stream which empties itself into the vast spaces of the boundless ocean.” - BT, p. 1232
At a point where every initiative fostering a quality approach to the Work counts, the strengthening of a more coordinated and open collaboration between official and experimental groups, seems essential. This is a task that should be seriously taken into consideration to offer current and prospective practitioners the best possible conditions to study the Work as a body of teaching, while welcoming different Fourth Way perspectives.
“How can I affirm what is true in myself while denying what is true in another? I can only do that mechanically.”
Louise Welch (Meetings with Louise Welch in Toronto, p. 61)
We are often told that nobody can claim the Work, but, to what extent is this idea reflected in the language and attitudes of its practitioners? The way in which people in the Work connect with other traditions and their relationship with the community at large, including the ways of accessing the practice, could shed some light on this question.
If we plainly acknowledge and consequently align with the idea of a lawful vibrational decline in the Work, where does the motivation to keep cultivating the forms of this tradition come from? Is there any transcendental collective aim behind this effort besides the reproduction of what, so far, has worked for us?
To accept that the legitimacy and force of a movement is only dependent on the initial vibration introduced by its founders, acting linearly and in isolation, would be practically denying the existence of different levels of practice within the various systems of human development and their complex interactions with a reality that escapes any attempts of rational reductionism. This position would resemble the “atheistic teaching” mentioned in Chapter 24 of Beelzebub’s Tales:
“It was further maintained that there exists in the World only one special law of mechanics, according to which everything that exists passes from one form into another; that is to say, the results which arise from certain preceding causes are gradually transformed and become causes for subsequent results." - BT, p.343
The “Fourth Generation” is not at the level of its predecessors, whatever the meaning we want to assign to this fact. Any deliberate attempt to temper this situation through ordinary discourse seems to add to the “wiseacring” that Nella Liska refers to, distracting us from the search for an honest view of ourselves and the circumstances where our lives, and no others, unfold.
If what we can transmit as “Fourth Generation” cannot be regarded as the Work anymore, how can we sincerely relate to what we have received and its possibilities looking to the future? This is certainly an open question that, regardless of its answer, is connected to the undeniable effort and understanding of all those who have found in this teaching an inspiration to forge their own path, influencing many others along the way. This is an active force that has not been completely interrupted despite its ups and downs. To the Gurdjieff and de Salzmann names, we could add a long list of men and women who have kept this current alive and flowing in our direction by letting it blend with their own individual and collective aims.
G.I.Gurdjieff’s announcement about the Work’s eventual disappearance has a definite aim, of which we might be able to catch a glimpse, provided that we stay open to the roles that each individual plays in the dynamics of this system and its possibilities of transmission. In this regard, every practitioner, especially those of the “Fourth Generation”, should undertake the responsibility to form their own informed opinions before adopting any rigid attitudes towards the “unorthodox” exploration of certain Work methods. A good example would be the Transformed-contemplation exercises, an aspect of the Gurdjieffian tradition interestingly analyzed by Joseph Azize in his book Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises, where he shows us how these inner practices were gradually emphasized by G.I. Gurdjieff especially from the 1930’s, representing a fundamental part of his system, seldom shared with students in official Groups.
To the question about this rather strict non-disclosure policy, especially in big groups (50+ members), the most common and puzzling answer that I have received is that this is due to the “absence” of group members with the level of competence necessary to transmit even the objective version of these exercises. The persistence of this attitude and the consequential shortfall of properly recorded material on this subject, has resulted in the progressive disappearance of a key aspect of the Gurdjieff Work, a situation that motivated Mr. Azize’s decision to publicly share many of these exercises .
As in every tradition, Work practitioners must seriously face the question about the transmission of this teaching not only internally - within their groups - but also consider the way in which it reaches the public sphere. Depending on how intentionally this process is carried out, it could represent either a threat to the very essence of the Work, or a great source of energy and support for its own existence.
