Life Is Real Only Then, When "I Am"

G. I. Gurdjieff

Description

Here is a series of talks and lectures as well as a personal account of the master's spiritual and philosophical development providing specific suggestions and practices for achieving inner knowledge. The purpose of this series, according to Gurdjieff, is to assist the arising - in the mentation and in the feelings of the reader - of a veritable, non-fantastic representation, not of that illusory world which he now perceives, but of the world existing in reality. 

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Métaphysique
• Philosophie moderne
• Philosophie moderne
• Philosophy
• Philosophie et théologie
• Individual Philosophers
• Metaphysics

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 10 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774644065
• Langue: English

Extrait

Life Is Real Only Then, When I Am
by G. I. Gurdjieff

First published in 1934
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Life Is Real Only Then, When "I Am"


by G. I. Gurdjieff

ALL AND EVERYTHING
Ten Books in Three Series
FIRST SERIES: Three books under the title of “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson” or, “An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man.”
SECOND SERIES: Three books under the common title of “Meetings with Remarkable Men.”
THIRD SERIES: Four books under the common title of “Life Is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am.’
All written according to entirely new principles of logical reasoning and strictly directed towards the solution of the following three cardinal problems:
FIRST SERIES: To destroy, mercilessly, without any compromises whatsoever, in the mentation and feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him, about everything existing in the world.
SECOND SERIES: To acquaint the reader with the material required for a new creation and to prove the soundness and good quality of it.
THIRD SERIES: To assist the arising, in the mentation and in the feelings of the reader, of a veritable, nonfantastic representation not of that illusory world which he now perceives, but of the world existing in reality.
“No one interested in my writings should ever attempt to read them in any other than the indicated order; in other words, he should never read anything written by me before he is already well acquainted with the earlier works.”
G. I. GURDJIEFF
“… as regards the real, indubitably comprehensible, genuine objective truths which will be brought to light by me in the third series, I intend to make them accessible exclusively only to those from among the hearers of the second series of my writings who will be selected by specially prepared people according to my considered instructions.”
G. I. GURDJIEFF,
Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson
(Third Book, p.428)
PREFATORY NOTE
Although this text is no more than a fragmentary and preliminary draft of what G. I. Gurdjieff intended to write for the Third Series, “Life Is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am,’” his family feel obliged to obey our uncle’s wish, as he emphasized in his introduction, “to share with creatures similar to himself everything he had learned about the inner world of man.”
We consider we are being faithful to his intention when he wrote the introduction and thus are also meeting the expectations of very many people interested in his teaching.
On behalf of the family,
VALENTIN ANASTASIEFF
FOREWORD
“My last book, through which I wish to share with other creatures of our Common Fathersimilartomyself, almost all the previously unknown mysteries of the inner world of man which I have accidentally learned. ”
Gurdjieff wrote these words on the 6th of November, 1934, and immediately started to work. For the next few months he devoted himself entirely to working out his ideas for this book.
Then suddenly, on the 2nd of April, 1935, he completely stopped writing.
One is bound to ask: why did he abandon the project at this point and never return to it again?
Why did he leave this Third Series unfinished and apparently give up his intention to publish it?
It is not possible to answer these questions unless one has been oneself engaged in the intensive work which Gurdjieff undertook in the last fifteen years of his life with a certain number of pupils, creating for them day after day the conditions necessary for a direct and practical study of his ideas.
He let it be clearly understood, on the last page of Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, that the Third Series would be accessible only to those who would be selected as capable of understanding “the genuine objective truths which he will bring to light” in this Series.
Gurdjieff speaks to the man of today, that is, someone who no longer knows how to recognize the truth revealed to him in different forms since the earliest times—to someone with a deep sense of dissatisfaction, who feels isolated, meaningless.
But, given such a man, how to awaken in him an intelligence that can distinguish the real from the illusory?
