A return (and abandoning) of the Gurdjieff Work and the Fourth Way - after a few years.

 A return (and abandoning) of the Gurdjieff Work and the Fourth Way - after a few years

Warning- My writing below contains my own set of assumptions, biases, and info that may not be correct. I am hoping it is not harsh in content or criticism, however, I am hoping that with some things that need to be said here may assist others who happen to be searching, or are 'lost' within the confines of systems that are unlikely to succeed in the long run.

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Recently (over the course of a month or two), I was led to rediscover, so to speak, the Gurdjieff material, "the work", and Ouspensky's Fourth Way. I recall this was prompted by some remarks on one spiritual forum in regards to Gurdjieff "knowing what he was doing", and the Fourth Way being a valid introduction to the "I am" state.

I  had a soft spot for Gurdjieff and his work (and Ouspensky's take), since I did spend several years testing out this road fully, joining a Foundation group for a bit, and really digging in and road testing all of the material. I went through Beelzebub's Tales in print and audio fully, and must have had a stack of about 10+ Fourth Way related books. 

One of the areas that interested me especially was the idea of Self-Remembering, and Self-Observation, and these eventually led me to equate much of what was being explained (or attempted to be explained in complex Gurdjieff/Ouspensky speak) with some of the practices both in Advaita Vedanta (self-inquiry, awareness contemplation), and classical Buddhism (with mindfulness, attention, and concentration). There was some cross over as well with the practices of virtue in traditional systems and the G. equivalent of "conscious labour and intentional suffering".

So recently, I dug into the material again, with In Search of the Miraculous, and related Gurdjieff writings, hoping to perhaps find something I had not seen before, or ponder the question- does this stuff really work? Does it lead to liberation, and can it? Is it based on a solid, honest, trustworthy foundation?

To cut a long story short, I personally can't buy into the whole Gurdjieff Work and Fourth Way system any longer. A number of issues did present themselves, and it looks like I will be tucking away the material yet again, or perhaps renouncing it for good.

The good (first up, I will acknowledge some good in this system):

+ Great presentation and re-iteration of the idea that man has no solid internal psychological foundation, but consists of a number of temporary "I"s, and operates as a machine on pretty much all occasions. Likewise, he/she is 'asleep' in terms of having any solid awareness of what is happening in terms of cause/effect, and how we all create our own suffering and delusion.

+ Self-observation and self-remember, by and large, are great practices to look into, and incorporate into one's spiritual approach (but these don't constitute a teaching or way in and of themselves).

+ The idea of developing one's conscience and struggling with ingrained habits, negative reactivitity and unethical conduct, is a step in the right direction and well worth the effort in doing so.

+ Observing our current sorry state of affairs in terms of our own self created suffering, mechanicalness, sensory addiction, and self-dishonesty is well worth taking the time to do. Self-observation is a good step after some virtue and restraint has been laid down and taken up.

Now some of the big issues:

- Going through the material in print, audio, etc. generally lead to my mind being cluttered, info-overloaded and not in the best space. The material is voluminous, complex, packed with non-essentials in regards to anything leading remotely to liberation for the individual, and is generally badly organised. There's no logical layout or approach, and ideas are presented in cycles, later in more depth, and almost at random according to whoever was presenting (G, or O), or who attended in person meetings. Attempting to form any logical approach based on all of this material is extremely difficult. A further issue is that a lot of the information in Work/Fourth Way sources was actually experimental at the time, and likely not even meant for long-term foundations or principles of the system. Gurdjieff was still running experiments as to how best develop people or approach the path (e.g. the Dances, extreme physical labour etc.), which were all abandoned later at some point. Trying to work out which principles and practices were temporary or experimental, and which ended up in the final version, is almost impossible.

A valid path should be logical, have a clearly laid out approach with easy to understand foundational principles, and be open in it's teaching.

