It is good ,Brian, to be given imformation ,from time to time, that reaffirms one is walking in the proper direction; waking from the dream within the dream. Thanks (nt)

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> > > > With KATHLEEN SPEETH, Ph.D. > > > > JEFFREY MISHLOVE, Ph.D.: Hello and welcome. Today we're going to be examining the life and work of Georges Ivanovitch > > Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff was a mystical teacher who died in Paris in 1949. At the time of his death he had thousands of students, virtually in > > every country of the world. He has left behind him a spiritual legacy which could be considered an important precursor of the new age > > movement. With me today is Dr. Kathleen Speeth, author of The Gurdjieff Work, and Gurdjieff, Seeker of the Truth. Dr. Speeth is a > > member of the faculty of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, and is also a clinical psychologist. Welcome, Kathy. > > KATHLEEN SPEETH, Ph.D.: I'm glad to be here. > > MISHLOVE: It's a pleasure to have you here. You are in something of a unique position as a teacher and writer about the Gurdjieff > > work, in that you actually met Gurdjieff and knew him while you were a child. > > SPEETH: Yes, I did. > > MISHLOVE: Could you describe some of your early memories of the man? > > SPEETH: Well, I remember the first time I saw him. I was quite young, I don't know exactly how young, and it was in New York, and > > my parents disappeared somewhere, and there I was in a room full of people milling about, and there was somebody who had a strong > > magnetic attraction to me. I moved toward that man, and I reached down and I kissed him, and it was Gurdjieff. > > MISHLOVE: What a beautiful first memory. > > SPEETH: Yes. My mother says, although I don't remember this, that he turned toward Madame de Salzman, who was sitting next to > > him, and he said, and I hope this is true, "Elle a des possibilites" -- he spoke a little French, a little Armenian -- "She has possibilities." So > > I'm hoping that that really did happen. So I remember being drawn to him. He was like a big grandfather. And I don't know if it was that > > day or another day, when -- it was during the Second World War, so everything was very scarce, like chocolates and things that kids like > > -- he gave a party for children, and in that party we were given a whole box of those chocolates that have maraschino cherries inside. I > > hadn't even seen a chocolate in so long, and to have a whole box, it was a wonderful thing for a child. So I experienced him as very kind, > > although many grownups who wrote memoirs found him extremely tough and confrontative. > > MISHLOVE: I suppose he used what was appropriate for the occasion. > > SPEETH: I suppose he did. He seemed to me one of those people who was free enough to do that. > > MISHLOVE: Well, Gurdjieff is noted for really having combined the Eastern and Western traditions in a unique way -- to try and take > > the mystical thinking and meditative practices of the East and combine them with the disciplines, the technologies in the West, our way > > of making things really work. > > SPEETH: Yes, he did. He grew up about halfway between the East and the West. You know, he grew up between the Black Sea and > > the Caspian Sea. > > MISHLOVE: In central Asia. > > SPEETH: In central Asia. He was a person who left the Armenian Church and the family that he had, and went to seek truth with a > > bunch of friends, a lot like a dharma bum, or somebody who is a dropout in the new age period. > > MISHLOVE: Many of our viewers may have seen the movie based on his autobiography, Meetings with Remarkable Men, in which he > > sort of describes that search -- Peter Brooks's film, I believe. > > SPEETH: Exactly. Of course it's very unlikely that those "memoirs," supposed memoirs, with quotes around them, actually had to do > > with his experience. A lot of it was analog and metaphor and teaching material. > > MISHLOVE: Oh really? > > SPEETH: I think so. > > MISHLOVE: Interesting. > > SPEETH: But he certainly did go somewhere, and it's very clear that he was involved with Buddhism and Sufism, and probably Taoism > > also. > > MISHLOVE: Well, he has a reputation also for having been something of a scoundrel -- you know, there are the stories that he was a > > Russian secret agent in Tibet, for example. > > SPEETH: Right, exactly, right. And it's unclear whether that's true or not. In fact one of the things about a man like Gurdjieff is you > > can't tell whether he is using his life to teach, and making up stories therefore, or whether he's actually recounting the truth. > > MISHLOVE: He's sort of in that "crazy wisdom" tradition, where it almost seems you cannot judge this man by the standards by which > > we ordinarily judge people. > > SPEETH: And of course that's very dangerous, as you know. It seems that way, and at the same time we know we're on very shaky > > ground if we don't somehow have a common-sense response to somebody. > > MISHLOVE: One would think so, but let's look for a moment at some of the finer things that we have in the legacy of Gurdjieff. I've > > been very struck by his notion -- it's one of the most powerful ones that I've heard from the Gurdjieff tradition -- that we are all really > > asleep, we're not awake. We think we are awake, but we are not. > > SPEETH: That's certainly the fundamental idea, not only in the Gurdjieff work, but in Sufism and Buddhism. In fact every esoteric part > > of every religious tradition says there's something wrong, something clouded, something blurred, and something clotted about the > > attention of human beings, and such as we are, something is the matter with us. > > MISHLOVE: It seems to come across most clearly in the Gurdjieff work; that point gets made over and over again. > > SPEETH: Over and over again, right. And also, one is given some help in getting out of the mess we're in. > > MISHLOVE: As with all other traditions, I suppose, there is some help. > > SPEETH: In each religious tradition there is an esoteric form in which real help is given. The exoteric form will tell you what you have to > > do, and then there'll be some people who will try to help, giving you specifications and guidance on how to do what has to be done. And > > the Gurdjieff work was that without the dogmatic-work exoteric form on top of it. But you know, he did call his work esoteric > > Christianity. > > MISHLOVE: Oh, he did? > > SPEETH: Oh yes. > > MISHLOVE: Now, that I was not aware of. That's very interesting. > > SPEETH: But it didn't have anything to do with the kind of Christianity that exists in churches and cathedrals here. > > MISHLOVE: Well, he writes in Meetings with Remarkable Men that he wandered all over central Asia, and perhaps even into the Far > > East, in search of some kind of genuine teaching about the higher powers that were available to human beings. > > SPEETH: He found that the people -- and this is true of so many teenagers -- the people who were around him, teaching him, the clergy > > and the professors, they only had opinions. Nobody actually had knowledge, real knowledge, so he had to go and search it. > > MISHLOVE: And one senses, at least in this parable of his life, that he went to great lengths -- across the oceans, and walked across > > deserts, and did everything he could to get to that. And it's ironic for a person who seems to have influenced so many literary people -- > > today there are hundreds of books about the Gurdjieff work -- that he himself doesn't come across as a scholar in the least. > > SPEETH: Oh no, he wasn't a scholar, but he was a seeker, and he was a serious man and not a frivolous man. > > MISHLOVE: He spoke twenty languages, I understand. > > SPEETH: I don't know how many. > > MISHLOVE: I do want to get into the methods that he used, but one of the other concepts that he wrote about which struck me a lot -- > > and I think modern psychology is more and more coming to this point of view -- is that we are all composed of many different selves. I > > think Gurdjieff described them as being like puppets inside of us, and they each take control of us at different times. We're not really just > > one self, as we often think of ourselves to be. > > SPEETH: That's very important. The fragmentation of the human psyche is a very important part of the Gurdjieff work, and it's the > > initial condition that people find themselves in as they begin inner work. The idea would be, of course, to be trustworthy, for oneself and > > others. That would mean to master those fragments, put them all into one coherent, integrated whole. That is what human integrity is; > > and as we are, without work, we don't have integrity. > > MISHLOVE: So the state of the average individual is a person who is both asleep and fragmented. > > SPEETH: Yes, and there are terrible consequences to both of those things. Not only is this sleepwalker unable to see and hear -- he's in > > a dream -- but also the person says that they can promise things, and in fact there's somebody else. One person makes the promise, and > > somebody else is there to live up to the promise, and often promises aren't kept. > > MISHLOVE: Especially, I suppose, this is serious when we make promises to ourselves. > > SPEETH: Exactly. > > MISHLOVE: I suppose it's one of the reasons why, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. > > SPEETH: Right. If you can't keep your promises to yourself, are you a human being? That is to say, Gurdjieff used to say, "Are you a > > 'man' with quotation marks, or a man without quotation marks?" > > MISHLOVE: Would you say, having participated in this tradition somewhat, and having studied it, that there is something to the method > > of the Gurdjieff work -- that people are able to transcend or overcome this terrible condition? Is it enough just to recognize the problem? > > SPEETH: It's not enough to recognize the problem; that's something that you can see empirically. Is it enough? You know many people > > who know that they're fragmented, and they know that they're out to lunch a lot of the time. Is it enough to have recognized