The first striving: to have in one’s ordinary being-existence everything satisfying and really necessary for the planetary body.
The second striving: to have a constant and unflagging instinctive need to perfect oneself in the sense of Being.
The third: the conscious striving to know more and more about the laws of world-creation and world-maintenance.
The fourth: the striving, from the beginning of one’s existence, to pay as quickly as possible for one’s arising and individuality, in order afterward to be free to lighten as much as possible the sorrow of our Common Father.
And the fifth: the striving always to assist the most rapid perfecting of other beings, both those similar to oneself and those of other forms, up to the degree of ‘Marfotai,’ that is, up to the degree of self-individuality.
~ G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson