Gurdjieff, page 16
As to official Gurdjieff groups with a teacher, they exist in many major cities in America and Europe, and there are also groups on the Internet. For me, I prefer to go to a group and have it live.
The Power of Reading Out Loud
I thought the best way to hold a meeting would be to read the actual words of someone who was a teacher. Since my group initially consisted of two people who had both read In Search of the Miraculous at least a few times, we both agreed that it was one of the major books of the Work, and agreed to start at the beginning and continue to the end. We had no set amount of pages to read at each session, but would read until we came to the end of a section. We would continue where we left off at the next meeting. In this way we completed the book in about a year.
Although I am an avid reader, for study purposes, the difference between reading silently and reading out loud is enormous. It is almost like reading a different book. We miss so much when we read silently—and the faster we read, especially a book as dense in content as Ouspensky's, the more we miss. This reminds me of Woody Allen's comment after he took a speed-reading course and read Tolstoy's novel War and Peace in eight minutes. When someone asked him what the novel was about, Allen replied, Russia. To see what one misses, even in writing a simple letter, many people have had the experience of reading a letter out loud that they have written. As they read it, they catch all sorts of typos that they missed when they went over the letter silently. That there is a power in reading out loud is obvious when we consider we are using both our eyes and ears to take it all in. Sometimes I also run my finger along the line I am reading out loud to help keep my place, which adds another sense modality—touch—to the reading process.
As to the enjoyment of reading out loud, one need not go further than watching the delight of a child who is being read to. I first started reading to my daughter, Shona, the book Goodnight Moon. I don't know how many times I read that book, but it was many, many times. Shona never tired of it. It was a delight each time, as were other books, as she grew older.
There is one other advantage of reading out loud. When we read silently, we can read for a while and then realize we were just reading mechanically and not remember one single idea or event that took place in the sentence, paragraph, page, or chapter. Although we can read out loud mechanically and have our mind on other matters, this is much less likely to happen if we read out loud to someone else. Moreover, if we read out loud and omit a word such as the word “not” in a sentence, the listener can correct us and prevent us from distorting what was written.
If you can find a group, I suggest you start to read one of the books in the Work out loud to someone else, and if you can't find someone else, read a few pages out loud to yourself. I would say that besides enjoyment, we get more out of a book by reading out loud than we do reading silently, just as we see more when we are walking than when we are driving.
Workbooks
I am of the opinion that it is better to read one book one hundred times than to read one hundred books once. The trick is to find the right book. I highly recommend Maurice Nicoll's Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. This is a five- volume set numbering 1766 pages with a sixth volume that is an index of the five volumes. Nicoll points out that his books are commentaries on the Work of Gurdjieff and not the true source of the Work. The books consist of transcriptions of Nicoll's talks, given during and after the Second World War, and are incredibly clear and conversational in tone. Each chapter is just a few pages long. The ideas of the Work are woven throughout the five volumes into a fabric that repeats themes over and over again from different aspects so that no stone is unturned in bringing these ideas out. If we could read only one book about the Work, I recommend the first volume of Nicoll's commentaries. It can be ordered from any local bookstore.
It could be argued that reading Gurdjieff or Ouspensky would be closer to the Work than reading Nicoll. Gurdjieff's writings are under the name All and Everything. It is a trilogy consisting of (1) Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson: An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man (All and Everything, First Series); (2) Meetings With Remarkable Men (All and Everything, Second Series) and (3) Life is Real Only When “I Am” (All and Everything, Third Series.) All are available in paperback. As to the order of reading Gurdjieff's books, on the first page of Life Is Real Only When “I Am”, Gurdjieff states that no one interested in his writings should ever attempt to read them in any order other than the one so indicated. In other words, the reader should never read anything written by Gurdjieff before he is already well acquainted with the earlier works.
From my perspective as a beginning student of the Work, I have been reading Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, but would never recommend it as an introduction to a beginning student of the Work. Meetings With Remarkable Men is very interesting, especially the last chapter entitled The Material Question, concerning how Gurdjieff developed his economic skills of earning a living and forming his organization. I don't think, however, it is a good systematic basis for studying the principles of the Work. I would say the same thing about Gurdjieff's Life Is Real Only When “I Am.” There is also the book, Views from the Real World: Early Talks of Gurdjieff as Recollected by His Pupils. This is also available in paperback and is fairly readable for a beginning student of the Work.
