What is the Work - Frequently Asked Questions

Gurdjieff was born at some point between 1866 and 1877 of Greek and Armenian heritage in Central Asia, a crossroads of many nationalities, languages and religions. He was educated for both the priesthood and medicine, prefiguring his later interest in both science and religion. As a young man, he became convinced that neither science nor religion adequately addressed the meaning of life on Earth, human life in particular, or the responsibility of individual humans in the great cosmic drama. Believing that ancient knowledge held answers to these questions — answers that had been lost to contemporary man — he set out on a twenty-year exploration with companions of similar interests and wide training in different disciplines to search for remnants of this ancient understanding. 

What he discovered during his travels in Asia, Africa and the Middle East became the foundation for his understanding of how to “unite the Wisdom of the East with the Knowledge of the West” into a practical methodology designed for the Western “logical” mind. He first began to present his ideas in Russia in 1912. Forced by spreading revolution and world war to continually move his “school” across many countries, he finally settled in Paris, where he taught until his death in 1949. During this time, he drew to him as pupils many of the great intellectuals and artists of his time. His students subsequently carried his teachings to all continents and many countries around the world.

Gurdjieff says that all traditions seek to awaken the sleeping potential in the hearts and minds of people. He posits that each tradition begins with one of the centers to develop a capacity to escape mechanical control of that brain over our thoughts, feelings or bodily manifestations. Thus, he says there are three traditional “Ways” to accomplish this. He calls them the Way of the Fakir, the Way of the Monk and the Way of the Yogi.

Spiritual traditions that focus, first or primarily, on developing Will over the physical body are the Way of the Fakir. Those that seek first to transform the feelings and open the heart are the Way of the Monk. Those that focus on control of the mind represent the Yogi tradition.
Gurdjieff says that each of these traditional approaches typically requires abandoning ordinary life and require many years of practice. If, at the end of that time, the aim has been realized and control of that functional center has been achieved, then the adept must find a different school to begin training on the other two brains.

Gurdjieff proposed a “Fourth Way”, an approach that addressed all three brains simultaneously and without the necessity of leaving ordinary life. In fact, he stated, the conditions of the life we are in when we begin on the Fourth Way are optimal for any individual, since the life we have made up to that point is a reflection of what we are at that stage of our life, and must be understood in order to open to a higher understanding of one’s potential. Thus “Karma” becomes the “food” and we can begin to “digest” the results of our fate up to that point.

Gurdjieff also provides specific exercises and practices to develop an objective Attention which can be intentionally directed into all three brains at the same time. This provides an overlapping awareness of thought, feeling and sensation, which produces an “Awakened” state of Objective Consciousness. These exercises seek to expand, and bring under intentional directed control, the Attention, a “cosmic energy” without which we cannot develop our full potential. The deeper attention can then be intentionally directed into all three brains simultaneously in the course of ordinary life. The potential result is fulfillment of the ancient admonitions to “Know Thyself” and “To be in Life but not of it” … not controlled by it. These practices also include ancient sacred dances and movements unique to this training.

Gurdjieff also provides a Cosmology of a living, intelligent multi-dimensional universe in which humans have two roles to play, first as food for the Earth and Moon as part of organic life on our planet, and second, as a potential source of transformed mental and emotional energies which can serve a purpose, actually as a “food”, for the universal levels above the space-time dimension in which our physical bodies live. It is the development of this second capacity that is the focus of Fourth Way training. Thus, Gurdjieff offers a way of understanding both the Universe and the place of life, and specifically, humans, in the great drama of existence.

Gurdjieff says that all traditions seek to awaken the sleeping potential in the hearts and minds of people. He posits that each tradition begins with one of the centers to develop a capacity to escape mechanical control of that brain over our thoughts, feelings or bodily manifestations. Thus, he says there are three traditional “Ways” to accomplish this. He calls them the Way of the Fakir, the Way of the Monk and the Way of the Yogi.

Spiritual traditions that focus, first or primarily, on developing Will over the physical body are the Way of the Fakir. Those that seek first to transform the feelings and open the heart are the Way of the Monk. Those that focus on control of the mind represent the Yogi tradition.
Gurdjieff says that each of these traditional approaches typically requires abandoning ordinary life and require many years of practice. If, at the end of that time, the aim has been realized and control of that functional center has been achieved, then the adept must find a different school to begin training on the other two brains.

