September 1941

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Copyright TRIANGLE Editions. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Intro to a meeting from September, 1941: You will see that in life you get back exactly what you put in. Your life is the mirror of what you are, it is your image. You are passive, blind, demanding. You take all, you accept all, without ever feeling indebted. Your attitude towards the world and towards life is the attitude of one who has the right to demand and take. Of one who doesn't need to pay or gain. You believe that all things are due to you, only because it's you! All your blindness is there. It doesn't catch your attention. It is however what, in you, separates a world from another. You have no measure to measure yourself up. You live only between 'I like it' and 'I don't like it'. Which means that you have appreciation only for yourself. You do not allow for anything above you - theoretically or logically maybe, but not in reality. This is why you are demanding and keep on thinking that everything should be cheap, and you can afford to pay for anything you want. You don't recognize anything above yourself, or outside yourself or inside yourself. This is why, I repeat, you have no measure and live only to satisfy your whims. Yes, your 'self appreciation' makes you blind! It is the biggest obstacle to a new life. One has to be able to pass this obstacle, this threshold, before one can go further. It is the test that separates the 'chaff' from the 'wheat' in people. No matter how intelligent, how endowed, how brilliant a man is, if he doesn't change his opinion about himself, he will be lost for inner development, for the work based on self-knowledge, for a real evolution. He will stay as he is all his life. The first demand, the first condition, the first test for he who wants to work on himself is to change his appreciation of himself. He cannot just imagine, or simply believe or think, but actually *see* things in himself that he did not see before, really see them. Never will his opinion about himself change as long as he will not see inside himself. And in order to see,

e has _to learn_ to see: it is the first initiation of man into self-knowledge. Before anything else, he has to know what to look for. Once he knows it, he has to make efforts, focus his attention, look constantly, with tenacity. By maintaining his attention on it, by not forgetting about looking, one day he may see. If he sees once, he can see a second time, and if this is repeated he cannot ignore seeing. This is the state to look for in our observation; it is from this that the true desire, the desire to evolve, will be born; from cold we're becoming hot, vibrating; we will be deeply touched by our reality. Today we have only the illusion of what we are. We overestimate ourselves. We do not respect ourselves. To respect myself, I have to have recognized in me a part which is higher than the other parts, and to which I show respect by the attitude I have towards it. In this way I will respect myself. And my relationships with others will be ruled by the same respect. We have to understand that all other measuring units, talent, erudition, culture, genius, are changing units, units of detail. The only true measure, never changing, objective, the only real one, it is the measure of inner vision. 'I' see - 'I' see myself - and you have measured. With a higher, real part, you have measured a lower one, also real. And this measure, defining by itself the respective roles of each part, will bring you to selfrespect. But you will see it is not easy. And it is not a bargain. One has to pay a lot. For the bad payers, the lazy, the losers, no chance. One must pay, pay a lot, pay immediately and pay in advance. Pay from oneself. With sincere efforts, wholeheartedly, without expectations. The more you will be willing to pay without reticence, without cheating, without falsity, the more you will receive. And from then on, you will meet your true nature. And you will see all the tricks, all the dishonesty it goes to in order to avoid paying cash. Because you have to pay with all the gratuitous theories, all the deeply rooted convictions, all the prejudice, all conventions, all 'I like it' and 'I don't like it'. Without bargaining, honestly, not just make believe. Trying to see while using

fake money. Try for a moment to accept the idea that you are not what you think you are, that you overestimate yourself, therefore that you lie to yourself. That you lie to yourself always, every moment, all day long, your whole life. That the lie rules you to the extent that you cannot control it anymore. You are its victim. You lie everywhere. Your relationships with others, lies. The education you' re giving, your petty conventions, lies. Your learning, lies. Your theories, your art, lies. Your social life, your family life, all lies. And what you think of yourself, lies too. But you don't stop from what you're doing or from what you're saying, because you believe in you. You have to stop inside and observe. Observe without prejudice. While accepting for a time this idea of lies. And if you observe in this manner, paying of yourself, without self-pity, by giving all your false riches for one moment of reality, maybe someday you'll see all of a sudden something you have never saw in you before. You will see are someone else from what you thought you are. You will see that you are two. One that is not, but takes the place and play the other's role. And the one that is, but so weak, so inconsistent, that just brought forth it disappears immediately. It cannot stand the lies. The smallest lie kills it. It doesn't fight, it does not resist, it is vanquished in advance. Learn to look until you have observed the difference between your two natures, until you have seen the lies, the impostor in you. When you will see your two natures, that day, in you, the truth will be born. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Premiere Initiation, par G.I. Gurdjieff Question de Gurdjieff (no 50) ed. Albin Michel, 1989, p.34-35 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Copyright TRIANGLE Editions. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ EXCHANGES (The following texts are related to four group meetings which took place in Gurdjieff's home, in Paris, in 1943. This evenings of exchanges have been reconstructed, as true to their original as possible, with the help of notes taken with Gurdjieff's approval.)

