Meetings at 6 Rue Des Colonels-Gurdjieff

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Meetings at 6 rue des Colonels-Renard, Paris(Gurdjieff’s Paris apartment)1938with Mme de Salzmann assisting

MEETING ONE

Questioner:

Something intolerable happens in my work. In spiteof my efforts I cannot remember myself; to get a better quality. It'suseless to set myself hours of work by the clock. I get no result. Why?

Gurdjieff:

That comes from your egoism. Particularly big egoismin which you have lived till now. You are enclosed in it; you must getout of it. To get out, you must learn to work. Not only for yourself alone, but for others. You began with work on your parents. Youmust change your task. Take a new one, the same one [but] with theneighbor, no matter who, all beings, or choose from the peopleamongst you. You must work for yourself through the aim of beingable to help them. This alone will struggle against egoism. I see thatyou both have a very bad past, a particular egoism. All the old mate-rial comes to the fore. That is why you can do nothing. It is normal;according to order; according to law. Before attaining the aim, thereare many ascents and descents. This should reassure you. I could re-assure you completely, but you must work for yourself.

Questioner:

To get out of this state of suffering, so vivid and sonegative. (Two kinds of suffering, one objective, one subjective.)Can I make use of exterior means, take opium, for instance?

Gurdjieff:

No, you must work on yourself. Destroy the egoism inwhich you have always lived. Try what I say. Change your task. It isnecessary now to reach a new stage. Both of you are on the way to theGare de Lyon, but you go by different routes, one by London andone by the Opera. You are both at about the same distance.

Questioner:

I see my powerlessness and my cowardice. I can saynothing and do nothing for another. Because my head is not clear. Ihave a sensation of whether a thing is right or not, but I cannot ex-plain why clearly.

Gurdjieff:

You cannot say anything or do anything for another.You do not know what you need for yourself; you cannot know whathe needs. Work with purpose for him. But play your role. Be apartinternally: See. Externally speak as he does, so as not to hurt him.You must acquire the force to do this. Play a role. Become double.For the present you work as overseer. Do what I tell you, you cannotdo more. Love of your neighbor; that is the Way. Bring to everyone

that which you felt for your parents.

Questioner:

From the beginning of the work, one has this desire.

Gurdjieff:

Certainly, it is the same thing; always the same thingthat returns in a different degree. Now another degree. You mustovercome this crisis. Everything comes from false love of oneself, of the opinion one has of oneself, which is lies.

Questioner:

Everything has been turned upside down in me by theexercise—in all my work. It has taken away the joy of the work, hasmade it painful, without hope. I feel like a donkey pulling a veryheavy cart up a hill.

Gurdjieff:

It is because in you are other parts which are touched. It islike a painter who always mixes the same colors and there is never anyred. When he puts red in, it changes everything. You must continue.

Questioner:

This exercise has made me feel something which isnew for me; when I try to do it and put my attention on this smallmotionless point and see that I cannot hold myself in front of it, Ihave a sensation of my nothingness and I seem to understand humil-ity better. This small point is greater than I.

Gurdjieff:

Because you have a dog in yourself which hinders youin everything. It is called insolence toward oneself. You must destroythis dog. Afterward you will feel master of this point, that you arestronger and it is nothing. I have no confidence in the artistic typewhich lives in the imagination, has ideas behind its head, not inside,thinks it feels and experiences, but in reality only is occupied with ex-terior things. It lives only on the surface, outside, not inside, not initself. Artists know nothing of reality and imagine that they know.Do not trust yourself. Enter into yourself, all parts of yourself. Abso-lutely necessary to learn to feel and think at the same time in every-thing that you do, in everyday life. You are an empty person.

Questioner:

How should one pray?

Gurdjieff:

I will explain, but it is for later. In our solar system cer-tain substances emanate from the sun and the planets, in the sameway as those emanated by the earth, making contact at certain pointsin the solar system. And these points can reflect themselves in mate-rialized images which are the inverted images of the All Highest—the

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