- A lot of information is misleading, incorrect, and either intentionally layed out to baffle and confuse readers/followers, or unintentionally just plain BS. Stories such as how Buddhist relics in Sri Lanka were really magical objects for communicating with dead people's astral body is just plain garbage. Likewise, the idea that Buddhism failed because monks ended up in caves relying on a piece of bread per day, and never fully embraced conscious labour and intentional suffering, but misunderstood the Buddha's teachings, are again incorrect and probably the result of Gurdjieff coming into contact in the early 20th century with some particular Buddhism for a very short time. Some stories such as secret monasteries in Central Asia that are imparting wisdom to select beings, have been debunked as fantasy over the years, due to lack of any evidence. A valid path should have truthful, honest information available, to the best of its ability (or individuals' abilities), and remove any dubious, irrelevant, misleading information from its teaching as much as possible.

- A lot of information is just not relevant at all to liberation and again serves to fill people's heads with unhelpful speculation, such as the laws of the 7 cosmoses and the laws of cosmic functioning, wacky chemistry that has not been proved by science, the law of octaves which goes on for pages and has the sole intent of showing the necessity to practice virtu and self-remembering (which could have been explained in 1 paragraph instead of half a book), etc. etc. There's just too much irrelevance, science fiction, and unrelated information in general within Guedjieff's work. Others later, such as Nicoll tried to narrow it down to a more psychological approach which is good, however, this still suffers from the fate of talking forever about the problems such as negative emotions, and never offering much in the way of solutions, apart from high level practices in not identifying etc.

One could get lost in the non-essentials for decades, and indeed some people do, if you visit some online Gurdjieff groups where everything on any random topic is posted from planetary influences, to lineage debates, and who's history was more valid. Again, the removal of anything unrelated to liberation proper needs to be removed or condensed.

- Some of the chief aims seem to go against other valid traditional systems, even ones that G / O supposedly drew their information from. There seems to be some belief (and people literally believe it), that it's necessary to form some sort of immortal body within, that will survive death, and keep one's individuality evolving forever or until Man Number 7 etc. This pretty much goes against the basics of both Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta which are positing that there can be no immortal individual self, or an inner self that needs to be created and developed, since that view is actually the result of ignorance, and that an individual can't exist independently. Eastern traditions are looking at the idea that the issue is ignorance of the current situation and additions that we have ADDED are the problem.. we're not trying to add more things to the heap of rubbish that we think is our 'reality'. We're looking at an effort to REMOVE existing ignorance, passion for sense objects, craving, and the idea that there's someone here to gain something personally. In short, the whole duality of subject/object is an issue. How can building a new subject (individual) via practices and 'work' solve this issue? Further, why would some limitless, all powerful heavenly 'Father' need the assistance of the human race to complete this? That flies against the idea of a limitless, all powerful Creator (which was embraced as one of the ideas in the Work). I know this is talked about in Gnosticism, however, that's a slightly different kettle of fish, and murky in actual approach and practice. Anyhow, I digress.

- The founders have issues themselves.. lets face it, G. died of overuse of alcohol, in which his liver was shot to pieces, and leaving behind incomplete publications, a fractured legacy with groups debated who was the 'rightful heir', and O. died full of doubts, bouts of depression, and giving up towards the end after all the years of 'insights' that he supposedly had. Not terribly inspiring. There has to be some credibility present for any path's founders, even if it is just ethically, if followers are to have some faith and comfort in the teachings and the possibility that they will lead to liberation if undertaken.

- The lineage debates and whethere there's even a lineage needed can go on forever. I visited a couple of Gurdjieff Facebook groups recently. The same people are there dishing out the same debates and posts after 10 years since I was there last. Boomers that have vested interests such as 'well I met Nyland..' 'Well I studied with Lord Pentland..', are tired old vested interests, and show me that there doesn't seem to be much progress with these sorts of mainstream groups and lineages anyhow, after years of being in the work. Any teaching that isn't refreshing itself and finding new ways to express itself in a modern world (even if using old traditional foundations and principles) is pretty much on the death queue and another red flag.