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First Evening ------------------R. - How is it that the truths one believes in and one is sure of, do not enter us more profoundly, but stay on the surface and do not change our life? G. - Because you are convinced at the time when 'it speaks'. Afterwards, you return to life... R. - And I do something else than what I am convinced of. I act against what I believe in. G. - We are divided. This is a fact. Think that we have in us two independent organisms: one is the result of our education, of all that we have gathered, the other being our intial, original one. This original organism cannot function unless I am relaxed, at ease and alone. When I go back into active life, it becomes weak, it cannot act anymore; it is the other one that takes over. I cannot do anymore what I have decided. And I go back to doing things as usual. Choose precise tasks and, before you go out to life, when you are alone at home, you relax and you make yourself a plan. You shall represent to yourself how you are going to behave during the day. And you promise yourself to follow it exactly. You are going to fail maybe ten times, maybe twenty times, but the twenty-first time you will be able to do what you decided when alone. There is no other way for now, one has to make a plan. Like I was advising you, you will put yourself at ease, be calm, relaxed. Only then will you make your planning for the day. Then you go out in life and you try to do exactly as planned. If you manage to do it, treat yourself with something nice. If you forget to do it, punish yourself. R. - One doesn't have enough will to punnish oneself... G. - One has to get used to. Struggle. This struggle gives results little by little. It accumulates them in you. This gives you strength for the future.

You fail once, ten times, but each stuggle gives results, like a substance that accumulates in you. It is this substance that will help you make the conscious decision. L. - How can we work with another? With spouses in particular? G. - That is true hapiness when two beings living together have the same aspirations, are interested in the same ideas and are doing the work together. One has to learn to make use of this blessing. The work shared with someone else is much more profitable. It doesn't matter with whom: a philosopher and a shoemaker can very well work together. Each one of them should try to make the other's life easier, to destroy the conditions that bring about anger, in which so much energy is lost. Self-love, especially, must be abolished. It is necessary to be able to communicate sincerely, aiming for mutual help. Actually, you inner worlds are different, but in working together in this fashion your inner worlds can become One. Husband and wife are those who can help each other most. But this is valid for all those who live together, be they brothers or friends. I. - You recommended that I read, that I proceed gathering information, but where to start? Shall I study some questions before others? G. - What is important, is to grasp the soul of things, the essence and not their form. Forget the words, the details, ignore them for the time being. But try to hold in you their substance, that which is behind them. This is what you should accumulate in you. This is what, by way of inner accumulation, will bring about slowly an understanding that will be really yours. (Turning slowly then towards P., reputed for his culture and erudition) For instance, in all you that you write, among all the words, all that is useless, all that objectively has no value, there may be a lille diamond spark. It is that you have to look for, grasp and acummulate in you.

D. - My wife is reproaching me for being a lot more selfish ever since I joined the work. I'm wondering, what have I negelected? G. - Yes, certainly: not all the aspects of Work have been observed. You have fulfilled a certain number of them, but you obviously left one out... Which one? It's your task to find it. For the moment, you are like a good milking cow. She's giving plenty of milk, but when the bucket is full, a sweep of her tail spills everything. K. - To be truthfull, I feel like I should help my child for whom I am responsible, -but I see that I cannot do it and I do not even know, in fact, what I shall allow or forbid him to do. G. - First of all, it's better not to forbid things to a child, because these things go in through one ear and go out through the other. You must, before anything else, bring up in him the impulse that would help him act this way or the other - or stop him from it. For this, a number of means are available. For instance, you could tell him a little story in which the litlle boy is mean towards his grandmother. In this way, indirectly, you will awake in him the impulse of respect towards his grandmother and if you are reprimanding him on this subject, the ground will be already prepared. You can't really change anything profoundly. On the outside, have the best attitude possible, on the inside work, work to become trully responsible. (At the end of dinner, several persons leave the table to do the dishes. Mr. Gurdjieff turns then towards his neighbour to the left and reproaches him to have not fulfilled his 'director's' obligations* ) G. - This may seem to you unimportant. But for him who knows how to carry his business daily in life, this is a big thing. There is never only one aspect. In reality there are always seven. If you know how to conduct your business well, others will follow, even if automatically. But if you are neglecting only one of these aspects, the result will turn bad - even if you have done this well all your life.

If you are assuming the role of director, you have to control all of its aspects. You have to be able to watch over all the details. While you are fulfilling your obligations nothing should interfere with it. Even if have millions of dollars worth of business going on, you should completely forget about it. Act as I tell you, and when the moment comes to take care of your million dollars business you will know exactly how to act. If you get used to to well the thing of the moment, you will learn to do well all other things. You are here, now. Sacrifice everyhting else. Al of your presence, all your thinkning, all your associations shall be concentrated on the thing you're working on. In your ordinary life you have to fill out all your obligations. You have to think in advance for a week or two, and never fail. You have the time you shall know how to find it. Think seriously of all aspects, prepare yourself. In reality, you are always wasting time. Whith such an internal organisation, man will never get far.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Autres paroles de Gurdjieff Question de Gurdjieff (no 50) ed. Albin Michel, 1989, p.84-87 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Copyright TRIANGLE Editions. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ EXCHANGES (The following texts are related to four group meetings which took place in Gurdjieff's home, in Paris, in 1943. This evenings of exchanges have been reconstructed, as true to their original as possible, with the help of notes taken with Gurdjieff's approval.) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Second Evening ------------------G. - Anyone has something to say that may interest all here?

L. - I would like to ask a question about vanity. Why is that, in the best moments as in the worst, vanity always intervenes? Being successful with an exercise or failing it, it's always an excuse for vanity. G. - It may be your education that made you so. Your parents' influence, or your surroundings, or your friends. Vanity has become your foundation, the dominant factor of your being. When another factor, another impulse comes up, your vanity acts at the same time, and since it is stronger, it takes over everything. This is a very good observation. You have to realize that your enemy is this factor that is crystallizing in you. (Turning towards doctor A.) - 'This should interest you, doctor. It is an important trait of human psyche.' Sometimes, a little thing like this can stop all inner work. Objectively, it is a small thing, but for the one that experiences it, it is a big enemy, an *organic* one. You cannot stop it. It is a thousand times stronger than you. It kills everything. You have to reinforce you individuality, your true 'I'. When the later will be capable to direct your functions, then you should 'cut' your vanity. Today, this is impossible. But struggle to diminish its force, struggle with the help of the exercises I have given you. New factors are emerging in you. Let them crystallize and you'll see that, by itself, the other factor, vanity, shall diminish. And now, let me tell you that your question has helped me to better understand you: it showed me who is your enemy, your 'dog' number one. Among other reasons, there are the 'good' books, the books so called educational, that taught you that this is a necessary factor in life. This is the very thing we instill in children. We do everything to have vanity crystallized in them. Nobody thought that one day, when you'll grow up, you'll take another way. And changing ways... it is very difficult. If you'd have stuck to your first way, vanity would have been for you a very useful thing. For instance, if you were a government employee, a Minister, a high ranking officer, it would have been excellent. But for you your inner life, it's

the number one dog. Mark down this day, as an anniversary. Until now I could not give you the exact reasons for you inner misunderstanding. Now I see better. Your inner landscape is clear to me. You helped me help you. A. - I would like to ask a question similar to my fellow's one. And yet, what threatens me is not vanity, rather the desire that everybody should have a good opinion of me. G. - It is exactly the same thing. It is the same factor - under a different form: play the braggart. A. - But sir, this happens to me anyway, even if I don't stand to gain anything from it. G. - It is the same thing. A.- A year ago sir, when I came to you for the first time, I have asked you a similar question. But nothing has changed since. G. - A year ago you did not have the possibility to change. Now, it is another thing. A. - The only change, it seems, is in the manner I thrive for this opinion. Before, everybody could see it. Nowadays, it's less obvious: I have became more subtle. G. - Why are you saying this? Nothing has changed. You simply became aware of acting in an abnormal manner. Your impartial reason has observed it. It is not subtler, even if it may look that way... A. - It tarnishes everything I do. G. - Certainly. It emanates, it colors everything - in yellow, for instance. And since it is the strongest thing in you, it paints yellow all your functions. I'm telling you the same thing I told your friend: you have to consciously crystallize in you another factor, a stronger one. I gave you enough material to do it. If you practice with perseverance this vanity factor could be transformed. If you manage to crystallize another factor, stronger than it, vanity will go back to a simple function. By itself, this vanity