it? > > MISHLOVE: No, well, I wouldn't say so. > > SPEETH: I wouldn't either. > > MISHLOVE: I wouldn't say so. I think that's the first step. So the question I guess I'm trying to get at is, what comes next? What are the > > methods? And also, at some point, how effective do you think they are? Can they be taught? > > SPEETH: Right. Well, there's been an attempt to teach the Gurdjieff work, and he himself was a real teacher, I'm sure. > > MISHLOVE: From all the accounts that I have read, everybody who encountered this man was struck by some intangible yet remarkable > > quality about him -- that he did seem to exemplify what he was telling people when he talked about the harmonious development of the > > human being. > > SPEETH: He did seem to be. > > MISHLOVE: I recall one actually rather skeptical writer said that this man embodied a quality that he could only describe as being, a > > quality of being that went beyond intellect, or went beyond skilfullness, or achievement in life. > > SPEETH: He had weight, he had substance, and many other people seem to be lightweights. And so the question is, how can people > > who feel themselves to be lightweights, how can we, who are not Gurdjieff, become more substantial; and do the techniques of the > > Gurdjieff system help anybody? That's the question you're asking. Certainly something has to be done, because if a person is made up of > > a bunch of shards of human consciousness, and if the consciousness is also degraded or blurred, then that person is in no way capable > > of, for example, charity. How can that person love? > > MISHLOVE: There wouldn't even be a person there to love. > > SPEETH: That's right. > > MISHLOVE: There would be a committee. > > SPEETH: That's right. There wouldn't even be a committee, there would be an anarchy. But even to get that mob into committee form > > is something. So there are many methods, but they really depend on the understanding of the condition that one is in being seen > > emotionally, not just intellectually. It has to grip you. You have to participate in it deeply, and catch yourself, and realize what Gurdjieff > > called the terror of the situation -- that as we are, without work, we're nothing. That is, there isn't even a committee with a chairman. > > Right. > > MISHLOVE: I gather from what you're saying, that this is not the kind of work that one does in a weekend seminar. > > SPEETH: No, this is not, no. This is a life work. > > MISHLOVE: And people who have been the students of Gurdjieff have been, I guess, in quiet groups carrying out this work over the > > decades since he has died, and building communities, and trying to integrate his teachings into their lives and into their communities. And > > that's how it's done; it's not techniques that you can give on audio tape cassettes, or in weekend seminars, or things of that sort. > > SPEETH: Well, you can discuss the ideas. You can help people to see what a situation they might find themselves in, and you can give > > beginning things. > > MISHLOVE: I hope so, because we're in a half-hour TV show. > > SPEETH: Exactly. But of course one can't expect to have a big quantic leap in a half hour. For example, even at this moment, as I sit > > here, my attention is divided. Part of my attention is sensing my physical body, and the other part is paying attention and being attuned, I > > hope, and responding to you. That technique is the very basic technique in the Gurdjieff work. > > MISHLOVE: To be aware of what your attention is doing? > > SPEETH: To be aware of myself, and of you at the same time. Because another quality of the human condition, and one that keeps > > human beings from being fully human, is identification, Gurdjieff calls it. What he means by that is being submerged, completely > > submerged in what's happening, lost in it. It's as if you're in a movie theater watching a movie, and you just don't even remember you're > > sitting there, and you cry and you gasp and so forth, and then the lights come up and you realize this has just been a movie. In that same > > way one has to withdraw just a little bit of attention as one lives one's life. Now, that's a Buddhist idea and a Sufi idea too. > > MISHLOVE: To see one's own life as if it were a movie > > -- to realize that we're not totally caught up in being the actor in our lives. We can also be the observer. > > SPEETH: Yes, we have to be a participant-observer, in Harry Stack Sullivan's words. In a sense Gurdjieff brought nothing that hadn't > > been known before to the West, but what he did was put it into a form that we goal-directed, tough-minded, pragmatic Westerners could > > use. And so this idea of remembering oneself, which I'm attempting to do as I speak with you here, that idea is a form of Buddhist > > meditation, you could say, in which attention is put moment after moment on whatever comes into consciousness. But I don't have to do > > it sitting on a pillow; I can do it sitting in front of these cameras and talking with you, and you could do it as we're sitting here too. > > MISHLOVE: It's a simple exercise, in