Gurdjieff, A Beginer's Guide

by Gil Friedman

[adamfortuna]

When I grew up, my parents would occasionally go to Gurdjieff group meetings. We weren't a religious family, so that was the closest we came. Although I was hanging out with the kids rather than participating, I always wondered what was going on and meant to read about the concept somewhere down the line. I decided to finally check it out, and this seemed like an approachable guide.

To put the entire idea into a few sentences it would be something like this: We have control over our emotions and being. The Wikipedia article says it more abstractly: 'Gurdjieff claimed that people cannot perceive reality in their current states because they do not possess consciousness but rather live in a state of a hypnotic "waking sleep."'. It reminded me a lot of the This is Water essay which focuses on a similar idea. This very introductory guide surely only touches on the basics, but many of the principles I could see influencing my parents, and my development growing up as well.

Although the book is a good introduction to The Work, it only touches skin deep.