factor is there. Only, it should never have the initiative, never take charge of your 'I'. It has to stay a simple function. When it is the case, just bring it up as a function. A. - But if I call it up, it takes all the space, this is what it's dangerous. G. - We are talking about the future. My explanation is only to help you work with it. You have not verified it. In fact, it is the same thing as with your friend. Here also, we have the 'shit' education, the useless one. Call it what you want, I have only one word for it: 'shit'. Excuse me, I don't speak French very well, so I call 'shit' everything which is bad. Everybody here got this education. I have realized that due to a very original experience. You know that I always have candy in my pockets, and when I see a child, I'm giving him one. There's always someone around the child, his father, his mother, his aunt. They all, without exception, say the same thing to the child: 'What are you supposed to say now?'. And little by little, the child starts to mechanically say 'thank you' to everybody, without feeling anything anymore. This is not only idiotic, it is a crime! When a child feels like saying 'thank you', I understand. I know his language. And this is what I love. Just to hear this, just to witness this true impulse, I give away 5 kilos of candy everyday - which I'm paying 410 francs per kilogram. Only to see this impulse... But when children are told 'What are you supposed to say now?', it kills everything. It kills the child for the future, it kills his willingness. This is a very good example. I don't know how you understand it, but for me this is an edifying one. Everything is mechanical, we make the children function like robots which are reacting one way or the other depending on which button we push. A. - And yet we live in society. There are a lot of conventions that children have to learn. G. - I did not say that children should not comply. Remember exactly what I

said. I said that we should 'externally play a role' but internally remain free, without identifying. Everybody should be educated to play a role corresponding to the true nature of that person. This is good, ideal even. But internally we should not identify: we should be free. This is the most neccessary thing. Everything else depends upon this little thing. Ms. E. - Mister Gurdjieff... Regarding this, I would like to ask you a question. When one discovers late in life a truth about oneself, one looks back and sees that a lot of things should have been different. One then experiences regret and even pain. Should one reject this regrets or, on the contrary, keep them and use them? G. - If you really verified what you just said, you may have a big opportunity: prepare for your future. With your experience, you may have ten thousand times more chance than a younger person. I congratulate you. You have a lot of possibilities for the future. Not for the present: the present is the result of the past and I cannot repair your past. Too many years neccessary. But if, from now on, you will try to put order in your past, I will take on me the responsibility of your future. (Silence) Ms. D. - Can you tell me how to give the right education to the children we are entrusted in our classrooms? I already changed my way of teaching since I came here. But many times I am in difficulty. I think children are sensitive to my efforts of 'remembering myself'. The best I can do is to fight against strong negative emotions. It seems children are sensing this too. G. Thousand times more than you. A child crystallizes a thousand times more factors than in you. This is why it is dangerous to suggest something to a child whose sensitivity is infinitely bigger than yours. Mrs. D. - I have less trouble self-remembering in the classroom than at other times during the day. G. Yes: these children do not emanate yet...

Mrs. D. - Before, when the children were noisy, I would shout to quiet them. Now, I try to be calm myself and the children are following suit. G. You have realized a very good thing. The most important thing for the future of the children it is not your teaching: you can teach them only mechanical associations. What counts are your vibes. This shows how harmful the unconscious education is - educating without being aware of what one emanates. Mrs. D. - I have observed also that a classroom is a cartoon of the schoolmaster; one can very well find out about oneself by the mood of the classroom. G. These are very good observations. Observe, observe again and you could very well know yourself through the children. For now, think egotistically that you are working for yourself. What I am doing now, I am doing in order to become a good altruist later. Today I am a false altruist. I want first of all to become a good egotist to be on solid ground. Mrs. D. - I would also like to ask you for a specific advice. My little boy is trying to affirm himself more and more. He always says no, and opposes everything. To make him give in, I have two solutions. I can talk to him for a very long time and try to reason with him - but this is not always possible. Or distract him, give him a toy or something, which is very easy to do - but this doesn't seem OK to me. G. The second solution is bad, the first one is good: talk to him using analogies. Children like them very much. Mrs. D. - But it is very difficult. G. - But for him it is easy. For you it may be difficult, but for a child it is very easy to understand a good explanation. It is difficult for you to explain to him because you are wrongly educated. You were brought up not to be a schoolmaster, but to knit socks. And yet, here you are a schoolmaster... and me, I have holes in my socks! (Laughs)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Autres paroles de Gurdjieff Question de Gurdjieff (no 50) ed. Albin Michel, 1989, p.88-93 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Copyright TRIANGLE Editions. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ EXCHANGES (The following texts are related to four group meetings which took place in Gurdjieff's home, in Paris, in 1943. This evenings of exchanges have been reconstructed, as true to their original as possible, with the help of notes taken with Gurdjieff's approval.) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Third Evening ------------------H. - Sir, I would like to ask you a question. Having finished, several weeks ago now, the tasks that I have given myself, I since find myself in a sort of happy inbalance, not missing anything nor wanting anything in particular. I would like to continue, beacuse I know that there is a universe above this one I live in at the moment. But I cannot advance and I feel like I cannot do anything by myself. G. - You are satisfied with little. You feel this is a bad sign. It is exactly now that you should make efforts. You must not take it easy. You have to create an inner struggle between your individuality and your functions. The fact that you could not work anymore is in itself an excellent condition: it is the opportunity to push yourself. If you pass this crisis, this small crisis, you will be able to advance again. H. - I cannot see clearly what way to follow or what aim to make. G. - A 'way' is not necessary. What is necessary is that a certain substance accumulates in you. A substance that cannot be created other than by struggle.