a way, and it strikes me as if there's something profound to be learned at almost any instant when > > we do that, or if not profound, something. There's always something there. Like I can see I'm sinking a little bit, I'm sitting up straight, or > > I'm wondering, "What am I going to ask her next? Where is this leading?" > > SPEETH: Right. You're more a witness of yourself, and if you're more a witness of yourself, then you have some fighting chance to > > know yourself, and if you know yourself, then maybe you can know the circuit diagram of yourself and really steer yourself and master > > yourself, and in fact live out your own destiny, not the destiny of some conventional idea of who you are or what you are. > > MISHLOVE: You know, what you're saying really makes me want to say something like this to our viewers -- that anyone who is > > watching right now, at this instant, there might be something essential they could remember about themselves, just as we point this out, > > that might be important, might even be crucial to a person at this moment, if we just reach for it. > > SPEETH: Sure. > > MISHLOVE: And I guess the Gurdjieff work means reaching, always reaching for it. > > SPEETH: Sustaining it. Because when you say to someone, "Remember yourself. Take a little of your attention and put it on your body > > right now. Listen to the sound of your voice. Experience the kinesthetic cues inside you. Do that right now," everyone will say, "Well, of > > course I can do that. It's very easy." Because everyone knows how to do that. The only thing is to sustain it -- that is a big work. > > Because one can do it, and I challenge anyone to do it for more than a minute without practice. Something will pull you away, right? > > MISHLOVE: I think thirty seconds would be very hard. > > SPEETH: So one little exercise is to remember yourself, and look at your watch, and be honest. See when it is that you forget. Because > > something will take you away -- some highly cathected thought, some environmental stimulus. > > MISHLOVE: Well, I should imagine the key isn't never to be interrupted, never to let your mind be distracted, but over, say, a period of > > days or weeks to keep doing it as high a percentage of the time as you can. > > SPEETH: Of course, and to notice what takes you away. What is it that keeps you from knowing yourself? > > MISHLOVE: Because when you're remembering yourself, then there's less of an opportunity for all these fragments to kind of take > > control, I should think. > > SPEETH: Yes. When you remember yourself, then you're at least in committee form. Somebody is controlling the subpersonalities. > > MISHLOVE: One interesting thing about the Gurdjieff work, to me, is that it is designed to fit into a Western culture. You don't have to > > go off to a monastery, you don't have to give up your job or stop your normal routine in life. In fact, Gurdjieff emphasized that > > householders were well equipped for this work. > > SPEETH: In fact it's directed toward people who want to be in the world but not of the world, and in that way it's more similar to > > Islamic forms than it is to Buddhist forms. It's non-monastic. In fact in many Sufi orders marriage is really required; it's done in a family > > situation. Gurdjieff talked about four ways, and they relate to the various functions of the human being -- the belly, the gut; the heart; the > > intellect; and then those three together. Way number one is the way of the fakir. It's the way of developing will by -- you know those > > people in India who will just stand there until a bird nests in their hand; they'll never move their arm? > > MISHLOVE: I always think of fakirs as lying down on beds of nails. > > SPEETH: They can do that too. They master their body, but only their physical body. > > MISHLOVE: In other words, it's the notion of will power. > > SPEETH: Will power, right. > > MISHLOVE: And you associate that with the guts. > > SPEETH: You do -- samurai, you know. So there's that way, of mastering the physical body, and that's a very big thing. Athletes love > > that. It's a real high, that people tell you who do high-performance athletics, like rowing or something. > > MISHLOVE: Gurdjieff's point, I gather, is that this is an incomplete way. > > SPEETH: Yes, and if you get all the way to transcendence in that way, then you have to be hauled back, and the other two centers have > > to be worked on, according to him. So one way is the fakir, that's the way of the gut. It's also the samurai in Japan. The second is the > > way of the monk. But what he means by monk is the Christian idea of monk -- the holy, worship, prayer, or sitting at the feet of the > > guru, or dancing in a bhakti way. > > MISHLOVE: The sense of devotion, opening up the heart. > > SPEETH: The heart, right. And we all know that. That's also in Islam; there are various Sufi orders like that. > > MISHLOVE: All the groups that have the symbol of the heart with wings. > > SPEETH: Heart with wings, or people who dance around Indian gurus in a bhakti way. So that's the way of the