Gurdjieff Group Work
In Gurdjieff’s book ‘Meetings with Remarkable Men’, Bogga Eddin, the dervish, says to the young Gurdjieff "By himself a man can do very little", and then proceeds to advise Gurdjieff to contact the Sarmoung Brotherhood.
It is often said, ’that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole’, so that when a number of people come together to form a group the collective force is greater than would be anticipated.
The Method of the 4th Way encourages Group Work, and these groups are often called a ‘working group’. This Method is very practical, but a sincere effort is needed to render our own arbitrary whims and fancies to a proper place of un-importance. For this process we need help and support which can be provided by a group of like-minded individuals working towards 'self-knowledge'.
Blanche Grant, a pupil from a group of A.R. Orage, kept notes from her group meetings which took place in 1929. Below are some extracts from these notes which have relevance to the subject of ‘group work’.
"The purpose of the Method is to develop ‘Objective Judgement’- to work to develop understanding of a human being and that that is the beginning of wisdom. We are not interested in psychoanalysis we are interested in the quality of judgement brought to bear on our own material. The proper study of every individual is the proper study of himself or herself. This is the beginning of your education – the removal of obstacles to discovering the truth about yourself".
Orage warns of ‘Introspection’, which breeds lunacy and delivers only a 'caricature of the whole’, and says:
"There can be no self-improvement without self-knowledge, and that the technique of self-knowledge is the technique of techniques."
"What is the force of your wish about the future of this creature (called ‘self’). What is the amount of effort you are making to become the kind of person you would like to be, (or are you leaving it to hope?) The urge of self-perfection is the shame of self-dissatisfaction."
"Learn to distinguish between an event and an experience. The unconscious has no experiences just a procession of events. Events are converted into experiences by consciousness" …….group space offers an invaluable opportunity to be involved in this process… bringing into articulated speech the outcome of our insights.
Recommended reading
Gurdjieff Group Work with Wilhem Nyland
by Irmis B. Popoff.
Last updated 14.02.08 | site design copyright © 2008 Sirian Designs