Reflections around these matters are especially relevant for the Work - which in historical terms could be considered a young tradition - and are probably related to the “life of a certain network” mentioned by Jeanne de Salzmann in 1966, which reminds us of the discussion of the “Club-of-Adherents-of-Legominism” about “(...) how to obtain the participation in the main task of the club of initiated beings, of the followers of those so-called ‘Ways’ then called ‘Onandjiki,’ ‘Shamanists,’ ‘Buddhists,’ and so on.” (BT, p. 457):
“This House plays a much greater role than we can imagine. One of its roles is to be a certain center of gravity for a study, for a contact with other similar organizations. It makes it possible to bring together here everyone who is working in the same way toward the fulfillment of shared tasks, for the sake of the whole life of a certain network . When a link in such a network shows some intelligence and vitality, the whole network gains thereby.” - Jeanne de Salzmann (General Assembly. SERCH, June 9, 1966)
Understanding the place from which some practitioners share comments about the decline of the Work is a matter of “conscious labor” and “intentional suffering” (or being-Partkdolgduty) where we need to factor what in many cases has been a lifelong dedication to the practice and transmission of this system, concretely approaching the fulfillment of the fifth “being-obligolnian-striving”:
“The striving always to assist the most rapid perfecting of other beings, both those similar to oneself and those of other forms, up to the degree of the sacred ‘Martfotai,’ that is, up to the degree of self-individuality.” - BT, p. 386.
The search for “genuine conscience” that is at the basis of this commitment to work effectively for the greater good, is directly connected with a sustained effort to relate with the real needs of our environment and the corresponding wish to respond accordingly. Assuming the inherent risk of identification associated with our manifestations along the way is, in my view, a key step to discover our generational responsibility towards what we have received, no matter the name we assign to It. Manifesting our opinion regardless of “not being at the level” of previous generations, could help us taste the meaning of becoming responsible beings, whose actions are not only guided by ideal standards, but by the integration of the lights and shadows of their present experiences.
“You can go to sleep over ideas. But it is a question of sincerity, of trying to share the risks involved here.” - Louise Welch (Ibid, p. 60)
Today, people from the “Fourth Generation” who, given their experience and understanding, are prospective candidates to undertake the responsibility of continuing the transmission of the Work at least in its early stages, must not only figure out the most appropriate way of sharing their comprehension of a method that is struggling to adapt to the current circumstances, but also with the expectations and challenges associated with the exploration of deeper layers of practice. In this process, characterized by what Stephen Aronson calls the “Divine State of Confusion”, the experiences of our first years in the Work, when the resources provided by a rather standardized version of the practice where sufficient to help us surf the twists and turns of the process of recognition of our Affirming and Denying forces, (or what is also known as the exploration of the First Shock) starts contrasting with the apparent “slowing down” that marks the transition to a less literally dualistic phase.
Many times, I have witnessed how the frustration brought about by the dearth of “results” faced by practitioners as they move towards a more integrated experience of the practice, becomes the object of reductionist analyses on the part of group leaders and members alike. The insistence on the “insurmountable” lack of understanding of the system, frequently points to the perpetual trap of our Ego driven efforts, a perspective that leaves little room for an amplified observation of these experiences. Unfortunately, the repetition of this type of instruction has created in many groups a sort of observation-feedback pattern that reinforces early formulas that, at some point, represented the gateway to a new conception of our lives and its possibilities.