As to Ouspensky's books, In Search of the Miraculous is one of the classics of the Work. It covers Ouspensky's initial meeting with Gurdjieff and quotes Gurdjieff extensively throughout the book. The Fourth Way consists of questions that people asked Ouspensky after lectures and his answers. The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution consists of the transcriptions of five talks written by Ouspensky and later read by his students to other people interested in the Work. The book also includes a brief autobiographical sketch. I highly recommend all of these books, and all are available in paperback. They are excellent and I have read them all at least a few times. For starters, The Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution might be the place to begin because it is a short overall introduction to the Work. Ouspensky, however, is sometimes not the easiest writer to follow and is a bit intimidating at times, such as when you see a complicated diagram of some aspect of the Work in In Search of the Miraculous. Ouspensky also wrote a novel entitled, The Life of Ivan Osokin, as well as Talks with a Devil and Conscience: The Search for Truth.
As to other sources of the Work, many students of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky later became teachers of the Work and wrote books about it and/or their relationship with Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. A partial list of these students and some of the books they wrote (most of which I have not read yet) follows: J. G. Bennett, Is there Life on Earth? and Energy; Robert Burton, Self-Remembering; Robert DeRopp, The Master Game; Fritz Peters, My Boyhood with Gurdjieff and My Journey with a Mystic; A. L. Stavely, Memories of Gurdjieff; Rodney Collins, Theory of Celestial Influences, Theory of Eternal Life, and Mirror of Light; Kathryn C. Hulme, Undiscovered Country: In Search of Gurdjieff; Kathleen Riodan Speeth, The Gurdjieff Work; Ira Friedlanden, Gurdjieff: Seeker of the Truth; Jan Cox, Dialogues of Gurdjieff; C.S. Natt, Further Teachings of Gurdjieff, Journey Through the World, and The Journal of a Pupil; James Webb, The Harmonious Circle; Alfred Orage, Psychological Exercises; and Maurice Nicoll, who, in addition to The Commentaries, wrote Living Time, The New Man and The Mark. In addition to these followers who became teachers and wrote books, Gurdjieff and Ouspensky had many students, such as William Niland, who never wrote any books but whose audiotapes are available. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky also attracted many well-known people as students such as the author Katherine Mansfield, whose book Journal of Katherine Mansfield discusses the Work, and the Russian musician Thomas de Hartmann.
Conclusion
If you have come this far in this book, I want to point out what should be rather obvious by now: this is not an easy system. No one can make the effort for you. It's up to you. There is a salvation, but it isn't gained merely by believing in God or a higher level of consciousness. Although this belief is necessary to commence the Work, it is only the beginning of the task. The salvation lies in doing the Work ourselves on ourselves so we can raise our level of being. No one will be carrying us on his or her back, and there is no quick fix. It takes years of study, feeling the Work emotionally, and then applying it by observing how we behave, and struggling to change our reactions to life rather than trying to change the circumstances of our external life. In fact, the Work says that whatever is currently going on in our lives is exactly what we need to work on. The Work all depends on our understanding. Only understanding and then applying this understanding to our lives will change things.
The analogy Gurdjieff used was that of an onion. We have to keep taking off layers of the onion (our personality) to get to our Real 'I' (our essence). To change our being, essence must start to grow and become active, and personality must become passive. This is perhaps analogous to a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. Our essence is the butterfly trying to break through the cocoon that surrounds it, which is our personality. Each time we remember ourselves, we connect with our essence and therefore with eternity. Personality, which was developed by life, wants us to identify constantly with every situation life thrusts upon us. Personality keeps us in a constant state of identification, going from one problem to another. We are always losing force, and we cannot develop ourselves and increase our level of being. The Work says that we are all experiments on this Earth and that we are self-developing organisms. Whether we develop depends on our conscious efforts to do the Work.
There is a story of a man watching a butterfly breaking through its cocoon. After much effort, the butterfly's one wing broke through the cocoon. The butterfly kept working to get the other wing out. After watching for a longer time than it took for the first wing to break out, the man observing the butterfly thought he could help and pricked the cocoon on the side. The second wing came out, but it was deformed.
