11

Exercises from the Transcripts

of 1941–​1946

11.1  Introduction

Until the publication of G.I. Gurdjieff Paris Meetings 1943 in 2017 by the Paris
Gurdjieff Institute and with the aid of the Gurdjieff Foundations, the main source
for the transcripts of Gurdjieff ’s group meetings between 1941 and 1946 was the
typewritten corpus in the Solita Solano collection of the Library of Congress. The
editor’s note to the 2017 volume asserts that the Solano transcripts had been ed-
ited, and are in any event incomplete, in comparison with those in the Institute’s
archives.1 The original French transcripts have not been published, which means
that we have only two checks on the 2017 translations: (1) the French-​language
transcript of the October 16, 1943, meeting that I found among the papers of
the late George Adie with a note saying that it had been sent to the London
group by Jeanne de Salzmann and was to be read by Adie, and (2) the transcript
of September 1943, which had been earlier published. This earlier publication
includes the observation that the notes were taken down by hand during the
meeting: “The person who usually takes notes asks a long question. During this
time someone else takes notes for him, and then gives back the paper and the
pencil.”2 Other than this, nothing is known of how the transcripts were made and
whether they were contemporaneously checked.3
The strict accuracy of the 2017 volume is not beyond question. For example,
in the 2017 edition of the transcript of the September 9, 1943, meeting, someone
tells Gurdjieff that he had not spoken “because one is asleep,” while in the 1996
translation he says: “My question was very personal; not everyone is interested in
that.” Almost bizarrely, Gurdjieff ’s response in the 2017 transcript is “The ques-
tion was very typical. Everyone is interested in it,” which is an appropriate re-
sponse to the statement in the 1996 version, but not to the one in the 2017 book.
Further, the 1996 transcript omits any reply from Gurdjieff, but passes straight to
the next question—​suggesting that neither transcript is scrupulously accurate.4
Examples could be multiplied. Sufficient to say, it is impossible to avoid the con-
clusion that the transcripts have been afforded a rather cavalier treatment.
A new Gurdjieff appears in these transcripts. The intricate and deliberately
obscure prose of the First and Third Series has vanished. The speaker is a wonder

Gurdjieff. Joseph Azize, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190064075.001.0001
188  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

of concise and direct formulation, some of his phrases being quite powerful.
Also, he comes across as both demanding and warm; for instance, on December
7, 1941, he states: “Love of our neighbor: That is the Way. Bring to everyone that
which you felt for your parents.”5 Disciplining the intellect to follow concepts
such as the Ray of Creation is gone. In its place, Gurdjieff gives practical exercises
for use both in quiet contemplation and in the social domain. Purely mental tasks
such as those used at the Prieuré (see Section 5.1) almost disappear. The time to
be spent on the exercises often varies from person to person: It is anything from
eleven minutes to three hours.6 Great emphasis is placed on these practices:

I told you to expect nothing from this exercise. It is the exercise which will give
you understanding. Others will come after. . . . To understand, it is necessary to
do, to have experience. The exercises will give you experience. These exercises
were established centuries ago, even before Europe existed.7

The use of the Movements and Transformed-​contemplation are the two

great innovations in Gurdjieff ’s teaching since his Russian era. This accords
with the recollection of J.  G. Bennett, Med Thring, and George Adie that,
with Ouspensky, they were studying the system, but with Gurdjieff, they were
implementing it.8 Bennett effectively declares these exercises to represent a
breakthrough:  “Whereas I  went to Paris convinced that self-​remembering is
both indispensable for man and impossible of attainment, I am now sure that it
can be attained, and moreover by the very simple means of involving the powers
latent in our own bodies.”9
I shall work through the material thematically rather than chronologically, al-
though, as stated, there are many gaps. By 1942, Gurdjieff had various groups
that met on different days of the week. The transcripts of October 16 and 31,
1943, disclose that two groups, at least, the Saturday and the Sunday ones, had
a determined series of exercises, such that he could ask Jeanne de Salzmann to
teach someone “the first of the Sunday group exercises,” or that of Saturday.10
The groups were graded: The Sunday one was more advanced, hence the lady
to whom Gurdjieff spoke on October 16 was urged to “merit entry.” While there
must have been a series of exercises for Gurdjieff to be able to specify “the first,”
Gurdjieff also improvised them, as he did with Hulme (see Section 10.1). The
exercises could be employed with a program or plan (see Section 11.2). When he
understands a critical point about the psychology of one pupil, he tells him that
he will “give you many exercises for your general functioning.”11
Cutting across all this is the distinction between “objective” and “subjective”
exercises (see Section 0.3). On one occasion when Gurdjieff had given someone
from the group a counting exercise (see Section 11.3), and someone said that
she had tried it and it brought her nothing, Gurdjieff replied: “Try something
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  189

else. Perhaps that does not correspond to your subjectivity.”12 I am not certain
that there is any readily defined difference in content between subjective and
objective exercises, although it seems that some subjective exercises could be
given to all, but others could not, as is suggested by that exchange with a woman
whose subjectivity was not suited by the exercise. In both the Prospectus and the
Herald, he condemned giving exercises indiscriminately to “all and sundry” (see
Section 5.5).
Two final introductory matters must be noted. First, in these transcripts,
Gurdjieff sometimes insisted on taking ten or fifteen minutes for relaxation and
self-​collection before every exercise.13 This was given as a general rule, and so was
often assumed. Also the subject of a tacit understanding was the need to attend
to one’s state and one’s intentions before and after any exercise. On December 9,
1946, he said:

Parallel with this exercise, one thing is necessary. It is possible that someone
obtains a result. But then this result is going to disappear. In order that it may
continue to exist, one must do a special thing with the voluntary thought. At the
beginning and at the end of each exercise, you must pretend, be compelled, to
close again. Think that what you have done stays with you until the next time
and that the next time you will obtain more. . . .
And it is desirable that you would remember to do nothing which might
cause you to emanate a great deal. If you really want to accumulate this thing,
you must have all the time a concentrated state, consciously, unconsciously,
instinctively.
. . . It will even be useful, in finishing the exercise, for each to pronounce
his subjective prayer and ask his ideal to help him to guard this thing until the
next exercise.14

As we shall see in Chapter 13, the Four Ideals Exercise was designed to help
exercitants keep the results of their work. The need to have a conscious intention
before one sat down for the Preparation or for any contemplative exercise was
impressed many times by both George and Helen Adie. They would suggest, for
example, that one look at the chair or stool on which one was going to sit and
come to a distinct intention.
The second matter of general application is Gurdjieff ’s strict injunction to at-
tempt the exercises only when fully awake, so that the three centers of intellect,
feeling, and sensation might harmoniously participate. On December 9, 1946, he
said to someone who had spoken of certain things that came to him while in bed:

Why speak of it? It is an obsession. This can only give you many chances
of entering an insane asylum. You must never do unconsciously. Even
190  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

half-​consciously, I advise you. All or nothing. Between the two is only psychop-
athy, obsession. . . . The conscious effort consists in giving the initiative to all
your centers. That is activity.15

It is not possible to consider every comment Gurdjieff makes about exercises in

the 2017 edition, in the manner of a concordance. I do, however, attempt to cover
what is significant in a somewhat logical order, commencing with relaxation.