This apparently never-ending cycle of realization of one’s “nothingness” and the subsequent return to the old “solutions” does not validate, nor supports the process of inner reconfiguration intrinsically set off by sustained efforts of self-observation and self-remembering. This cycle could even go against the ideas that once attracted us to the Work:
“Ironically, whatever belief or interpretation I stand on to reject the new implications of the discordant information or experience, may, itself, once have disrupted a previously held belief.” - Stephen Aronson (The Divine State of Confusion, p. 2)
As our efforts progressively open the path to a closer observation of our spiritual materialism or level of identification with our practice in the hope of “bypassing” the inherent struggles of our human condition, the formulaic approach to the Work - more often seen in an institutionalized practice that carries it forward in the name of preserving the “tradition”- becomes not only insufficient, but also detrimental to travel the path of progressive integration of a primordial “Objective-Conscience” that could eventually actualize our possibilities of existing beyond the limiting “consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer”, this process:
“(…) would only be possible if the manifestations of these data which survived in their subconsciousness were to participate without fail in the functioning of that consciousness of theirs, under the direction of which their daily-waking existence flows, and furthermore if this being-impulse [Conscience] were to be manifested over a long period through every aspect of this consciousness of theirs.” - BT, p. 365
The gradual, non-sequential integration of our “ordinary consciousness” and our “subconsciousness” could help us recognize the dualistic background of our exploration beyond its compartmentalization as an obstacle. This ever-present dynamic has not only allowed us to shape our search for meaning in a highly desacralized society ruled by polarities, but could also help us navigate a deeper layer of its expression through the conscious experiencing of the tension between “desires” and “non-desires”, assisting thus the fulfillment of our responsibilities towards our two natures:
“Only he will deserve the name of man and can count upon anything prepared for him from Above, who has already acquired corresponding data for being able to preserve intact both the wolf and the sheep confided to his care.” - MWRM, p. 4
The consolidation of a status quo stuck in the over-rationalized saturation of the methods of exploration of the First shock, has contributed to the unspoken feeling of disillusionment that permeates the atmosphere of many groups in which I have had the opportunity to participate. But could this apparent dead end represent something else? Moreover, could this even be a point of departure?
“When real disillusionment becomes operative some other scale of existence becomes possible and takes its place.” - Louise Welch (Op.cit., p. 86)
Dealing with difficult feelings related to one’s practice can be especially challenging after long periods of participation in a specific group, where it is hard to give these struggles a proper place given the oftentimes standardized treatment of situations involving emotions that could be labelled as “negative”, particularly when they can represent a potential threat to already established group dynamics tacitly equated to active participation in the Work. This perspective has led many practitioners into the habit of dismissing their own resistance:
“If I try to control, I only succeed in repression; but I can try to control the outward manifestation. Is there an inner place untouched by reaction? All my life I react. I must know much more before I can decide what I must control. I must not suppress reactions, must not pretend they don’t exist, and not cover them with hypocrisy. I must know myself at that moment, and not run away from it.” - Louise Welch (Ibid, p. 9)
This “ruling out” of certain reactions makes them prone to be co-opted by a shadow-self that unlike the “good practitioner etiquette”, does not deny their existence, diverting their expression to the “ordinary consciousness” of the individual, where they can operate inconspicuously. Among Work practitioners, we can frequently see this movement taking the form of an over-rationalization of their Work efforts.
From a typological perspective, this tendency should not come as a surprise, as many seekers come into contact with the Work through their search for intellectually meaningful answers to metaphysical and existential questions rarely addressed elsewhere with the seriousness of classic Work literature. The system’s intellectual strength and its emphasis on self-verification, are a potent combination that attracts many highly (intellectually) educated seekers.
The work on ideas, although necessary at all stages of the practice, paradoxically becomes the focus of many practitioners as they move towards a deeper realization of the limitations of their “automatic reason.” This tendency increases the risk of accentuating a lopsided development ultimately opposed to the balanced growth proposed by the Gurdjieff Work. This often overlooked principle is at the essence of a wider process that could bring us closer to the notion of the Second conscious shock, which is related to the connection with our higher emotional center and the possibility of actually transmuting “negative emotions”.
This is how an over-intellectualized practice frequently turns one of the most particular features of the Work, which is the exploration of the First shock - consisting in self-observation and self-remembering in preparation for the Second shock - into the main and oftentimes, sole focus of efforts made in the name of the Work:
“Right development of the fourth way must begin with the first volitional ‘shock’ and then pass on to the second ‘shock’ at mi 12.” - P.D. Ouspensky (Search of the Miraculous, p. 193)
As I started investigating and reflecting on the subjects presented in this paper, I also became increasingly interested in the story of Hamolinadir found in Chapter 24 of Beelzebub’s Tales.
As a consummate seeker who had already developed a stable “I” and his Reason to the highest possible degree (after studying in the Egyptian School of Materializing-Thought), Hamolinadir, having been brought to Babylon by force, naturally gravitated towards the city’s intellectual circles. At the time, the entire Babylonian society was deeply concerned with “the-burning-question-of-the-day”, which revolved around the idea of whether or not Man had a “soul”.