The only person who can do the Work is ourselves. In a sense we must cleanse ourselves of ourselves. No one can observe our internal lives, states, attitudes, or postures but ourselves. Teachers can give us new ideas and information, which is important, but this information will just be mere accumulation of facts, if not applied. The only way to make the Work functional is to actually apply it by observing ourselves uncritically. We are the subjects of this Work. The aim of the Work is not to change the world but to change ourselves.
I would like to conclude by quoting a man who also developed a philosophical system to transform himself. Because of his beliefs, at the age of twenty-four he was ostracized from the Jewish community in Amsterdam. He lived by himself, earning his living grinding lenses, and died at the age of forty-five. His philosophy gave him a wonderful disposition. He turned down all sorts of honors in his life such as becoming a professor at prestigious universities. His name was Baruch Spinoza. He lived from 1632 to 1677. His best-known book, Ethics, was published after his death in 1677. I believe the note at the end of his book gives a cogent description of the results of his philosophy and the difficulties of obtaining it. I think it is appropriate to end my book with the last line of Spinoza's final note: "If salvation lay ready to hand and could be discovered without great labor, how could it be possible it should be neglected almost by everybody? But all noble things are as difficult as they are rare."
Reviews of Other Books by Gil Friedman
How to Be Totally Unhappy in a Peaceful World: A Complete Manual with Rules, Exercises, a Midterm and a Final Exam
“This is a peculiarly funny book. Funny because I found myself laughing at myself; peculiar because, after reading it, a strange awareness settled upon me. Was I, I wondered, an unhappy creationist who saw the world through grumbling eyes? "How to Be Totally Unhappy in a Peaceful World" is a self help book that, in spite of itself, really works!” Review on Amazon.com
“From the Acknowledgements up front to the blurbs on the back cover, there are unexpected fits of laughter awaiting you in this clever little book. It is an extended parody on self-help books, human nature, and our frenetic, outer-orientated society . . . this wise clever, and exceedingly funny book is a gem.” Arcata Eye (Arcata, CA)
“It is a wonderful look at humans and the ways we think and act. I found it to be saddening, enlightening and funny all at the same time . . . . I'm sure everyone will find something they can relate to from their lives past, present or future.” North Coast Co-op News
(It has been translated into Spanish, Danish, Thai and Chinese.)
191 Pages, 30 illustrations; four pages of cartoons by renowned cartoonist. Trade paperback.
ISBN 0-913038-12-1
Yara Press Price: $16.95
Love Notes: Quotations From the Heart
An expanded version of my book formerly entitled A Dictionary of Love. Over 650 quotations on love from the profane to the profound arranged alphabetically into 211 subject categories by over 350 authors. 209 pages, 211 subject categories arranged alphabetically. Complete with authors' index and bibliography.
“I gave this book to my husband for Valentine's Day and he loved it! The quotes are thoughtful, funny, inspiring and diverse. Sometimes the juxtaposition of the quotes themselves is humorous. Many of the quotes ring a note of profound wisdom and I often find myself thinking as I read, "Yes, how true!" Of course, the topic is immense and here it's covered from various aspects, A to W, in an organized, easy to use manner. I imagine writing this was a labor of love and probably compiled over years of reading on the topic. Our copy now resides the bathroom and makes for wonderful, quick reading. You can open the book anywhere and find some hearty nugget to laugh at or ponder. A delight to read, it makes a great gift too.” —Kathleen, from review on Amazon.com
“(A) terrific book. . .Funny, rueful, practical, wise and compassionate. . .Lots of fun, and more educational than many a to me.” —New Age Retailer
“A really fun book to read. There's either a good laugh or a real thought-provoker (or even both) on each page.” —New England Bride
“Witty, profound and sometimes just plain fun.” —American Reference Book Annual, Vol. 22; Libraries Unlimited, Inc.
(It has been translated into Korean and Chinese)
ISBN 9130338-00-8
Trade Paperback
Yara Press
Price $12.95
Excerpts of all books can be found at www.GilFriedman.com
More information is also available at Gil Friedman’s Smashwords Author’s Page.
To order, call (707) 822-5001 or send $22 for another copy of this Gurdjieff book; $16 for Love Notes; or $18 for the Unhappy book; or all three for $50 (all prices include handling and any applicable taxes) to Gil Friedman, 1735 J Street, Arcata, CA 95521.
Gil Friedman, Gurdjieff
