Dear Cynthia:
Less a question more a dilemma! I have been in the Gurdjieff work for nearly 20 years now but I have always felt there has been something missing, an avoidance of talking about and looking for God. He seems to be reserved for the select few while the rest of us are struggling to see ourselves more clearly. There is much good in that latter- the idea of remaining in question, of feeling your lack. But I do not want to stay there! And I want to look more outwardly and move away from just being with a small group and move away from seeming to regard the rest of humanity as asleep. I want to wake up anew with a love for all. Can I continue in Gurdjieff groups? Can I supplement this with a more open way of living, more in life? Or should I just move on and see what happens, see where God leads me? – Anthony
Dear Anthony:
The trend toward a godless Gurdjieff Work is relatively recent—i.e., gaining momentum after Gurdjieff’s death, largely (I believe) through the emphasis of Jeanne de Salzamann, who set a much more transpersonal tone that has dominated from the 1950s on. If you read Gurdjieff himself, though, you can sense his deep love and compassion for “our common Father” (4th Obligolnian striving), and for the plight of his fellow human beings. So the problem is more in the delivery system than in the teaching itself.
My suspicion is that this will begin to change mightily in the next decade, fueled in part by Joseph Azize’s wider reclamation of the exercises, where it became excruciatingly obvious how deeply Gurdjieff’s own practice is rooted in a Trinitarian and “Lord Have Mercy” devotional matrix. Our own Wisdom group has been on the leading edge of exploring what happens when Gurdjieff’s precocious mindfulness and evolution-of-consciousness practices are reunited with their original mystical and devotional wellsprings. The Work is reborn! And God is served!
I don’t know exactly how to deal with changing group culture. I think one just outlives it, finds one’s own kindred spirits, and begins to live out of the reality the heart has intuited. But don’t blame the Gurdjieff Work for the secular, transpersonal edge his devotees have imposed. Dig deeper into his actual teachings and let them help you make a new world.
Thanks, Cynthia