Hamolinadir, having also been interested in these matters without arriving to any conclusive answers, decided to present to his fellow learned beings, a report on what he considered the fundamental issue behind this entire “question-of-the-beyond”, which was the “Instability-of-Human-Reason”:
“To every man, and also of course to me, it’s quite easy to prove anything; all that is necessary to know is which shocks and which associations to arouse in the other human brains while one or other ‘truth’ is being proved.” - BT, p. 335-336
"In a final appeal to the very object of his critique, Hamolinadir shared his knowledge of Man's psychic structure and how real understanding takes place “(…) only after definite what is called ‘agreement’ between all the brains (…)" - BT, p. 335 —a clear reference to a three centered work.
As he mercilessly criticized Man’s Reason, he presented his case as an example of a deceptive search for truth based on “logical mentation”. This simultaneous affirmation and denial of the possibilities of “automatic-reason”, triggered in him an overwhelming emotional reaction. By breaking into an agitated sob, he denoted an intimate visceral experience that clearly transcended the intellectual level.
Through his tears, Hamolinadir connected with a water element that had a purging effect on him. Drained, after showing himself to others in unattractive lights, he accepted a glass of water offered to him by one the guests at the conference. This gesture re-established a type of connection, an eros, that made possible a clearer vision of the entire situation. This experience was illustrated by Hamolinadir in the image of the “Tower of Babel”, a powerful symbol of the illusion of ascending to “Heaven” through the chaotic accumulation of knowledge sought by a Reason that is, in the end, a vehicle for the expression of our “subjective psyche”.
It appears that Hamolinadir became aware of the mechanism operating behind his interest in the “question-of-the-beyond”, pursued under a logic akin to data processing that was blocking his access to the “little secret” of alchemy on account of which most of the learned beings present at the conference were forced to move to Babylon. This “little secret”, which is probably a reference to some part the process of gradual activation and development of the “Objective” or “Sacred-conscience” (described in the Legominism “The Terror-of-the-Situation”), would be key in tapping into the genuine experience of the being-impulses of “Faith”, “Hope” and “Love”. This Conscience is at the heart of the possibility of re-establishing our normal “psychic-organization”.
With this newfound clarity and despite not having an answer in the manner initially expected, Hamolinadir seems to transition to a state that is beyond his “automatic-psychic-functioning”, having the capacity to publicly admit his limited ability to tackle the “question-of-the beyond” despite all his knowledge:
“It seems to me that this crisis of recognizing my incapacity to ‘do’ through forcing changes in ‘myself’, others, or life, is essential as a lawful threshold which lies between the first stage of understanding Work, i.e., the first conscious shock of “self-remembering” and “self-observation” and the second conscious shock of voluntarily surrendering the “I” that I thought I was. At this point, I can recognize and accept that what I am is truly unknown.” - Stephen Aronson (The Second Conscious Shock and “Not Doing”, p. 3)
In his decision to leave Babylon, Hamolinadir let go of the over-rationalized quest to find an indisputable answer to his questions, getting out of his own way to explore the meaning of real action away from his reasonable reactions. This could be seen as a sublimation of the impulsive search for the “little secret” that obsessed the “Persian king” who set off the events that led to Hamolinadir’s journey in Babylon.
Is it possible to conclude that, by deciding to cultivate “maize” instead of the “sciences” for the rest of his life - moving away from the collective direction of the “learned beings” of his times - Hamolinadir gave up fulfilling his responsibility “to assist the most rapid perfecting of other beings, up to the degree of self-individuality”?
From Beelzebub’s Tales’ allegorical perspective, this would probably be a partial interpretation. Through working the land, where each stage of the agricultural cycle has its own purpose, alternating in a fruitful balance that must be experienced to understand our own needs and those of our environment, Hamolinadir returned to a state much more connected to “the real”. His apparent regression is, in a way, a reconciliation with his own question. As always, the story continues.
Even if the concept of “Saving the Work” can only be understood as a problem (which implies the potential existence of a “solution”) within certain particular socio-cultural frames that are currently in a state of flux, it is worth paying close attention to what arises in us, individually and collectively, whenever we come across this idea, as it could help us bring home new dimensions of understanding of “The Terror-of-the-Situation”.