monk. > > MISHLOVE: Bhakti, I should just mention, is a sanskrit word for devotion. > > SPEETH: And then the head center is represented by the way of the yogi, and that's the brahmanic way, or the way of the philosopher. > > It's more cool, it's more Buddhist -- you know, koan Zen. > > MISHLOVE: Or the scholar. > > SPEETH: Or the scholar, right. Maybe even Spinoza sitting in his study, or Erasmus. So there's that way. Then Gurdjieff says his is the > > way of the sly man. > > MISHLOVE: The sly man? > > SPEETH: Oh huh. And he was a sly man. You work on all the centers simultaneously, and you do it in life, and when you do it, you > > don't go out of your life at all, because in your life are the clues for what you need to know, which is your very self, right? So if you just > > would go home and look at your house -- look at how you've chosen to live, look in your bedroom, what books are there, what kind of > > bed did you choose -- all of that has information about you. You've made tracks. > > MISHLOVE: So when Gurdjieff talks about the harmonious development of man, he means the integration of these centers. > > SPEETH: Yes, these functions. > > MISHLOVE: The will, the emotions, and the intellect. > > SPEETH: Right. > > MISHLOVE: And when they function harmoniously, they create another quality, some of the higher capabilities of the human being -- I > > suppose the way we say it's more than just the sum of our parts. > > SPEETH: I hope so, yes. And that is all supposed to be done without special conditions, without withdrawal from the world, but in fact > > making use of the world. > > MISHLOVE: Now, for purposes of clarification, sometimes we hear the term the Fourth Way, Fourth Way schools, and they're often > > referring to the same concept, I guess -- of not choosing one of the three earlier ways, the monk, the yogi, or the fakir, but the way of > > the harmonious integration. > > SPEETH: Right. Gurdjieff also said, which these Fourth Way schools don't remember perhaps, that the Fourth Way will never have an > > institution. That is, it cannot, without losing the very center of its existence, be institutionalized. So any place that has a name, is a > > nonprofit corporation, that has a place, a site, is not the Fourth Way. The Fourth Way cannot be found that way. > > MISHLOVE: Oh! > > SPEETH: Uh huh. > > MISHLOVE: That's what makes it esoteric, I guess. > > SPEETH: Yes. That's what Gurdjieff said. In the other ways you can go to a monastery, you can find an ashram, you can find a > > Talmudic group that studies all day every day, and sits and becomes wise. But you can't find the Fourth Way -- that is, you can find it, > > but not by looking in the telephone book under "Fourth Way groups." > > MISHLOVE: I do recall reading a biography of Orage that was written by a man who was in one of these groups, and he made a point of > > saying anytime a group of people get together for the purpose of creating this type of work, the work will eventually disperse. It's not as > > if they're trying to build a big organization or temples or newsletters. They do very creative work, sometimes quite brilliant in terms of > > what they publish, and then they all separate and go their own ways. > > SPEETH: Right. That's the sign of the Fourth Way. It seems that perhaps -- and this is just gossip, I don't really know if this is true -- > > the people who created Chartres -- > > MISHLOVE: The cathedral. > > SPEETH: Yes -- who appeared, who made that cathedral, and then it was over, they left -- those might possibly have been Fourth Way > > people. It has the signs of Fourth Way. > > MISHLOVE: Gurdjieff also refers to that cathedral as being an eternal work of art, like the Great Pyramid. It's something that influences > > everybody who sees it in a way which is different than the kind of conventional popular art where everybody has a different reaction to > > it. > > SPEETH: What a difference sitting in Chartres, and going to the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, for example -- the > > difference between the expression of a person's neurotic and fragmented self, and the expression of the mastery and transcendence of > > humanity of the makers of Chartres. > > MISHLOVE: So there's a sense in which to really do the work, there's an elusive quality -- it comes and it goes; you have to always be > > paying attention. You can never rely on set guidelines, a set school, an institution, a teacher. > > SPEETH: But those people who participate know they're participating. > > MISHLOVE: Well, that's a very interesting thought. I think that's a good thought to close on now. I would like to think that maybe, for > > those of our viewers who have been sharing this half hour with us, we've perhaps brought them a little closer to the Fourth Way. > > SPEETH: I hope so. > > MISHLOVE: Dr. Kathy Speeth, I think that in your own very quiet and beautiful way, you embody that work. > > SPEETH: Thank you. > > MISHLOVE: Thank you very much for being with me. It's been a pleasure. > > END

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