11.2 Relaxation Exercises

In Gurdjieff ’s system as a whole, tension and release (whether physical or emo-

tional) must be kept in equilibrium: Intentional movement is not possible when
there is either excessive tension or relaxation. George Adie said that in the face
of a great demand, Gurdjieff advised exercitants to “tense their attention.” This
effort, said Adie, required all of one’s attention and concentration, but could only
be maintained in the moment of need; afterwards, one had to relax. However,
Gurdjieff usually placed the emphasis on consciously relaxing rather than
on consciously tensing, because of the two, unnecessary tension is the greater
problem for most people, as tension wastes energy.16
In a 1922 paper entitled “The Study of Psychology,” Gurdjieff wrote of the ne-
cessity to conserve energy by controlling imagination and all other useless activ-
ities, such as unintentional inner conversations and picturings, stating that the
act of observing these will by itself divert the force that had been feeding imag-
ination into a supply for use in self-​observation.17 He went on to say that if our
energy was not wasted thus and in unnecessary muscular and emotional ten-
sion, the organism could be enlivened, and the “rusty” connections between the
centers “greased,” so that the centers could work together properly, leaving a sur-
plus of energy for inner work.18 The starting point, wrote Gurdjieff, is relaxation:

Until you learn how to relax, you cannot save energy. . . . Now you cannot relax
without attention. If you use your attention for some time, you will begin to
relax by habit. Then you can use your attention for something else.19

This emphasis on being able to relax physically and emotionally was constant
in Gurdjieff ’s teaching; he even advised relaxing the legs to allow the organism
as a whole to inhale properly.20 However, the process of relaxation had to be con-
scious for it to be of practical use. According to Gurdjieff: “It is only when you
relax consciously, and when your head retains its role of policeman, that the re-
laxation has value.”21 On October 16, 1943, Gurdjieff directed one person:
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  191

Do this exercise as your work. Two, three times each day, when lying down,
relax yourself. Your thoughts, your feeling, all your functions must be occupied
with that. Your small muscles, you middling muscles, your large muscles must
be relaxed.
Make a program. Decide how much time you will spend on it. 15
minutes, half an hour, one hour. Arrange to do it three times each day. Do it as a
service.
I repeat again: large muscles, middling muscles, small muscles. You don’t
know your small muscles. You will get to know them when you start relaxing
yourself. You will learn that you have three qualities of muscles, and these three
qualities of muscles must become passive, without activity, completely tranquil,
without action or manifestation. . . . The first time, perhaps, it will be mediocre,
you won’t receive anything. The second time it will be better, and by the tenth
time, perhaps, you will have the taste of mediocre relaxation but also of good
relaxation. You have these three qualities of muscles in your finger as much as
in your head.
Lie down, and make your individuality like a warden in control. If your
muscles do not relax, then smack that spot. At the beginning, do it lying down,
but when you have the taste you can do it sitting or even standing. Indeed, you
can do it even while walking. For example, if you walk to the Champs-​Elysées,
you cannot relax your legs, you will know that at the very first reverberation.
But relax your right side, or your left side or your navel.22

On December 9, 1943, and on August 24, 1944, he alluded to the same in-
struction, and on May 25, 1944, he repeated it, but in a much shorter compass.23
The idea of the three categories of muscle, distinguished by size seems new to
Gurdjieff. It elaborates on his instructions about relaxation. Whereas here he
speaks of one’s “individuality” as being a guardian, in other places he speaks of
the “head” being a “policeman.”24

11.3  A Simple Sensing Exercise

If I understand Gurdjieff ’s comments, on July 13, 1944, he gave this exercise to

Yahne le Toumelin alone and to “no one else” because she was not able to be-
come conscious of her feeling.25 This exercise is a simple one for grounding
oneself in sensation, the sensation serving as a foundation for feeling her own
presence:

[Y]‌ou do it, for example, seated, leaning comfortably installed in an armchair

or on a couch. There is a spot where the arms are attached to the body (region
192  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

of the shoulders), and a spot where the legs are attached to the body (hip joint);
feel and control these four spots all the time. All your attention must be con-
centrated there. Send everything else to the devil. When you say “I am” imagine
that these four spots are like four pillars on which are supported your “I am.”
Focus your attention; not on the extremities nor to the interior of the body. All
your concentration is fixed on these four places. . . . To begin, learn to know this
state; it is like a measure, a clue. You will self-​remember when you can feel well
these four places.26

Gurdjieff then went on to say that because of “an abnormal life in the past,”
it was necessary for her to create a “new quality of functions.” This exercise, or
more precisely the sense of presence produced by it, was to be “a barrier.”27 When
she could feel that barrier as something definite, then she would be ready for
a further exercise. This would lead to a “new interior, independent, and a new
exterior, independent . . . without the abnormal ex-​functions.”28 Gurdjieff then
warned the others not to try it out of curiosity, because it was “dangerous.”29
However, on November 11, 1943, he gave another exercise for raising sensation
to consciousness, so that “feeling will start to come into play,” without stressing
its being exclusive to the pupil.30

11.4  Exercises for the Body

On December 7, 1941, Gurdjieff gave a discipline he said was for the spine:

Hold out both arms horizontally at an exact angle, at the same time looking
fixedly at a point before you. Divide your attention exactly between point and
arms. You will find that there are no associations, no place for them, so occupied
you will be with point and position of arms. Do this sitting down, standing then
on knees. Twenty-​five minutes each position, several times a day—​or fewer.31

I have been told that George Adie also knew of an exercise of standing with
arms outstretched; however, I  have no transcripts of him teaching it, nor did
I ever hear him give it. The mention of the cessation of associations is signifi-
cant: On May 10, 1945, when this exercise was mentioned, Gurdjieff said that
associations do not completely stop until death, but “when your attention is con-
sciously busy with something, it doesn’t see them.”32 Gurdjieff returned to this
exercise, but little more light was shed on it.33
The following exercise, given on September 25, 1943, is for the sensing of the
body. Although in one place Gurdjieff speaks of “feeling,” it is clear from the
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  193

context that he means to both “sense” and “feel” the upper arm and the solar
plexus, as those terms were distinguished in Section 7.3:

