Appolonie

I have been going to the NY Gurdjieff Foundation for 18 years. I would recommend only the Foundations- not forth way schools - only because I don’t know them and the Foundations (NY/Paris) we’re established by Gurdjieff himself. There are groups all over the US and the world connected to the Foundations. I would also not say they were dabblers - on the contrary - it is very rigorous empirical research - on oneself. If you choose to go to the Foundation someone will meet you for a light screening- once you are invited to a group you will begin to meet with a group leader once a week and in these meetings you discuss your impressions of yourself and are sometimes given tasks. As you attempt these tasks you learn more about yourself and bring those impressions to the group and on it goes. Wonderful process of a very real self discovery - in other words less based on what we ‘imagine’ ourselves to be but on what we actually are. No judgement- just observation and discussion. Eventually you are allowed to go to a Movements class. Movements is an incredible practice which requires you to concentrate intensely due to the difficulty- and is emotional because of the music and obviously physical- as you are taking postures that are unfamiliar to oneself and thus experiencing oneself outside of ones usual automatic mind/feeling/body. It is an incredible system and ‘language’ that speaks directly to ancient latent parts of myself. There are also guided sittings and ‘work days’ - where you integrate the inner work with everyday work - like cleaning, cooking, manual work, building etc... It is an incredible system and a real school. I hope this helps. Fruitful search. Don’t waste time or energy- use your intuition to find your way to the right practice.

It’s difficult to correlate the two. Gurdjieff’s division speaks of man as what is dominant in him - instinct, emotion, intellect but he remains with many I’s - each pulling him in a different direction. It is difficult to valuate oneself. The spiral theory is self-defined as a theory. Gurdjieff and other great spiritual teachers don’t postulate - then go about trying to prove. They investigate fact. That is why they say ‘observe yourself’, go inside yourself etc... what in me can I recognize as fact? If we are really honest we realize we don’t know what we are. And the search begins- but from the inside out - not by postulating. If you’re interested in the Gurdjieff work go to one of the Foundations near you like the NY Foundation and related groups. I also recommend Robert Rose for a more empirical study of oneself.