According to Gurdjieff, the truth can be approached only if all the parts which make up the human being, the thought, the feeling and the body, are touched with the same force and in the particular way appropriate to each of them—failing which, development will inevitably be one-sided and sooner or later come to a stop.
In the absence of an effective understanding of this principle, all work on oneself is certain to deviate from the aim. The essential conditions will be wrongly understood and one will see a mechanical repetition of forms of effort which never surpass a quite ordinary level.
Gurdjieff knew how to make use of every circumstance of life to have people feel the truth.
I have seen him at work, listening to the possibilities of understanding in each of his groups and also to the subjective difficulties of each pupil. I have seen him deliberately putting the accent on a particular aspect of knowledge, then on another aspect, according to a very definite plan—working at times with a thought that stimulated the intellect and opened up an entirely new vision, at times with a feeling that required giving up all artifice in favor of an immediate and complete sincerity, at times with the awakening and putting in motion of a body that responded freely to whatever it was asked to serve.
So what did he have in mind in writing the Third Series?
The role he assigned to it cannot be disassociated from his way of teaching. At the precise moment he found it necessary, he would have a particular chapter or a particular passage read aloud in his presence, bringing suggestions or images to his pupils which put them suddenly in front of themselves and their inner contradictions.
It was a way that did not isolate them from life but passed through life, a way that took into account the yes and the no, the oppositions, all the contrary forces, a way that made them understand the necessity of struggling to rise above the battle while at the same time taking part in it.
One was brought to a threshold to be crossed and for the first time one felt that complete sincerity was required of one. It might appear to be a difficult passage but what was being left behind no longer had the old attraction. In front of certain hesitations, the picture Gurdjieff gave of himself was a measure of what it was necessary to give and of what had to be given up in order not to take a wrong turn.
Then it was no longer the teaching of the doctrine but the incarnate action of knowledge.
The Third Series, incomplete and unfinished as it is, reveals the action of the master—of the one who, simply by his presence, obliges you to come to a decision, to know what you want.
Before he died, Gurdjieff sent for me to tell me how he saw the state of affairs and to give me certain instructions:
“Publish as and when you are sure that the time has come. Publish the First and Second Series. But the essential thing, the first thing, is to prepare a nucleus of people capable of responding to the demand which will arise.
“So long as there is no responsible nucleus, the action of the ideas will not go beyond a certain threshold. That will take time … a lot of time, even.
“To publish the Third Series is not necessary.
“It was written for another purpose.
“Nevertheless, if you believe you ought to do so one day, publish it.”
The task became clear to me: as soon as the First Series had been published, it would be necessary to work without respite to form a nucleus capable, through its level of objectivity, devotion and the demands it would make on itself, of sustaining the current that had been created.
JEANNE DE SALZMANN
PROLOGUE
I am… ? But what has become of that full-sensing of the whole of myself, formerly always in me in just such cases of self-questioning during the process of self-remembering….
Is it possible that this inner ability was achieved by me thanks to all kinds of self-denial and frequent self-goading only in order that now, when its influence for my Being is more necessary even than air, it should vanish without trace?
No! This cannot be! …
Something here is not right!
If this is true, then every thing in the sphere o reason is illogical.
But in me is not yet atrophied the possibility of actualizing conscious labor and intentional suffering!…
According to all past events I must still be.
I wish! … and will be!!
Moreover, my Being is necessary not only for my personal egoism but also for the common welfare of all humanity.
My Being is indeed necessary to all people; even more necessary to them than their felicity and their happiness of today.
I wish still to be … I still am!
By the incomprehensible laws of the association of human thoughts, now, before beginning to write this book which will be my third-that is, my instructive—series of writings, and in general my last book, through which I wish to share with the other creatures of our Common Father similar to myself almost all the previously unknown mysteries of the inner world of man which I have accidentally learned, there has reoccurred to me the above-quoted self-reasoning which proceeded in me during an almost delirious state exactly seven years ago today, and even, it seems to me, at this very hour.
This fantastic soliloquy proceeded in me the 6th of November, 1927, early in the morning in one of the Montmartre night cafés in Paris when, tired already to exhaustion from my “black” thoughts, I had d