To begin with, the secret is “I am.” You begin like that. Now, I feel “I.” But how
do I feel “I”? What is “I”? I sense this region (touching the top of his arm) and
this one (touching his solar plexus). Try that now. And at the same time, I ob-
serve this with my head. Do that. . . . I sense and feel these two parts, the top
of the arm and the solar plexus, and at the same time, with my head, I observe
what is going on. . . . Afterwards, when you have experienced this with one part
of your attention and with your head, you will be able to travel within yourself
freely. . . . Thanks to this exercise you will increase your power of concentration.
It is made for that.34

The exercise, then, is not given for the sake of being able to sense the top of the
arm, but rather to be able to concentrate so that one can experience the sensa-
tion he calls “I am” anywhere in the body. This will be of signal importance in the
Preparation (see Chapter 17). These exercises of sensing the top of the arm or the
joints (as in Section 11.3) may be related to what the Athonite monk would have
felt in holding out his arms bent at the elbow (see Section 4.2).

11.5  Exercises for Three Centers

On March 11, 1943, Gurdjieff referred to an exercise of “seeing with your three
parts.”35 This means, in terms of his teaching, to see with the whole of oneself.
To the next questioner, he said that she had been wasting her time reading
“because you only read with your head.” He then gave an exercise that may be
a form of the one of “seeing with three parts,” adapted for reading. Gurdjieff
instructed her:

Do this exercise: Read just a little, one page at a time. First you have to under-
stand with your head, then you have to feel, then experience. And then go back
reflect on it. Practice reading with your three centers.36

Another exercise to bring the operation of the three centers into simultaneous
consciousness was given on October 16, 1943:

Here is an exercise. Tense the base of your foot. Do it with your three centers.
Do this exercise, then stop, and then begin it again. Do not do it with one center
alone. Do it well, with three centers. It is an independent exercise, for you.37
194  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

11.6  The Atmosphere Exercise

On August 3, 1944, responding to a woman who said, “My decision is automatic.

I do not succeed in feeling like a human being,” Gurdjieff said:

1. You must do an exercise to be more collected. Learn to collect yourself.

Choose a good moment that seems propitious. Sit down. Let nobody dis-
turb you. Relax yourself. All your attention—​all your will is concentrated
on your relaxation. You quieten your associations. After—​only after, you
begin to think.
2.  . . . After, when you have quietened your associations, only then, begin the
exercise—​consciously, with all your attention, all your faculties.
3. You represent to yourself that you are surrounded by an atmosphere. Like
the earth, man also has an atmosphere, which surrounds him on all sides,
for a meter, more or less—​to a limit.
4. In the atmosphere the associations, in ordinary life the thoughts—​produce
waves. It concentrates at certain places—​it recedes; it has movements ac-
cording to the direction which you impart to it. This depends on the move-
ment of your thought. Your atmosphere is displaced in the direction in
which your thought goes. If you think of your mother who is far away, your
atmosphere moves towards the place where your mother is.
5. When you do this exercise, you represent to yourself that this atmosphere
has limits. For example, one meter and half, shall we say.
6. Then you concentrate all your attention on preventing your atmosphere
from escaping beyond the limit. You do not allow it to go further than one
meter or one meter and a half. When you feel your atmosphere quietened,
without waves, without movement, then with all your will you suck it into
yourself—​you conserve yourself in this atmosphere. You draw it con-
sciously into yourself. The more you can, the better it is. To start with it is
very tiring.
7. That is how you must do the exercise. Afterwards you rest yourself—​you
send the exercise to the devil. Repeat it afresh in the evening. This exercise
is done especially to allow one to have a collected state.
8. It is the first exercise. It is difficult to penetrate into yourself at the first ef-
fort. One must compel the atmosphere to remain within its limits—​not
allow it to go further than it should. It is the first exercise in order to have a
collected state. This exercise I have given to everybody.
9.  . . . When you have succeeded in doing that, you will be able to have a truly
good state, and you will be able, by your will—​to re-​enter completely into
yourselves.
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  195

10. When you say “I am” you will sense that you are in yourself, you will sense
in the whole of the body—​the echo of “I”—​and when you say “am” you will
have the sensation, completely, that you are you.
11. But if you do it for ten years “I am—​I am—​I am” it will lead you to nothing
but to be a candidate for the madhouse. Do that or nothing. Begin eve-
rything again with that exercise. It is the first exercise for remembering
oneself.38

If this is “the first exercise for self-​remembering,” it is remarkable that it was

not taught in Russia or at the Prieuré. In the following conversation with someone
who had been trying the exercise, and had found that although it brought a better
sense of “I,” that feeling of himself diminished, Gurdjieff said:

12. When you are in the state of remembering—​half of your attention must be
concentrated on the “I am” and the other half must control the keeping of
the state. Your head plays the role of policeman. It watches for you to guard
your state. “I am” with the other half of the attention.
13.  . . . [while your thought] goes into another country. Your atmosphere—​
your imagination leaves you, and you remain with your automatic at-
tention. Done in this way it is normal that it diminishes. One must do
thousands and thousands of times what I tell you.
14.  . . . First of all get used to staying a long time in a collected state.39

I will comment on some of the paragraphs:

1. This sitting, relaxation, and collection is a feature of most but not all the
contemplation-​ like exercises, and especially of the Preparation (see
Chapter 17).
3. Gurdjieff did not say very much about the human atmosphere in the earlier
part of the teaching, but it became more important in the later years, until
in this exercise and the Four Ideals (see Chapter 13), it is critical.
4. The teaching that our muscles, as opposed to our atmospheres, move in
the direction of the objects of our thoughts is also found in Meetings with
Remarkable Men.40
5. In paragraph 3, the atmosphere is said to extend for about a meter, but here
the representation of it is for a meter and a half.
6. So far as I  am aware, this is the only reference Gurdjieff ever made to
quietening the waves of the atmosphere. When he answered a question
about the exercise on August 10, 1944, the week after he had given it, he
did not mention waves, although he did emphasize the need to consciously
quieten oneself.41
196  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

