The Gurdjieff Teachings—A
Practical System of Instruction for Attaining Higher Consciousness through
Self-Awareness (Item
#1018)
To approach these teachings, lucidly expounded by P. D. Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll and J. G. Bennett, we must start with the premise that we are automatons—not truly awake; and then we must answer the question: "What keeps us asleep and how do we wake up?" The clarification of these philosophical issues proceeds with the elucidation of the core theory of self-transformation and the workings and control of the machine of the personality. In short, we must learn to be mechanics. The final phase of the work is concerned with the practical methods. This compilation attempts to present in a concise manner the important facets of the Gurdjieff teachings in line with these considerations.
8-1/2 x 11 inch format, elegantly comb-bound, 106 pp., 51 tables and illustrations: 31 in color–$21.50 (Spanish translation available for same price as Item #1018S)
THE GURDJIEFF TEACHINGS
The First
Step
The
first step in personal transformation is to split ourselves inwardly and psychologically
into TWO persons:
(1) The one is to be an IMPARTIAL OBSERVER from the point-of-view of the highest and noblest part of our nature with which we are in touch and which sincerely aspires to positive and constructive change. As this part develops and grows stronger, it will progressively merge with the Higher Ego, freeing itself from all influences of the Personality so that it may observe ALL aspects of the Personality, including attitudes. This means that it must become completely objective, impartial and uncritical. For a long time this Observer will be completely passive and the Personality active. In the beginning, the Observer will be completely powerless to change the Personality.
(2) The other part is to consist increasingly of ALL ASPECTS OF THE PERSONALITY—bodily sensations, vitality, sense perceptions, feelings, urges, appetites, emotions, thoughts and, ultimately, attitudes. This part will be the active agent for some time.
As we become more advanced in our development, the first part, the Observer, will become the active agent of the higher Ego, and the Personality, or second part, will become the passive servant of the Higher Ego through which the Ego may express itself more and more completely at this present Planetary level.
This whole process is the building of Antahkarana or the “Rainbow Bridge”—literally the “Internal Instrument” of the Higher Ego—the link between Higher mind and lower mind. The first step of psychologically splitting ourselves into Observer and Observed is akin to the Polarization of the ONE LIFE at the beginning of a Great Cycle of Manifestation, or Manvantara, into the subjective I-centered Spirit or Persona—Father Self, and the objective external Matter or Material Nature—its outer world or Mother-Space. As explicitly stated in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes (the Tabula Smaragdina):
“It is true, no lie, certain, and to be depended upon, that the Superior agrees with the Inferior and the Inferior with the Superior to effect that One Truly Wonderful Work.”
The
creation of the OBSERVER signals the birth of the CHRIST CHILD in us. Its
development in the beginning is precarious, and as Jesus admonished:
“It would be better for a man that a millstone be placed first about his neck and he cast into the sea than he should offend one of these little ones.”