Gurdjieff proposed a “Fourth Way”, an approach that addressed all three brains simultaneously and without the necessity of leaving ordinary life. In fact, he stated, the conditions of the life we are in when we begin on the Fourth Way are optimal for any individual, since the life we have made up to that point is a reflection of what we are at that stage of our life, and must be understood in order to open to a higher understanding of one’s potential. Thus “Karma” becomes the “food” and we can begin to “digest” the results of our fate up to that point.

Gurdjieff also provides specific exercises and practices to develop an objective Attention which can be intentionally directed into all three brains at the same time. This provides an overlapping awareness of thought, feeling and sensation, which produces an “Awakened” state of Objective Consciousness. These exercises seek to expand, and bring under intentional directed control, the Attention, a “cosmic energy” without which we cannot develop our full potential. The deeper attention can then be intentionally directed into all three brains simultaneously in the course of ordinary life. The potential result is fulfillment of the ancient admonitions to “Know Thyself” and “To be in Life but not of it” … not controlled by it. These practices also include ancient sacred dances and movements unique to this training.

Gurdjieff also provides a Cosmology of a living, intelligent multi-dimensional universe in which humans have two roles to play, first as food for the Earth and Moon as part of organic life on our planet, and second, as a potential source of transformed mental and emotional energies which can serve a purpose, actually as a “food”, for the universal levels above the space-time dimension in which our physical bodies live. It is the development of this second capacity that is the focus of Fourth Way training. Thus, Gurdjieff offers a way of understanding both the Universe and the place of life, and specifically, humans, in the great drama of existence.

Gurdjieff posited two reasons for war and violence. Psychologically, there are periods of feeling dissatisfied with the circumstances of one’s life. At such times, unless there is sufficient objective historical psychological perspective on the causes of these reactions from one’s conditioning, the typical reaction is to look for someone or something to blame. Thus, there appears a negative response, either directed at oneself or at outside factors. When large groups have this reaction at the same time, a mob response can occur. When this energy is harnessed by politicians and dictators, the mass psychosis of war can occur. Gurdjieff, in his teaching style of often using myth and metaphor, also said that these enormous explosions of negative energy serve a cosmic purpose and can be influenced by factors beyond Earth.

At this time in the development of humankind, these large events cannot be avoided entirely because of the generally low level of consciousness among the mass of people which leaves them vulnerable to the egoism of ethically corrupt leaders. Individual humans can learn to avoid personal negativity and eliminate “war” both against themselves and in their relationships. On the large scale however, Gurdjieff said it would take a very long time for humanity, as a whole, to psychologically develop to the point where war would fade away completely. Historically, political and social efforts to force people to be “good” or to behave as leaders wish, inevitably lead to violent reaction. Each person must make the decision to individually struggle to find a way to become objective about their own negativity and egoism. No one can do that work for us or impose it from the outside.

Gurdjieff says a prime reason most people will not make sustained effort over years to discover who they are is that they already believe they know. He says our inner world is dominated by many small “i’s”, each of which vie to take control of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors for the moment, each using the pronoun “I” and causing the illusion that we are a single psychology person with a single psychology. Each of these fragments has its own version of history, its own set of moods, postures and behaviors. 

This fragmentation segregates our memories and leads to inconsistencies, fluctuating opinions and attitudes. We are much more likely to see this in others than in ourselves because, as Gurdjieff tells us, we don’t “remember ourselves”, we are not objectively aware of ourself in the process of daily life and so do not see our inconsistencies as clearly as do others. But we certainly can be aware of shifting moods and the difficulty of maintaining an aim over time. Gurdjieff says each of the brains has its own life interests, preferences, sense of timing. 

Thus, he says, from another angle we have three different personalities living within us. We all know the puzzlement of recognizing when heart and head don’t agree or the “spirit is strong, but the flesh is week”, when I am of” two minds” or “I can’t make up my mind” etc. This is due, he says, to lack of simultaneous awareness in the three centers and an understanding about how to facilitate their working with each other.

This is a phrase now in common usage. In one sense it implies taking responsibility for my manifestations, inner and/or outer. The direction of such attention and effort depends on what about myself I want to change or improve. We can “work on” developing a particular skill or talent through education and practice.

But do we know how to “change oneself”, one’s personality, the quality of one’s Being? Gurdjieff says our responsibility as “three-brained” life forms is to learn, first, how to stop wasting the daily amount of energy we are given to work with …just by being alive … and then second, how to create energy of a finer quality that is necessary for the process of transforming ourselves into a being who can live more consciously. Such a transformed human can then transmute, digest, finer universal energies into finer gradations which are needed by the larger Whole beyond nature.