8. This exercise is clearly an objective exercise, he has given it to everybody,

but here he teaches it to one member of the group as if it were a subjec-
tive exercise, thus confirming my view that objective exercises could also be
used as subjective.
11. Although Gurdjieff has said that the exercise must be attempted twice a day
and “thousands and thousands of times” (paragraph 13), it must be done
with full attention or the results are worse than useless.42 In a variant of
this, on January 18, 1944, Gurdjieff said to someone who said that he or she
could not do the exercises “because I have been intoxicated by the results”
they had found: “You cannot expect result yet. You can only do the exer-
cise. To be able to play tunes takes a long time. . . . Think only of the future,
when your playing may acquire a different quality and you may become a
pianist.”43
12. George Adie would insist on the role of the head as “policeman,” meaning
that the head directs the traffic, as it were.
14. The instruction to remain in the collected state for a long time supports
my thesis that Gurdjieff found it essential to introduce Transformed-​
contemplation so that people could experience in quiet conditions a state
they could recall in the social domain. A similar comment was made on
August 3, 1944 (see the “Atmosphere Exercise” in Section 11.6).44

11.7  “I Am” Exercises

Consistent with Gurdjieff ’s earliest recorded teaching, in 1943 he was insisting

that his pupils must “acquire an unchangeable ‘I.’ That is what is most important,
and you must focus all your efforts on.”45 This is the purpose of those exercises
that call for the affirmation “I am.” They form a series of variations on a theme,
but the differences are noteworthy. In terms similar to that of the First Assisting
Exercise from the Third Series, Gurdjieff advised his students to realize work in
their ordinary life, using “this exercise: ‘I am collected . . . present,’ and at the
same time, no associations. Make this force you speak of your own. My weak-
ness, I make it mine. ‘I am’ . . . again and again: ‘I am.’ Never forget it. Little by
little, your ‘I’ will have contact with your essence. It is necessary to repeat this
many times.”46
The use of this affirmation did not stand alone: It had to be linked to all other
elements of the method, especially, perhaps, the consciousness of sensation.
Gurdjieff advised someone:
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  197

[Y]‌ou [have] acquired good material: Make it permanent in your life. It is a

very hard task. Remember yourself all the time. Make it permanent with ‘I am.’
Without ceasing, in life, try . . . ‘I am, I can be, I can be that’ . . . Sense yourself as
often as possible, and the more you can remember yourself inwardly, the better
your future will be.47

Perhaps the most informative of these “I am” exercises was given to Henri
Tracol (1909–​1997), who was later the head of the Institut Gurdjieff in Paris.48
We know this exercise only from Tracol’s question; which he asked on September
18, 1943:

The exercise  .  .  .  you gave me eighteen days ago  .  .  .  consisted of continual

remembering:  With each inhalation and exhalation I  should think “I am,”
should deposit the active elements of the air in the legs while I am lying down or
sitting and in the solar plexus when I am standing.49

When Tracol spoke of his feeling of “I,” Gurdjieff replied:

Continue the same thing. You will get used to it little by little. Make this taste
your own. First you must have the taste. That is to say, you no longer have your
associations. The taste arises in you—​it is your own—​but when you are in a spe-
cial state. That means that in life it cannot yet happen. In a special state, when
you relax a little, you can remember this taste, and you must recognize it.50

Tracol added: “And at the same time, I feel that the real work is in ordinary
life,” to which Jeanne de Salzmann replied: “But first you must do it in a special
state, and little by little you will succeed in ordinary life.”51 On December 9, 1943,
Gurdjieff again used the phrase “special state” for coming to calm in secluded
conditions.52
This, in a few sentences, explains why Gurdjieff eventually introduced these
contemplation-​like exercises, and the absence of such statements from earlier
material shows that these exercises for employment in a “special state” were not
then in use.
The frequent or continuous affirmation of “I am” is a feature of many exercises
from this time, culminating in the final exercise he gave George and Helen Adie.
The “depositing” of the active elements in the legs is new but recurs in the Four
Ideals Exercise. However, the instruction to deposit these in the solar plexus
when standing, and in the legs otherwise, is quite new. It may point to the impor-
tance of the sensation of the legs.
198  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

The following, given on July 22, 1943, is to be used in daily life, and hence is
of a piece with the exercise of February 16, 1931. I break it down into numbered
paragraphs:

1. It is a very big thing, impossible to do in four or five weeks. Four or five

months are needed, maybe more . . . I am sure that if you accomplish it, you
will get what you are expecting. You deserve to have all the results that this
exercise can bring.
2. During your holidays, prepare the ground to come to “I am.” You under-
stand? Now listen carefully to this exercise. “I wish that the person who is
looking at me would feel love and respect for me. I wish above all that the
desire to help me would appear in that person, and that in all that I think
I would be truly worthy of that.” At the same time, when you breathe, you
say “I am.”
3. If you do this honestly, conscientiously, as a service, I assure you results in
six months. This exercise is your God, even more than your father or your
mother. Do it until I tell you it’s enough.
4.  . . . Do it two or three times a day. When you wake up, when you go to
sleep, and in the middle of the day, before lunch or dinner. You choose
three moments for this exercise. If you remember it in between, even auto-
matically, do it.53

Again, I use the same numbering for my comments:

1. See Chapter 18 for my thesis that when Gurdjieff speaks of not expecting
results, he means not to identify with definite and immediate results.
Gurdjieff says this exercise will need such a lengthy period of time. He
had George Adie work at the Four Ideals Exercise for some five months.
Different exercises needed different periods of time.
2 This practice of doing an exercise so that the exercitant would influence
another’s state was, so far as I am aware, rare. However, a similar exercise
was given to a young man on October 21, 1943, with the advice to help his
mother when he begins earning money.54
3. These comments seem aimed at instilling a desire to work hard at the
exercise.
4. Gurdjieff instructs the exercitant to set times, but when reminders come
accidentally, to use them.

On April 20, 1944, Gurdjieff advised one man to make the affirmation when
he experienced a depressing emotion.55 This ties in with the advice in the Third
Series that, by intentionally concentrating the reverberation of “I am” on any part
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  199

of the body, it can be cured of “any disharmony.”56 Then, on December 9, 1946,

Gurdjieff said:

[I]‌f you ascertain that you work only with one or two centers, know that this is
not consciousness. There is only real consciousness with the same intensity in
three places.
For example, here is an exercise: I am—​when you say “I” you feel the
three centers. When you say “am,” you feel also the three centers but differently.
“I,” it is as if something stood up. “Am,” it is as if, in the three centers something
sat down. This is an original explanation.57

Finally, as we shall see in Chapter 18, Gurdjieff ’s last exercise to the Adies was
basically just this.

11.8  The Filling Up Exercise

Gurdjieff had given this exercise sometime before Thursday, May 25, 1944,58
and although he took some questions about it, when one woman told him that
she was working at it, he replied that she was not yet ready for any exercise as
she needed Preparation. Accordingly, he taught her a basic relaxation exer-
cise, indicating again how fundamental relaxation is for the Gurdjieff exercises.
Later, on Thursday, August 3, 1944, because the Filling Up Exercise had not been
attempted and had “led to no results,” he gave it again:

It is the exercise of filling the body. Maybe someone remembers? I am. When
you say “I,” you get an echo. Everyone understands what this sensation is. In
this exercise it is not a question of that. One has to sense this echo first in the
right leg, then in the left leg, then in the right arm, then in the left, the abdomen,
the thorax. Do this series three times. Then the head—​once. Three times the
whole, and once the head. And repeat if you have time. Twice in the six places.
The third time in seven places.59

On May 25, 1944, at what must have been one of the first occasions the group
met after the exercise, someone reported that he felt “filled” but had “nervous
contractions” he could not “conquer.” Gurdjieff advised him:

You do not have the rhythm. It is necessary to do different things. (1) Inhale

normally; (2) Retain the air while becoming discontracted; (3) Exhale without
becoming contracted. It is not necessary to relax when you retain.60
200  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

After the speaker had protested that he always had “contracted exhalations,”
Gurdjieff said: “You do not have rhythm, perhaps you have other disharmonies,”
and they discussed his physical condition and the possibility that an illness can
shift within the body.61
This exercise is based on the idea that an “echo of I” can be heard and directed
into a specific part of the body. Although Gurdjieff does not say so here, if to
speak of “filling the body” means anything, then the echo has to be understood as
somehow filling that part.
That there is a rhythm to it is probably true of all rotation exercises, as it was
of the Soil Preparing Exercise (see Chapter  7), where the counting was to be
done rhythmically. When excercitants lacked rhythm, Gurdjieff effectively ad-
vised them to establish an artificial one, in which the inhaled air would be held
while they allowed “decontraction,” which in the context probably means of the
ribcage. George Adie always insisted that one was to observe rather than to in-
terfere with the breath, but in one case of tense breathing, as the author recalls,
he said that allowing relaxation of the rib cage on and after the exhalation (in the
brief period between exhalation and inhalation, when the higher hydrogens in
the inhaled air are moving through the body) assists the process of conscious
relaxation.
To judge from The Reality of Being, de Salzmann emphasized the echo “as a
feeling of ‘I’ in the contact between my thought and my sensation.”62

11.9  The Web Exercise

This exercise is unique in the Gurdjieff repertoire in that it requires the members
of a group to work at it in conjunction with each other, both when they had come
together as a group and while they went about their usual activities. It hails from
the transcript of May 25, 1944, when Gurdjieff said:

It is possible to have a common contact through the aim. It is possible with

practice. For example, when you are seated together do not spend your time
internally like in life. Use this occasion to do an exercise; suggest to yourself that
this atmosphere about you, wakes up to the desire to go towards the aim . . . eve-
rybody here. This atmosphere is warming for an aspiring with all your being
towards a common aim. When you find yourselves together, suddenly, auto-
matically it produces this heating. You can have a reciprocal action on a whole
city. Paris is big; but if you begin it will become, little by little, possible that, if
one movement is produced in a corner of this atmosphere, it will start an unrest
which will spread over all.
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  201

You have knowledge of different telepathic acts. It is as if the atmosphere

became large; a material is formed like the web of a spider. If, in one of the
meshes, a new force enters, this can correspond in the whole network, like in
an electric conduit. . . . You create a factor of inclination for succeeding in your
aim with all your mass. For this it is necessary that two things happen, auto-​
suggestion and representation by forms, but subjective forms. In the beginning
you will understand what is happening; it is not important to picture it to one-
self exactly. Imagine that in you there is a network. If one current comes in one
point, it shall arrive everywhere, if one sensation of warmth is in one point, all
the points shall feel the heat, the cold. Picture how what happens in one place
happens everywhere.63

After some further exchange, Gurdjieff instructed them:

Try now to do this exercise of forming a web. The whole brotherhood also did
the same thing. You know the proverb: “one for all, all for one.” In ordinary life,
this is a lie, because it is not realizable. But here is a brotherhood. They all have
one common aim. One of them is there; but he must desire that all attain it, and
inversely, the others are also obliged to help him. . . . There exist two things;
matter and force. This exercise is to urge, to excite, to animate.64

This exercise builds on what Gurdjieff has been saying about atmospheres, and
controlling one’s own. The aggregation of atmospheres now forms a “web.” This is
reminiscent of the Four Ideals Exercise in that implicit in Gurdjieff ’s teaching is
a view of the world in which there are invisible realities that are the result of our
own human actions and states and, now that they are in existence, make possible
new connections and undreamt-​of assistance.
Second, says Gurdjieff, when the people whose atmospheres form the web
come together with a common aim, there is a warming in the webs. This invisible
reality is not something neutral: It is positive. It also means that a conscious aim,
especially perhaps a common conscious aim, is an active element not only for the
group, but even for society, represented here by the city of Paris.
Third, whatever new element enters the web, even at one point alone, by that
very fact enters the web as a whole: Movement is effectively instantaneous in
time and in space, for conscious activity is realized in higher dimensions.
Fourth, this action depends on what he calls “auto-​suggestion and repre-
sentation by subjective forms.” Again, in the Four Ideals, these will be critical
factors. It means that a constructive power of imagination is available to us: The
difference between this and the imagination Gurdjieff called “self-​deception” in
the Third Series is that this imagination is controlled, it is common among the
202  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

members of a brotherhood, and the cobweb is held together at the apex by the
shared conscious aim.
Fifth, together with these three essential elements (aim, auto-​suggestion, and
representation) could be added the desire that all other benefit. The wish is crit-
ical; without that there is no brotherhood and nothing to animate. An animating
wish is implicit in Gurdjieff ’s saying:  “This exercise is to urge, to excite, to
animate.”