Yes, lineage debates happen in every tradition, however, there should be some base foundation that people can go back to such as texts, sources, etc. that can provide some guidance on what the whole system is aiming to achieve, and 'lineages' can then be assessed as to how closely they are actually following the aims and approach of the system. Without a base, there's no way to assess how closely a lineage is following the original teachings.

-  One of the minor issues I had with the approach, is that O. system and presumably G.'s work, take virtue (conscious labour and intentional suffering) to be the 2nd conscious shock and to come after the 1st conscious shock of self-remembering. They seem to jump into meditative practices and reflection right off the bat, while reserving struggling with negative emotions, virtue, conduct, intention and psychological work for later. The reverse of most traditional systems. By contrast most traditional systems would place conduct and virtue FIRST, and thereby prepare the mind for some stability for meditative and reflective practices that come later. It's almost impossible to tackle all at once, and to jump into self-observation, for example, without a stable right view of things, or some power over reactivity, isn't going to be successful in the long run.

Anyhow, I've said enough, and likely have enough material to deter me from spending more time on Gurdjieff and Ouspensky for another long while :)

Cheers, D.

Self-Remembering, Ouspensky in The Fourth Way 1957.

"Self-remembering is an attempt to be aware of yourself. Self-observation is always directed at some definite function: either you observe your thoughts, or movements, or emotions, or sensations. It must have a definite object which you observe in yourself. Self-remembering does not divide you, you must remember the whole, it is simply the feeling of ‘I,’ of your own person." (1957, p. 107)

Man cannot do.

This was a question from someone online, actually they went on to justify why the idea 'Man cannot do' (Gurdjieff, Ouspensky) was just an excuse to do nothing etc. and that we should all involve ourselves in 'self effort'.


Q: 'Isn't the idea "Man cannot do" an excuse to do nothing? Aren't we told to struggle for self-effort, and to involve ourselves in 'conscious labour and intentional suffering'?'

A: "Man cannot do" is a necessary starting point, IMV. Equally dangerous is the illusion that we can all 'fix ourselves' and the 'world', we just need the right conditions or right time or motivation. We think we already have all the answers and know 'what to do'. Governments work on this principle. And as a result, nothing is done or fixed, but just happens reactively. Direct and clear observation of things as-they-are actually confirms this, and interestingly opens the way for new approaches to be possible, which otherwise would have never appeared.

Self-Observation by Red Hawk.

I both love and hate this book. 

First the good points- the author seems to be speaking from experience, and seems to have given his own unique account of many Fourth Way concepts, as well as the main focus on Self-Observation. The practical advice to use the body/sensations with self-observation is useful, and his principles are good, common sense material. Someone who had read all of the original Fourth Way material would likely get something from this book. 
The insistence on not changing any of the observations is great advice also, essential, and not really spelled out in much Fourth Way material.

Now, the bad- there's just too much theologising and waffle throughout the book, even though it is small. Talk of the Earth being a school or kindergarten for the soul, with people here to 'learn lessons' is trite. Talk of the soul being an 'angelic being' from the 'angelic world' which descends 'into the body' is pure theory, and might suit some, but is certainly not Fourth Way material. After each chapter, the poetry, although original, was completely unrelated to the prior chapter(?!) And lastly, and probably a little concerning from my POV is that the author equates Self-Remembering with self-observation while being attentive to sensations in the body. This isn't Self-Remembering. This is still self-observation. Just observing body sensations or going around throughout the day while being centred in the body or on some 'point' (such as the belly) still isn't self-remembering-- it's useful no doubt, but won't bring about a complete gaining of impressions of the _whole_ self. There's really no distinction here between these methods and any mindfulness practice one can pick up from a community centre meditation seminar. A little more directed practical advice and/or exercises on the topic could have come in useful. 

Overall, still worth a read for those interested in the topic.. and I maintain my 4/5 rating.

Gurdjieff's system simplified in a page.

Having been a student of Gurdjieff's system (or Gurdjieff-Ouspensky) at some point, I felt compelled to write this little piece in the hopes that it could save some people a few decades of work.