Work, gather, put together the results of this struggle. You have in you accumulators in which this substance can be accumulated; like electricity. You have to create a battle between your head and your animal. Do not stop. Help yourself with impulses coming from the outside world. When we struggle inside with thought, body and feeling, this substance is formed. You need it in order to continue. Let it gather where is convenient. For now it is not important to know where it is located. Accumulate it, this is what you are missing. You are still young, you don't have experience, you are empty. But you are on the right track and you should not, above all, stop. Start the struggle again. THIS IS THE TRUE WAY*. Are you looking for ways to do it? These are not important. Struggle. You know better than me what to pick on. For instance, what your body likes, whatever it is you usually give to it, stop giving it anymore. This way it will learn to serve. You will see that, until now, whatever your individuality really liked, your body never consented to it. L. - Sir, in order to remember myself, you gave me the task to work with someone who is close to me. I observed, and so did my wife, that this aim has changed our relationship, but only up to a certain point. You told us that it is a blessing to work together - but there is an obstacle that none of us can overcome. You told her that you will tell us what to do to to succeed. G. - Do you have children? Then, there is a first thing to be dealt with. Like for all parents, these children are creating for you special obligations. Well then, tell yourselves that living for yourselves is over! Now you should, you and your wife, set this common aim: live for your children. You shall impose yourselves, in everyday life, to sacrifice everything for your children. This aim will create in you a true contact with work - because it is an objective aim, and the work is objective too. Start this. Talk about it with your wife. Discuss it together, easy and openly. Here, nothing shall strain your relationship. Aim to this: all for

your children. Not forever, for an established length of time. A struggle will be necessary for both. Because if you both set this aim, since your type is different, each one of you shall have to carry on a personal struggle inside. The one that will fulfill this aim will 'pass' his exam. And if you do this for a week or two, I will be able to give you further indications. P. - I would like to know how to avoid imagination taking over, outside the moments when I work myself, which last only for a certain time. G. - For this, I am going to give you a very simple advice, a very ordinary one. You are also on the right track. What I am going to suggest to you will amaze you. Trying to understand it beforehand, with your usual logic, will not give you anything. Later, you would see why this advice was good. Every time you have some spare time, count 1,2,3,4,5,6... to 50. Then count backwards 50,49,48,47,47,46, etc. Do this seven times without stopping, and then tell yourself the following words: 'I AM, Not to help my fellow I will I AM.'

I WANT TO BE, I CAN BE. serve evil... But to serve the good. To man when be capable of BEING.

After this, start counting again, not mechanically, but consciously. Do this during all your spare time. The first time this will look like an absurdity to you. But when you had done it for two or three weeks, you would thank me with all your heart. Did you understand me? Ms. L. - Sir, both here and with close ones, I experience a lot of difficulty in expressing myself, in manifesting my ideas and my feelings. This is very important for me. It is like being paralyzed. What can I do to ged rid of it? G. - You have to be IMPARTIAL. (One should never do what I advise somene else to do. It is you I am talking to now.)

You are *you*. You want to work, you want to have an 'I', a true 'I'. Yor aim is an independent 'I am'. If you don't have it yet, *imagine* that you already have it. One who has an 'I' is impartial to all external things. He is impartial to all other people. For instance X. is mad. Nature made him so: heredity, his father, his grandfather... He is mad, but I don't get upset because he is mad. I take him as a fool. I have pity. This is called being impartial. You look at all X's manifestations, and you try to understand: where are the manifestations of a mad person coming from? There are different kinds of madmen. (G. lights up a cigarette). For instance, one holds his cigarette like this (he puts the burning end into his mouth). A normal person would never do that. But I don't get upset: I have pity. Dr. - But there are different kinds of pity. We can have pity while having contempt. G. - You, you have this pity. Me, I don't have it. Either I have pity, or I don't have pity. There are two possibilities: either he is mad, or he is insolent. If he is mad, I have pity. If he is insolent, he will never forget me. But pity is a necessity: everybody deserves pity. If you look at your manifestations in detail, you will realize that a part comes from heredity, another from the damages of education and the third one from the sins that you have committed when young. This makes three categories. The one that comes from heredity, I pity it, the second category, less pity, but the third one I never forgive. I only speak here of subjective things. But if you apply this in your life, you will never be mistaken. A part comes from heredity, the second one from education, the third from the behavior of youth. J. - Sir, a while ago I was very interested by P.'s question and your answer. In my life, usually very agitated and vulgar, I observe how little space there is for the Work. I feel lost many times, which is normal. But what is less so, is that I