11.10  An Exercise of “I Am,” Breathing, and

External Considering

This exercise is a direct successor of those dealt with in Chapter 10. On September

16, 1943, a member of Gurdjieff ’s wartime Paris group referred to difficulties
he had found with a certain exercise. From his question, it apparently involved
seeing another person. From Gurdjieff ’s reply, it must have required the con-
scious assimilation of air. Gurdjieff said:

You must use the time when you don’t see the person to prepare yourself. How
to prepare oneself? You can only do one thing: Consciously strengthen your
intention to have contact with this person. You can strengthen it by saying to
yourself, “I am.” You breathe consciously. You say, “I am.” When you say “I,” you
inhale the air consciously with all its active elements. When you say “am,” you
accumulate some energy in your accumulator and you think about making use
of this energy. You visualize the person with whom you are working and you
think that when you see him, the more concentrated you are, the more you will
be in contact with him. Then what would have taken seven attempts will be ac-
complished in one.65

Not only are similarities to the two above-​mentioned exercises evident, but it
also shows what may be a growing tendency to advise his pupils to prepare, a di-
rection that finds its apogee in the morning Preparation. What is new in this di-
rection, however, is the distinction of two different experiences for “I” and “am,”
and in particular the teaching that on “am” one accumulates energy in one’s ac-
cumulator and can call on that energy. In the Russian years he taught about the
accumulators of the human organism.66 That teaching had not been discarded
or superseded, but it was not highlighted in these groups. Further, the reference
to being able to do in one meeting what would have been done in seven shows,
if further evidence were required, that when Gurdjieff spoke of the exercitant
of the Fourth Way being able to achieve fast results by preparing a pill, he was
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  203

probably referring to these breathing exercises: “you will do in one year what you
might have done in fifteen.”67
However, after giving this answer, Gurdjieff gave another of those present a
variant of this exercise that downplayed the importance of the air but highlighted
that of the affirmation:

Every day you and your brother see each other; take as a task never to meet
your brother without doing what I’m going to tell you. You will say to him,
“Remember yourself.” And when you have said it, you will think inwardly, “I am
you, you are me,” with all your being. . . . And with these words the emanations
must also go out towards him.68

This alludes to Gurdjieff ’s projected inscription for his father’s gravesite, should
that ever be found:

I AM THOU
THOU ART I
HIS IS OURS
WE ARE BOTH HIS
SO MAY ALL BE FOR OUR NEIGHBOUR.69

In that same meeting he gave a similar exercise for when seeing one’s parents,70
and on another occasion he gave a woman an exercise that involved having before
her photographs of her absent siblings, and wishing them well for their future.71
In another meeting, Gurdjieff advised two people to call up the faces of their
parents, and to have remorse for their actions toward them. To the first person,
whose parents were deceased, he added, in terms reminiscent of the chapter on
Prince Nijeradze (see Section 1.2): “They cannot do any more where they are,
they have no bodies. You must work for them.”72
On August 10, 1944, giving a similar exercise involving one’s family, he said
that it was possible to work to change them for the better, remembering oneself
whenever one met them. This was harder, he implied, than to change them for
the better, for “It is easy to suggest evil to another.”73 This is one of the very few
occasions on which Gurdjieff suggested that one should actually work to change
another person.
Demonstrating the intimate connection between these contemplation-​like
exercises and the tasks Gurdjieff gave for use in daily life, the social domain, con-
sider this instruction from an undated transcript to a schoolteacher who felt that
teaching was an “empty” thing:
204  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

Everything that you do must become a part of your work. . . . Your class must
be part of your task. Your task is to help. You must not see the children in their
manifestations, but in their future. You must wish to help that future. You must
put yourself in their place. Remember how you were at their age. . . . When you
think “I am” at the same time wish to help.74

In another meeting, he said to someone who lamented that he was unable to

help some malnourished poverty-​stricken boys (it was Paris during the German
occupation):

Excuse me, but you could have done something. You could have given some-
thing to nourish them. Not literally, but you could have seen to it that they had
something to eat. If objectively, you had loved them; if, objectively you had
wanted them to have something to eat, this would have been enough. They
would have gone out and, automatically, they would have found someone to
give them something to eat.
. . . Think like a man, think about helping your neighbor with all your
heart, with real pity. Do you want him to eat well? First, convince yourself,
collect yourself inside and pray:  “I am, I  want to be, for him.” And believe
me . . . before he has taken ten steps into the street, he will meet someone who
will give him something to eat. This is a law. . . . Such is the power of feeling pity,
of wishing, of loving with the whole of one’s presence.75

It is, I suggest, critical to this that to have an effective wish is not easy; rather,
it is a real action, possible only for one on the path of conscious evolution, able
to remember oneself. It does raise a question as to the limits of this idea in
Gurdjieff ’s thought: It would seem that one might be able to have such a wish for
people one meets (e.g., with one’s own family). It does not seem that Gurdjieff is
teaching some quasi-​magical way of feeding the world.

11.11  An Exercise for Active Reasoning

At the Prieuré, on February 13, 1923, Gurdjieff gave directions for what he called
“simple reasoning, active reasoning.” He offered this example:

M. called me a fool. Why should I be offended? I don’t take offense, such things
do not hurt me. Not because I have no self-​love, maybe I have more self-​love
than anyone here. Maybe it is this very self-​love that does not let me be offended.
I think, I reason in a way exactly the reverse of the usual way. He called
me a fool. Must he necessarily be wise? He may himself be a fool or a lunatic.
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  205

One cannot demand wisdom from a child. I cannot demand wisdom from him.
His reasoning was foolish. Either someone has said something to him about
me, or he formed his own foolish opinion that I am a fool—​so much the worse
for him. I know that I am not a fool, so it does not offend me. If a fool has called
me a fool, I am not affected inside.
But if in a given instance I was a fool and am called a fool, I am not hurt
because my task is not to be a fool . . . So he reminds me . . . I shall think about it
and perhaps not act foolishly next time.76

This could be considered a mental discipline. On December 9, 1943, in an an-

swer to a woman who wished to be free of a “haunting image,” Gurdjieff used this
type of advice, but merged it, as it were, with the Genuine Being Duty Exercise
(see Section 6.3) to produce a contemplation-​like exercise:

Seated, calm, you relax carefully. Then, as if you were in front of an unknown
person, you begin to influence yourself through suggestion. With your con-
sciousness you explain to your subconsciousness that all of this is slavery and
that it is stupid to be dependent on whoever it may be. Explain it to yourself as
to someone else. One time, ten times, you explain it to yourself. And, in fact,
you can take in these things like someone to whom one explains the same thing
ten times, because your individuality and your body are exactly like you and
another person. For you, your body is like a stranger . . . Not once, but ten times
during the day, you can influence yourself through suggestion.77

Comments made in an undated transcript may illuminate Gurdjieff ’s injunc-

tion to “explain it as to a stranger.” There he said that the organic body is a “real
animal” that only knows its laws and wishes to satisfy its demands for food, sleep,
and sex, and so: “One must feel it as an animal. One must feel it as a stranger.”78
However:

The psychic body . . . has other needs, other aspirations, other desires. It belongs
to a different world, it is of a different nature. There is a conflict between these
two bodies—​one wishes, the other does not. It is a struggle which one must re-
inforce voluntarily by our work, by our will. It is this fight which exists naturally,
which is the specific state of man, which we must use to create a third thing, a
third state different from the other two, which is the Master . . . The body is an
animal, the psyche is a child. One must educate the one and the other.79

When Gurdjieff speaks like this, he stands close to the ascetic disciplines of
more traditional religion, and perhaps especially close to the monastic tradition
in Christianity.
206  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

11.12  Aim and Decision

This exercise of August 24, 1944, is based on the same principles as the Exercise
Concerning Aim and Energy (see Section 10.2). In answer to a question from
Dr. Aboulker about how he does not make decisions, but rather just adapts him-
self to whatever the exigencies oblige, Gurdjieff stated:

1 . It is necessary to keep aside two or three hours free.