Gurdjieff's system (as outlayed by Ouspensky probably most concisely, and as taken up by various other Fourth Way groups somewhat mistakenly) can be summarised as follows, with the main points as:

1. Self-observation
- which as the name implies, is simply the development of attention and concentration using the body, mind, and emotions as immediately available objects for focus.
- people spend years observing (and trying to observe) their thoughts, feelings, and sensations, though the practice in essence is simply to develop some basic degree of concentration and focus which is to be used on the next point.
- this basically serves the same purpose as any "meditation" or "awareness" practice, such as vipassana, noting, mindfulness etc.
- there is an obvious me-as-subject and it-as-object focus. Nothing esoteric here.

2. Self-remembering
- this practice trips up most people, and some spend YEARS attempting to get it, or work out what the hell Gurdjieff / Ouspensky even mean by the practice. Still others interpret it (wrongly) as "self-observation", which it is not (see above).
- the practice merely flows on from having developed the objectives in (1).
- the practice, in essence, is nothing more or less than directing the mind (or focus) onto the subjective feeling of "I"- which is the "I-thought" or "me"-as-a-separate-self feeling/thought. It is simply the focused observation and awareness of oneself that we all automatically take on from childhood, and which forms a seemingly concrete (but mistaken) identity as "I".
- generally, it is done as much as possible, throughout the day, and one needs to get a very clear and definite feel for one's own identity as "I"-as-a-separate-self or doer of actions or instigator of all other thoughts, feelings, and sensations.
- going back again and again to this feeling of "me" or "I" (as a separate individual) IS the practice of Self-remembering.
- "Self" here refers to the ego, or concept of "me" as an individual and autonomous being. (Which in Gurdjieff's system is the 'man is a machine but doesn't know it' idea).
- This serves the same function as all direct path enquiries, such as self-enquiry (vichara).
- Self willed effort and "practice" ends at this point.

3. Beyond (Seeing through the false self)
- Hopefully, at some point, the seeing happens (without any self-willed effort- and hence Gurdjieff's insistence that one cannot perform true Self-remembering), that the "I" feeling/identity is a completely assumed concept or entity in itself.
- The dropping of this assumption is the beginning (and end of assumed volitional) Liberation.

By employing (1) and later (2), in all manner of situations, and especially in times of turmoil (often intentionally introduced by Gurdjieff onto his students), it was hoped that the false self identity would eventually be seen through and done with. "Man is a machine", thus becomes completely true from the "Man Number 4" perspective.

Unfortunately, from what I've observed in Gurdjieff groups, most groups get hung up on (1), especially veering off into learning 'dances', exercises, tricks etc., and never even get to (2). For those that get to (2), the need for groups often falls away. For those in which (3) occurs, the whole game is up, and appreciation arises for this unique little system.

Amen.


(PS- I've intentionally left out the huge body of Gurdjieff/Ouspensky's cosmology and related theology, as detailed somewhat in "In Search of the Miraculous", "Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson", and other books. Although this highly complex body of theory (mostly swiped from Theosophy, Sufism, Buddhism, Kashmiri Shavism, and Gurdjieff's own imagination) is interesting, it is doubtful as to any immediate practical value which could not be explained much more simply. Certainly, the foundation of any of its usefulness would have to lie again with (1) and (2) above, without which, it would be yet another interesting informational philosophy only. It is likely that the early students of Gurdjieff's system in Russia & Europe, who were enamoured with Theosophy and occultism, needed some form of intellectual meat (or carrot), in order to even get started with the more direct practices of (1) and (2), and in this, the whole philosophy side probably has some value. However, the temptation in getting completely lost in Fourth Way concepts and philosophy seems to have been one of the chief elements in the Fourth Way's own demise, and on a more darker side, the higher than average rate (in spiritual groups anyway) for personality cults to emerge from the use or misuse of that very philosophy-- hence my insistence on side-stepping this area completely).