belong to this agitation, to this vulgarity that fits the ordinary person that is stronger in me. And I am asking if, for my own work, it wouldn't be better for me to apply the advice you gave to P., because I think there is something there that can liberate me, in a simple and neat way, from the narrow cage I turn in continuously. G. - No, that doesn't fit you at all! It is very difficult to count like this: 1,2,3, to 50. I am going to give you something simpler. Do you have family? a father, a mother, a brother? j. - And a sister. G. - A sister too! You are five then! Starting tomorrow morning, take this task: every ten minutes - a little more, a little less, it doesn't matter - you will remember one of them in sequence. First your father, the ten minutes after your mother, and so on. You will remember them and you will portray them to yourself. To end, another ten minutes after, do the exercise 'I AM... I WANT TO BE' with the sensation of your whole presence. Ten minutes after, you start again: your father, your mother, etc. And you spend all your spare time like this. This is even simpler. Do you understand? More, everytime it is your mother's turn, you'll think of her coming here with silvery things on her ears, cheap things... and you will give your word that when you will 'grow up' and you will have enough money, you will take the task of buying her new ones, of gold. (With a wink to the mother: 10% to me!). Ms. E. - Would you allow me to ask you for advice? When I try to remember myself, I am always bothered by an idea: how to organize my day so that everything goes well, that everybody will be happy at home? From another side, during my day, I am bothered by the ideas refering to the inner work. I think to what I hear here, and it bothers me constantly. G. - One has to assign and sacrifice for this work a special time during the day. Life is one thing. Inner work another: their substance is different. When

you start working, you have to be actively aware. Your only task is your Work. Before you start, you have to prepare yourself, to let go, to gather yourself. And then, with all your presence, you do the work. Be an absolute egotist. Forget everything else. Forget your God, your husband, your son, the money. After, leave the work aside and come back to the things of life. It is difficult. In the beginning one cannot do it for long, on tires easily. If you work five minutes more, you are empty of all energy. It is because of this that one has to increase little by little, to get used to it: five minutes, six minutes, the ten minutes. Only in this way you will get a good start, to prepare yourself to aquire the state corresponding to a real man. If you work longer, it proves that you are not working with all your presence, but only with your head. And this you can do for thousands of years without gaining anything. Work for a short time, but work well: with all your presence. Then let life take its mechanical course, as usual, otherwise you will become a psychopath. Five minutes of real work are better than twenty-four hours of ordinary work. Again, it is not the quantity, but the quality that counts: short but substantial. H. - I would like to be able to follow a schedule: do what I decided when I sheduled it. G. - For you, today, it is impossible to achieve that. Later, you will be able. You are therefore a man, like all men, not very strong. It is the law. Today, you can be active for a third of your waking state. Start by asking yourself if what you are going to do will give you sooner or later remorse of conscience. Think about it with all your presence. If you are not sure, don't do it; if you are sure you will not have them, then you can do it. In preparation, you relax, you calm yourself. Then you actively think and you force yourself to make a program to achieve what you have decided to do.

Afterwards, you will lose this state, you will become again the slave of your associations. But what you have decided in that special state, take it as a task, as a service. Do not believe in you in your ordinary state: you will always justify yourself, you will believe in you. You should not believe... you should not especially forget *how* you have decided your program. Without this, you will have the 'tomorrow illness'. Beware of that. Decide. And when the time comes, do what you have decided. The most unhappy man in the world is the one that has the 'tomorrow illness'. He will never change. Destiny is just, objectively just. It always produces what you deserved. What you have planted grows. But if have not planted anything, nothing that you want grows, something else grows: you need radishes and you get horseradish. Horseradish is sometimes a delicacy. Sometimes not... Z. - May I ask you a question? I think that to arrive at knowledge, one has to be able to risk. Many times, I don't have the courage to be wrong and I hide myself in my room. I would like to have the courage to be mistaken and go towards knowledge. G. - For this not much is necessary! If for instance you know that you are a zero, if you have really understood that you are a 'nulity', that you are 'shit', and you don't want to be shit anymore, then you have to risk: either this or nothing. But if you already felt that you are a nulity and you could become something else, why have fear? You have nothing to lose. And now, my dear host, seriously, do you understand? B. - Mister Gurdjieff, when one is taken by a profound feeling of sadness which is impossible to escape, what is the mechanical way to free oneself from that? G. - If you don't know the cause of it? B. - Yes. G. - There is no such sadness, this is idiotic. See the medical specialist! I can recommend you to a neuropathologist. I know him very well, he gives me 10% (laughs).