2. Relax yourself. Put all your attention, all your possibility, on relaxing the
three classes of muscles.
3. Further, when you have separated yourself, that is to say, the machine is
one thing and the psyche another [without letting them fuse again] choose
and decide.
4. You have prepared a paper on which you write your decision.
5. Continue to guard organically this state.
6. Write down your decision and at the same time write down different
remarks on your state.
7. Then you can come back to your previous state. Forget what took place.
For one or two days don’t touch it. If you remember this state, try to
remember the taste of it, but without thinking about what has been
written.
8. Then believe what you have written and stop believing in yourself. Your
paper should be for you a holy image, your gospel, but remember that you
are still small, and that you can only do little things. After you will be able
to have faith in the future.80

I would comment:

1. The exercise of December 29, 1930, which bears a striking resemblance,

called for the exercitant to sit for one hour. Gurdjieff now raises it to two or
three hours. This is extremely lengthy for a Gurdjieff exercise.
2. In Section 11.2 we saw Gurdjieff ’s mention of relaxing three classes of
muscles. It is interesting that Gurdjieff speaks of putting not only all one’s
attention but also all one’s “possibility” on the relaxation. Does he mean
“capacity” or “to bring to mind one’s future,” or a combination, or some-
thing else? From the comment in the paragraph about “faith in the future,”
it may be that Gurdjieff had no precise meaning in mind, but said this in
order to arouse the exercitant’s feeling.
3. Gurdjieff often spoke of the need to separate one’s head from the

functioning of the organism.81 The sensation exercises had this aim, among
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  207

others. On 7 December 1941, he gave on such exercise and said: “The key to

everything –​remain apart.”82
4–​6. The advice to write one’s decision on a sheet of paper, recalls his advice
of 1930, but now he adds the requirement to also make notes about the
exercitant’s state, and to “guard organically this state,” which would mean
that the head should act as “policeman.”
7. This instruction is intended to bring about an encounter between two dif-
ferent states: the ordinary one, and the more collected one brought about
by the exercise.
8. The instruction to “. . . believe what you have written and stop believing in
yourself,” is new, but consistent with Gurdjieff ’s teaching that we are too
identified with our ordinary “I.” It is interesting, given the ambiguity about
religion which I have noted in Gurdjieff (section 2.11), that he should com-
pare the paper to “a holy image, your gospel.”

11.13  Counting Exercises: Improving on Orage

Gurdjieff ’s Soil Preparing Exercise included counting, and in discussing that ex-
ercise, I noted the principle of accustoming oneself to work, which is found in
Meetings with Remarkable Men. On October 21, 1943, Gurdjieff gave a counting
exercise to someone who seems to have been new in the group:

Whenever you have free time, you count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 . . . up to 50. After 50, you
count backwards 49, 48, 47, 46, etc., and then you begin again. After you have
done this seven times, you sit down for five or ten minutes. You relax and say, “I
am, I wish to be, I can be. Not to serve the doing of harm but the doing of good.
I will help my neighbor when I have being. I am.” After that, count again, but
consciously, not automatically. Do this during all your free time.83

On February 8, 1944, he made a passing reference to exercises “with numbers,

names and so on,” reminding us of the substitution of names for numbers at the
Prieuré and in Orage’s exercises (see Section 5.2).84 The arousing of feeling by
an altruistic aim is reminiscent of his comments to the Rope in November 1936
(see Section 10.5). It places in context his comment in 1916 that “In order to help
others one must first learn to be an egoist, a conscious egoist.”85 These exercises
perhaps had the effect of producing people who could be “conscious egoists.” It
is these affirmations, and in particular the sensing of “I am,” that differentiates
this from Orage’s psychological exercises:  A task has become an instance of
Transformed-​contemplation.
208  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

11.14  Miscellaneous Exercises and Allusions

The transcripts are full of references to exercises that were given previously but
are not otherwise known. For example, on December 7, 1941, someone asked
about an exercise in which the attention had to be placed on a “small motionless
point.”86 There is reference, in the transcript of January 16, 1944, to an exercise in
which one demands “from the body the substances necessary to bring to the face
expressions of goodness, justice, honesty, impartiality and intelligence,”87 but no
more is known of it.
An exercise given on February 8, 1944, would sound like a simple affirmation,
except that Gurdjieff treated it much more seriously. To a person who was not
doing his exercise well, Gurdjieff advised:

For you specially, I give an exercise. Each time you feel the beginning of weak-
ness, relax and then think seriously: “I wish the result of my weakness to be-
come my own strength.” This will accumulate in you for your future work. Each
man knows which weakness he has in him. Each time this weakness appears in
you, stop yourself and do this exercise. It is a very necessary exercise for you.88

It was a subjective exercise, for one person alone, and it sounds as if it had
been improvised, yet according to the principle that one can counter weakness
by relaxing and changing the direction of one’s thought. This sort of exercise
approximates to a prayer, although not directly addressed to a higher power.
While it is rather simple, Gurdjieff evidently considered it significant and ex-
pected the exercitant to find it so, too.
Finally, one small exercise, what I would call a task, indicates how Gurdjieff
intended his methods to be used in everyday life. On December 9, 1946, he said:

In general, it is necessary to create some automatic factors of recall. . . . It is very

easy. For example, how do you sit down at the table? You have never ascertained
with which foot you sit down. You observe that there also you have automatism.
You will connect something with this automatism, for a reminder of your work.
With each time that you sit down to the table, this thing will be able to act as a
factor of recall.
Another example, when you wash, you take a towel. Look to see with
which hand. . . . Do it consciously, take it with the left hand instead of the right.
In this manner you make a contact with your work, in order to self-​remember.
Another example . . . Which sock do you put on first? . . . You find out that you
begin with the left, always. Set a task: Begin with the right. And connect this
new way of doing with the recall of your work.89
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  209

Gurdjieff ’s natural son, Nicolas, when he was living with Gurdjieff before
World War II, would give himself small tasks such as these, including the one of
putting on the other sock first when getting out of bed.90 Although these are not
contemplative exercises, they could be related to them, in that one would plan
such tasks at the end of the Preparation (see Chapter 17).