It is for this “Work on Oneself” that Gurdjieff offers a practical method. It is a long, slow process requiring patience, perseverance and often a suspension of belief, and disbelief, until one’s experiences begin to show the reality and the way to what cannot readily be described in words. It also requires a willingness to confront the entirety of oneself, especially the qualities not consciously contained in the daily self- image.

To transform into a human who can be free of conditioned reactions to the outside world, I must also become free from inner reactions to my conditioned sense of myself, my addiction to my self-image. I must slowly “die” to my understanding of who and what I believe I am, in order to be “reborn” into an entirely new understanding and acceptance. It has been said that true spiritual work is not for the faint of heart, because it requires a change of both mind and heart.

Our ordinary sense of responsibility rests upon our conditioned beliefs and reactions. The saying that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” reflects how we often fail to see far enough ahead and, as a consequence, the best efforts can lead to unexpectedly unfortunate results.

Gurdjieff observes that the problems in life are created, for the most part, by people interacting in a state of “waking sleep”, his second stage of consciousness. If people were in his proposed third state of consciousness, a state he sometimes called “Self-Remembering”, most of these situations would not have occurred. The problems are often compounded when solutions are attempted by other people also in a state of “waking sleep”. In a sense, many of our efforts to “help” are examples of the blind a leading the blind.

This is not to say that we should not try to do “good” in our communities. In a sense, what we “do” outside of ourselves is not the issue from the standpoint of inner “work on oneself”. How we engage, the motivation for our engagement, our aim in the effort, the degree to which our self-image and ego are involved, our degree of openness to others and, above all, the psychological state we are in when engaged, are critical in both the outcome of the effort outside and the results of the effort inside to stay “Awake”. 

We must learn to be actively directing and holding Attention, in all three brains, while engaged with life, to have a chance to see both ourself, and the situation more objectively. Otherwise, we are only joining the sleeping mass of people “rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic”.

As I can use any situation as a condition for trying to remain awake, it might as well be one designed to be helpful to someone. But if I am not able to “remember myself” in the process, I lose the opportunity to develop the hidden potential for Consciousness.

Ultimately Gurdjieff’s Work is designed to show us how to serve ourself, those around us and to be able to serve something higher than ourself, which is our ultimate responsibility. The surrender of egoism is the foundation for real service … a service of Universal purpose greater than my own.

No. In fact, many students of Gurdjieff’s approach report a new, deeper understanding and appreciation of their various religious practices, and a recognition of the common esoteric core of all religions.

Yes and no. Our culturally indoctrinated education about ourselves, life and society is, according to Gurdjieff, the common source of our distorted understanding of reality. We have to unlearn in order to discover this reality hidden by our misunderstandings. There is little in the educational background of ordinary people to prepare for Gurdjieff’s revolutionary ideas and practices. On the other hand, people drawn to this approach may have had tastes of “mystical” experiences or intuited a deeper meaning behind appearances. Such a partially developed deeper perception may signal an already existing opening to what Gurdjieff is pointing toward.

Gurdjieff said that the minimum requirement for someone interested in his work, is a capacity which he called a “good householder.” The good householder is a person who has learned how to be responsible and sufficiently competent in life to support him/herself and those dependent upon them. This cannot be done without sufficient will to carry out a chosen aim with at least adequate competence and consistency. Such a mature level of development is not achieved by a noticeable segment of the population. If one is a good householder and has a sincere question about themselves and a valuation of truth over personal comfort, then they may be a candidate for this form of inner exploration … if they are interested.

Gurdjieff “schools” have three primary service aims as part of the practice. These are known as “Work on Oneself, Work with Others, and Work for the Work.” These are designed to facilitate development of objectivity towards oneself and others and the development of real “Conscience”. These capacities will then be naturally carried into manifestation in ordinary life, as part of the responsibility to reduce negativity in the world and model the possibility to others of living a Conscious life of Presence in the moment. 

Gurdjieff observed that it is naïve to believe that we can help others without first truly knowing how to help ourselves. In current parlance, one must “walk the walk” rather than just “talk the talk”. Sometimes a group may manifest an outward service activity, but the primary reason for doing so is to create conditions for the inner work of being Present. This facilitates the practice of compassion and objectivity towards others without sentimentality or consideration of one’s self-image.