B. - Sometimes I observe this after lunch. G. - Oh! Oh! But this is a symptom! You eat a litlle too much. For a week eat less. Observe what is happening and let me know. And if it is not this, we will find something else. Let's verify first. B. - But it is not always after a meal... G. - I repeat. Eat less, in general. Not much less. Do not eat the last piece: you understand? Bravo, then! Verify and next time we will talk about it. B. - How can I cease to mistake what comes from my intellectual center and what comes from the emotional one? G. - Take things in a simple way. When you think, you think. When you are warm, or cold, these are your sensations. When you are angry, upset, when you love, when you don't love, these are your feelings. B. - But in my actions, how can I stop the centers to impede on one another: to think with my feelings and reason instead of feeling? How to not let them act for the other? G. - This is weakness, this is an illness. You should not think with your feelings. You should think with your head. But to think with a *true* thought, otherwise the intiative comes from the feeling and the thinking center is only a function then. The center of gravity should be the true thinking. If not, you are not an individual: you are a machine. Every man should try to get used of being an *individual* on the inside, an independent person, something which is not 'a dog's tail'.** There is here a very characteristic symptom: if your presence concentrates on your thinking, then you are an individual. (Of course, there are different levels of individuals, but this is not important for the moment). You are an *individual* when you have your center of gravity in the center of *true* thinking. If your center of gravity is in another center, in your body or in you feelings, you are only a robot. When you are working, you should always have as an aim to be connected to true thinking. Do it consciously. Otherwise, everything in you will proceed

unconsciously. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Autres paroles de Gurdjieff Question de Gurdjieff (no 50) ed. Albin Michel, 1989, p.93-100 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Copyright TRIANGLE Editions. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ EXCHANGES (The following texts are related to four group meetings which took place in Gurdjieff's home, in Paris, in 1943. This evenings of exchanges have been reconstructed, as true to their original as possible, with the help of notes taken with Gurdjieff's approval.) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Fourth Evening ------------------H. - Sir, I do not understand what conscious love may be. I cannot understand how the lucidity with which we observe our passion, with which we discover its causes, does not kill this passion on the spot. G. - Well, you are saying that love, usually, concerns only the functions. Most of the time it is only the physical polarity that plays a part. When you would understand this, this kind of love will become repulsive for you. This love that everybody has, you have. This love is based on sex, and sex on polarity. It is an illness, a weakness. If someone has the nose like this, you love her, if she doesn't have a nose like this, you don't love her. Conscious love it is a different thing, that is the true love. The one that maybe you grandfather had... True love is objective. In Paris, they use the word 'love' for sex. True love has been forgotten. B. - But should one repress ordinary love in favor of the other? G. - Look at as a weakness. And at the same time, use it to observe yourself: we must make use of everything. Instinctively, you may sense real love,

discover its taste. You could have pity on a person that has a nose you don't like, a person that seems ill, a motherless child, a hungry person, a man without woman, and feel capable of putting yourself in each of their places. Strive to make contact with your different impulses. If you remain impartial, you will see that all you have had until now is 'shit' and, at the same time, that you could try to have the taste of a different quality of love. A. - Sir, in order to experience this conscious love, can polarity be a help or is it always an obstacle? G. - Obstacle, naturally. But you cannot help it. You are a slave of this law. Now you want, now you don't want. Your body does what you like or what you don't like. Consciously, you can free yourself form this law of polarity. But first, you have to have had the taste of true love. All I can tell you in the meantime, is that love, objective love exists. Later, we could talk about it. All we would say now would be theoretical. L. - The Work, be revealing to me the existence of two worlds, has also revealed the existence of two times. First that of the body we inhabit: time of worry and fear. And the time of remembering, where there is no worry or anguish: a time that contains in itself an explosive force which can hold, in a very small shell, a second richer than tens of years of body life - and sleep. In this work time, there is no fear of wasting time. In an ordinary state, I'm afraid of wasting it. I would have liked to understand what is time. (Mme de S. translates what L. wanted to say.) G. - Enough! She has not translated everything, but this is enough for me to understand. You are observing that there are two different times for you. Like there are two states: the ordinary state - the normal state in life - and the state of remembering. There are two times: the one in which you are used to understand and perceive all things, and the one of number 6, Colonels Renard street*. (* G.'s address in Paris) From now on, when you are afraid you're wasting your time, measure the time with your state. This time has a key: 'I AM'.