Notes

1. Gurdjieff (2017) xvii–​xviii. That the Solano papers were either poorly transcribed or
edited appears, for example, from the incoherent exchange between Gurdjieff and
Duprée at Gurdjieff (2009) 143.
2. Needleman and George Baker (1996) 279. A date for the transcript is given only in
the French original: de Parfieu 297.
3. Sometimes even the dates are different; for instance, the meeting of Thursday,
October 7, in Gurdjieff (2017) 194–​205 is the same meeting as Friday, October 8, in
Gurdjieff (2009) 55–​63. One wonders how the mistake could arise.
4. Compare Needleman and George Baker (1996) 274 with Gurdjieff (2017) 147.
5. Gurdjieff (2009) 2.
6. Compare Gurdjieff (2009) 171 and 175.
7. Gurdjieff (2009) 116 (January 18, 1944). It is a moot point whether Gurdjieff literally
means that the exercises were fashioned before the settlement of Europe, or whether
this simply invests the exercises with an allure to inspire the pupil to put more effort
into them.
8. Separate oral communications from Adie and Thring; as to Bennett, see note 9.
9. Bennett (1962) 198–​199.
10. Gurdjieff (2017) 220–​221 and 246.
11. Gurdjieff (2017) 245.
12. Gurdjieff (2017) 251.
13. Gurdjieff (2009) 161 and (2017) 338–​339.
14. Gurdjieff (2009) 180.
15. Gurdjieff (2009) 178.
16. Gurdjieff (2014) 122.
17. Gurdjieff (2014) 124.
18. Gurdjieff (2014) 126.
19. Gurdjieff (2014) 126–​127.
20. Gurdjieff (2017) 138–​139.
21. Gurdjieff (2009) 178 (December 9, 1946).
22. Gurdjieff (2009) 67–​68, preferring my own translation to the less accurate (2017)
222–​223.
23. Gurdjieff (2009) 95, 171, and 139, respectively; for December 9, 1943, also Gurdjieff
(2017) 318.
210  Gurdjieff’s Contemplative Exercises

24. See the Atmosphere Exercise, below, plus Gurdjieff (2009) 100 (undated) and 177 and
178 (December 9, 1946).
25. Gurdjieff (2009) 140. Yahne le Toumelin was born in 1923 and, according to the
French Wikipedia site, became a Buddhist nun and is still alive and living in the
Dordogne where she paints, having been a noted Surrealist: https://​fr.wikipedia.org/​
wiki/​Yahne_​Le_​Toumelin, accessed June 13, 2017, and again on January 17, 2019.
26. Gurdjieff (2009) 141.
27. Gurdjieff (2009) 141.
28. Gurdjieff (2009) 141.
29. A further question from le Toumelin on August 24, 1944, explains that her problem
was her fear, timidity, and weakness. However, no further light is shed on this exer-
cise: Gurdjieff (2009) 170.
30. Gurdjieff (2017) 275.
31. Gurdjieff (2009) 3.
32. Gurdjieff (2009) 175.
33. Gurdjieff (2017) 182, 243, 340, and 356 and (2009) 152.
34. Gurdjieff (2017) 179–​180.
35. Gurdjieff (2009) 6.
36. Gurdjieff (2017) 24.
37. Gurdjieff (2009) 65.
38. Gurdjieff (2009) 148–​149.
39. Gurdjieff (2009) 150.
40. Gurdjieff (1963) 192.
41. Gurdjieff (2009) 162–​163.
42. See also an undated transcript in similar terms except for the warning:  Gurdjieff
(2009) 109.
43. Gurdjieff (2009) 118.
44. Gurdjieff (2009) 150.
45. Gurdjieff (2017) 39; see also 40, 46, 49, 81 (referring to “a higher state of ‘I am’ ”), 89,
92–​94, 138, 161–​162, 179, 289, 298.
46. Dated July 22, 1943, in Gurdjieff (2009) 25–​26 but July 15, in (2017) 74–​75.
47. Gurdjieff (2017) 198, with similar comments on 200.
48. Opening page, Tracol (1994).
49. Gurdjieff (2017) 172.
50. Gurdjieff (2017) 173.
51. Gurdjieff (2017) 173.
52. Gurdjieff (2017) 317–​318.
53. Gurdjieff (2017) 86–​87.
54. Gurdjieff (2017) 235.
55. Gurdjieff (2009) 125. More concisely, see the advice to make the affirmation at certain
appointments (August 3, 1944), Gurdjieff (2009) 146.
56. See Section 6.2, citing Gurdjieff (1975) 134.
57. Gurdjieff (2009) 182–​183.
58. Gurdjieff (2009) 134 and 135.
 Exercises from the Transcripts of 1941–1946  211

59. Gurdjieff (2009) 155.

60. Gurdjieff (2009) 136.
61. Gurdjieff (2009) 136–​137.
62. De Salzmann (2010) 43, see also 139 and 164.
63. Gurdjieff (2009) 135.
64. Gurdjieff (2009) 137–​138.
65. Gurdjieff (2017) 161–​162.
66. Ouspensky (1949) 233–​235.
67. Compare Ouspensky (1949) 50–​51 with Gurdjieff (2017) 163. For other comments
on the importance of breathing in “I am” and on acquiring new strength through the
air, see (2017) 44, 75, 138–​139, and 327.
68. Gurdjieff (2017) 163.
69. Gurdjieff (1963) 49.
70. Gurdjieff (2017) 168.
71. Gurdjieff (2017) 251–​252, see also 211 where he refers to the possibility of such an
exercise.
72. Gurdjieff (2009) 103. On February 8, 1944, he said to one man that his father “is an-
swerable for your life in another world”; Gurdjieff (2009) 121.
73. Gurdjieff (2009) 164.
74. Gurdjieff (2009) 101–​102.
75. Needleman and Baker (1996) 279. This exchange is not otherwise published to my
knowledge.
76. Gurdjieff (2014) 240–​241.
77. Gurdjieff (2017) 315–​316.
78. Gurdjieff (2009) 105.
79. Gurdjieff (2009) 105.
80. Gurdjieff (2009) 171–​172.
81. See under “separation” in the index to Gurdjieff (2009).
82. Gurdjieff (2009) 5.
83. Gurdjieff (2017) 229.
84. Gurdjieff (2009) 123.
85. Ouspensky (1949) 103.
86. Gurdjieff (2009) 2. It seems that this or a similar exercise is spoken of on September
25, 1943: Gurdjieff (2009) 49.
87. Gurdjieff (2009) 110.
88. Gurdjieff (2009) 124.
89. Gurdjieff (2009) 181–​182.
90. De Val (1997) 77.