Introduction to "the Work"

First, G.I. Gurdjieff was not a very virtuous man. He was really kind of a demon. However, he was a fabulous teacher of modern dance, and his only problem was that he couldn't "stay paid," teaching modern dance. He was a charismatic cult leader, he was a thief, a con-man, and there really isn't too much good that you can say about the man at all. However, what Gurdjieff understood was pedagogy, and his understanding was so deep that this understanding defies what we know ought to be real. It touches on something mysterious.

What Gurdjieff did is mix his real concepts about pedagogy with a lot of fluff and noise. The reason was that his concepts about pedagogy are the very opposite of what you want to tell people if you want to "stay paid." The real concepts Gurdjieff taught are harsh, unappealing, and directly state that you are going to have to work incredibly hard if you want to succeed as a student of what Gurdjieff called, "the work."

Most of his best material has disappeared - again - because if you want to stay paid, the basic message you send people is, "You're already as good as you need to be, you don't need to work, and look out for number one and only number one." The real Gurdjieff teaching was, "You begin as my student as nothing but a mass of flaws and lies, you need to work harder than you can imagine working if you are to succeed as my student, and not 'be utterly selfless,' but instead, 'you don't even know who number one is.'"

Now if we break down that troublesome set of statements, we are going to have a lot of philosophical talk to do, so I want to start with a concept that Gurdjieff told every one of his students, and a concept, as freeing and wonderful as it is, that his students almost never followed, choosing instead to love the fluff and the noise and get scammed for everything they owned. This is the fundamental rule of "the work," which I am recasting in a different mold. I am not a demon, and I would even consider myself virtuous, but this material is painful. It is painful to me to consider what this all might mean, even as a fairly experienced teacher of the work.

Let us leave that portion of the work behind and look at our fundamental rule, which any student of the work must never, ever forget or the work will fail. However, everyone slips and falls, and if you fail, it is most likely not going to be a catastrophe. Still, the fact remains that when you fail at the work, you have failed at the work, and forgetting this first premise is the most common cause of failure, even for myself as your erudite teacher of the work.

Axiom 1 of the Work: I will believe no statement, teaching, or existence of any kind to be real unless I have verified the truth of that statement, teaching, or existence to be real by my own experience.

Think of an example of a common problem with people who are immature in their own beliefs. You beat them at an argument, and then the next thing out of their mouths is, "So what do you believe?" As a teacher of the work, the most direct statement to make at that point is, "What do you know to be true for yourself? - because what I believe may be useless to you." It isn't always good to be so direct in the work, but sometimes a stunner is a good idea. A gentler touch is usually better, but when things get hot, a stunner often does the work necessary.

Think of the famous Milgram's psychology experiments. People commited what they believed to be a heinous crime, even though it was faked, because someone told them to do it. When the 57 people in the study were questioned afterwards, the basic response was, "Someone in authority told me to commit the crime, so it wasn't a heinous crime in my mind." Not one of those 57 people involved in the study defied the authority figure who told them to commit this faked heinous crime more than even a little, and all believed they were actually commiting the crime. That experiment is now considered unethical and cannot be repeated, but the basic message is, people don't want to be free, they want to be told who to be, what to believe, and how to behave. This leads us to our next basic principle.

Contrapositive Axiom 1 of the Work: I want to be told who to be, what to believe, and how to behave. I do not want freedom, and this is a characteristic human trait. This is an orientation that is antithetical to the work.

I include myself as a member of that previous affirmation, even as your erudite teacher of the work. This is part of the work as well. Those two principles are to be used as affirmations. I generally strongly suggest that the student look themselves in the eyes in the mirror as they say these axioms as affirmations. Remember, this isn't a "get paid," teaching. This is a teaching that requires painful experiences and is very unappealing because of what it not only says about you, but also because of what it says about - me.

The other thing about the work is that in my own version of it, you do not teach the work unless you are doing the work. Period. If I expect someone to look themselves in the eyes and tell themselves in a certain way, "I'm a liar. I want a chief because I'm too weak not to have one," and to experience the kind of psychological anguish that is almost certainly going to cause, then my opinion is that I better be looking myself in the eyes and saying the exact same thing. I better put up and show up or stop teaching the work. Period.

This is going to lead to our next basic principle of the work, which I developed more on my own, and might seem to be disconnected from the previous two axioms. It is a new development in the train of thought, but it isn't entirely disconnected entirely from the axioms that came before.

Axiom 2 of the Work: There is no difference between myself as a student of the work and my teacher of the work. There is no difference between myself as a teacher of the work and my student of the work.

These three axioms tie up most of the work, although some development is necessary to untangle all of the inevitable psychological knots in anyone's character. However, there is one more axiom and this is really important to me, and this is to avoid both problems with a student and with myself as a teacher. I believe that no matter how "yang," one is required to be - no matter how combative - the goal is to be a healer, and so we arrive at Axiom 3 and the end of this article.

Axiom 3 of the Work: As a student of the work, my teacher of the work has no right to cause me any pain for destructive reasons. As a teacher of the work, I have no right to cause a student any pain for destructive reasons.

These four affirmations once a day are now all I require a student to do for the first month they work with me at the work. I never charge a dime, although a breakfast out by donation doesn't hurt. All they have to do is do what I ask, and that is, trust your own experience, recall that you are looking for someone else to answer your questions and not yourself, that you are my teacher as well as my student - and the transverse, and that neither of us have a right to try to break each other to pieces, as painful as the work may turn out to be.

The work is always incredibly painful, and the first month is the worst. I often directly ask if the student wants to quit when they are obviously in pain, and they usually admit they think they need to quit. That is ethical mentorship. The person is not my slave. I consider them an equal in the work, even though I have all of this experience and they don't have that kind of experience. Those four affirmations once a day and an attempt to stay aware of what those affirmations might mean is all that I ask in that first month, and I never invite myself to a free breakfast.

I'll be back at one blog or the other, but I'm going to eat a little food and break for a bit.