In your head, you say 'I Am'. At the same time, you have to have this sensation in your whole presence, in all your gestures... and immediately there will be a change. The cosmic time will definitely flow to suit your necessities. You are You. Even the cosmic laws obey unity, be it a small one. L. - Isn't it harmful to feel such a difference between the two times? G. - They _are_ different. This will help you to hurry, to do what you did not in your past. If you have the 'illness of tomorrow', this will not help you. But you have understood what this illness is. I am advising you to take all necessary measures to live under the time of 'I AM' - in the state of 'I AM'. Not only theoretically, when you remember it, but concentrating more, with all your presence. This is truly a good question. The man that does not know this other state does not know by which time he lives. The one that knows it has in himself a factor for self-remembering. Either ordinary time or time as it lived at 6, Colonels Renard street. You understand? You understand what you have to do? Then do it. Later will come a question that I will explain in detail. Think that there are two kinds of time: the time of _work_ and the time of ordinary man. Mme N. - You have said many times that it would be necessary to repair the past and, for this, to experience remorse of conscience. When I look into my childhood, I find only catastrophes; I lost my parents very early, and after that all kinds of misfortunes happened. Instead of experiencing remorse I start complaining. I find in me someone who pities, complains and justifies itself. I would like to know how can I free myself fro this selfpity and hoe to chase away form my thoughts these things that seem to me unjust. G. - Justice, you know, it's a big word. It is a big thing in the world. It is not any thing: it is an objective thing. Objective things follow the Law, the way the Law made them work. Remember what I told you: what you sow you will reap. And this Law doesn't concern individuals only, but also families and nations. Therefore, the things that happen on Earth come frequently from what has been

done at a certain time by the father or the grand father. And the consequences fall upon you, it is then you who have to face it. This is not an injustice. On the contrary, it is a very big chance for you. This responsibility will serve you as a factor for selfremembering. And in this way you will be able to redress the past for your father, grandfather and grand-grandfather. If this happened when you were young, it is because someone sowed it. Now, you reap. Somebody is dead and it is someone else that reaps. You should not think only of yourself. You are but a link in your bloodline: you cannot consider this selfishly. Or if you prefer, you can be selfish, but only in what concerns your blood and not in regards to your little life. It is an honor to occupy this place. Be proud of it. The more you will feel compelled to redress the consequences of the past, the more you will remember that, you also, did not do as you should have done. And so you can have ten times more remorse of conscience and the quality of your Being will increase accordingly. You are not a simple 'dog's tail'. You have a responsibility in your family's line. All your past and future family depend on you. All your family depends on how you repair the past. If you redress it for everybody, it is good. If not, it has no value. Do you see in what situation you find yourself in! Maybe you begin to understand now what justice is? Justice doesn't bother to solve your petty problems. Justice deals with big things. It is idiotic to think that God should deal with your small affairs. It is the same for justice. Justice doesn't touch all that, and at the same time, nothing happens on Earth without justice. G. - (speaking to someone else): Now, when you say 'I Am', do you feel more compact or not? L. - Yes, without doubt. I felt a big difference. For instance, the day before yesterday I had big problems. I was very agitated, very irritated. All of a sudden, I remembered the exercise you gave us. I tried it. And I had a very strong feeling, never experienced in my life. I felt that the problems were part of my body and not of myself, that what is truly Me could not have problems. I had this state for several seconds and then got back to my usual

state. G. - When you come back, do you repeat: 'I Am"? Do you feel that 'I Am' is more compact? L. - I did not try to say 'I Am'. I had a different sensation of my body and a feeling of great tranquillity. G. - You had the taste. And now, are you self-remembering in a different way? L. - It is different because, when I remember myself, this acts upon my life. Before, I didn't have it. T. - I have tried, myself also, to do the new exercise. I felt that I really trusted 'me' -the ego- and not 'I'. At the same time, this gave me a new confidence that I never had before. I always believed, until now, that a great part of my experience came from imagination. I begin to understand that when I see 'me' distinct from 'I', it is real. G. - Then you know you are two. You have the taste now. Can you categorically say that the body is one thing and the psyche another? T. - Yes, certainly. But the body takes over myself quickly. G. - Do you feel, when you are mechanical, that you have a certain quality and when you are present a completely different one? T. - Yes. But both are experienced in the body, since it's in the body too that I am present. G. - From now on be frequently in a state of presence. You know today that you cannot really work unless you are present - both for inner and outer work. When you are not present, you are only a piece of meat. T. - I felt it a long time ago, but this exercise gave me a different taste. G. - You felt it theoretically, but now it is a more _organic_ taste. You have a new taste, the taste of Awakening. Now aim to keep yourself awake as long as possible. It is this the attribute of man. What can be greater than this? You want to be a real man? The attribute of real man is either well awake or well asleep. Either sleep well or be really awake. It is not possible to sleep well unless on has been well awake.

It is not necessary to pass one's time dreaming of acquiring something. The first aim is to be well awake. You should first become a true man, a true ordinary man. A true ordinary man sleeps well or is well awake. If you are not capable of being a true ordinary man, you will never go beyond, you will never become a truly accomplished man. May God help you in keeping this state of awakening, in having it not only for short periods of time. It is impossible to get there immediately. It has to come little by little... +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Autres paroles de Gurdjieff Question de Gurdjieff (no 50) ed. Albin Michel, 1989, p.101-106 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++