The concerns about the future of the Gurdjieffian tradition are at a crossroads where multi-layer processes and historically bound experiences, such as our personal understanding of the Work and the role of our self-image as practitioners at the service of a “certain network,” converge. These themes are often reflected in opinions and discussions related to the practice of traditional forms and mediums of transmission, where the Movements play a prominent role.
Today, especially for “Fourth Generation” practitioners, it seems essential to gain awareness in the way in which this general atmosphere of uncertainty about the future of the Work has impacted our attitudes towards our own practice and its prospects under the methods inherited from our respective lineages. Efforts focused on exploring and inhabiting our collective “Divine State of Confusion” beyond the ritualized repetition of forms, constitute a solid foundation where possible paths of transmission and continuity could meet. This would imply looking forward to a dialogue driven future that does not require from us the reinvention the wheel, so to speak, nor the abandoning of the need for “a center organized to bring the necessary conditions” that would allow practitioners to continue experiencing the Gurdjieffian system in its proper dimension.
If we remain vigilant and keep our focus on the cultivation of attention-sensation and relaxation, we might eventually discover - paraphrasing Leonard Cohen –“the cracks that let the light to get in.” This would allow us thus to participate in the life of this system beyond the deceptiveness of a logos based search that often hinders our attempts to actualize the Work’s constant pursuit of harmonious development, a hallmark that is key for the cultivation of an amplified and shared intergenerational experience.
Exploring this approach, away from the dynamics that I met during my first years in the Work, has been and it is challenging at many levels. The emergence of criticism and comparisons is, somehow, inevitable. Amid these struggles, we can find great inspiration on Jeanne de Salzmann’s idea of the Work as a “special current” ultimately dependent “on what can be lived and what can be received” , independently of the views of any specific group or individual, no matter their status, institutional role, or degrees of separation from G.I.Gurdjieff. Finally, the “aid of an esoteric school and school knowledge” are a third principle:
“[...] that is always unchanging, invisible and unrecognised, and it can be neither commanded nor manipulated by the other two factors [active will, desire, and effort versus passive inertia]. In relation to them its role will always be mysterious.” - Rodney Collin (The Theory of Celestial Influence, p. 69)
"It is considering this idea in my heartmind that I can confidently say I would not want to be the type of club member who is, as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin would say “able to see no further than his nose.” I would like to move from the “question-of-the-beyond” to the “question of conscience.” - (BT, p.374).
“When things get difficult, a kind of rebellion arises. One wonders: why these particular people and not others? Some rebel against a specific form, without understanding that what is important is the people who come to the Work, who are here, and that a relationship with them is equally important. That is really the experience of this teaching.” - Jeanne de Salzmann (General Assembly. SERCH, June 9, 1966)
To all those who took the time to listen and read me, providing invaluable feedback. I would also like to express my special gratitude to Fiona Denzey, Stephen Aronson, and Michal Metcalfe for their invaluable support in this journey.
1. The earliest reference to this quote appears in 1949, October 20, Dunkirk Evening Observer, In Hollywood by Erskine Johnson, Page 22, Column 5, Dunkirk, New York. (NewspaperArchive). For more references see: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/04/18/groucho-resigns/. “No one seems to know the exact wording of the resignation message which is endlessly mutable.”
2. Gurdjieff, GI., All and Everything, First Series: Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (1999) Penguin Arkana-1950 Ed., p. 696.
3. Collin, Rodney., The Theory of Celestial Influence, p. 46.
4. Emphasis mine.
5. Emphasis mine.
6. Maturana, Humberto and Varela, Francisco., Autopoiesis and Cognition., p. 82.
7. De Salzmann, Jeanne., The Reality of Being, p. 111.
8. Azize, Joseph. Group depression, group resistance.
9. Azize, Joseph., Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises, p.16.
10. Emphasis mine.
11. Not so much in relation to the production and study of conceptual material, but in reference to the formulaic approach to deal with the “Divine State of Confusion.”
12. De Salzmann, Jeanne., Op. Cit. p. 110.
13. Ibid., pp. 105-106.