A Way in Life, by Lawrence Morris
…a long road to full awakening lies ahead, and it cannot be traveled alone. No one of us has energy enough to awaken and to stay awake without help, in the face of all the forces loose in the world that are opposed to any conscious effort…
Orage’s Commentary On Beelzebub
(Chapter III from C.S. Nott’s Teachings of Gurdjieff: A Pupil’s Journal, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961)
‘Belcultassi, reviewing his life impartially, discovered that there was no correspondence between what he had wished to do and what he had done; there was always a contradiction between his wishes and theories and his actual doing. He concluded that he must be a special kind of fool, and that it was impossible that his friends and acquaintances should be as stupid as he, for they all seemed to be so well-balanced. He then questioned his friends, confessing his folly and asking them to condemn him. His sincerity disarmed them, and they began to acknowledge that they also were leading equally senseless lives. They formed a research society for the purpose of investigating the meaning and aim of existence, and to seek a cure for the insanity of being in possession of three centres, each of which spoke a different language. They began as a small private group—not to “confess their sins” in orgies of emotion, but to be sincere in the group and to speak about their faults and weaknesses, and to try to observe them impartially. They reviewed their past lives and their current behaviour, and formulated the results for the group…
Toward Awakening, by Jean Vaysse
…One man alone cannot see himself. But a number of people who come together for this purpose will help one another, even involuntarily… But on the path of self-study a man soon learns that he has in himself all the characteristics and faults that he sees in others… But in order to see himself in the features, defects and faults of his fellow-workers, and not just see their features and faults, he needs to have a special inner attitude, a vigilance, an attention of a particular direction and quality, which requires… above all, great sincerity toward himself. A man can only speak honestly about what he himself has experienced. Complete sincerity and willingness to put oneself in question again and again must be respected by each member of the group, or such a work is not possible…
…above all, each student must remember that… one part of him is the man who wants to awaken, but the other part, his personality, has no desire whatever to awaken… A group is usually a pact concluded between the real I’s of a number of people to engage in a common struggle against their false personalities…
In Search of the Miraculous
Chapter 10
…G. said: “…A group is a big thing. A group is begun for definite concerted work, for a definite aim… We shall prepare ourselves so as in the course of time to become a group. And it is only possible to prepare ourselves to become a group by trying to imitate a group such as it ought to be, imitating it inwardly of course, not outwardly…
“…A group must work as one machine. The parts of the machine must know one another and help one another…
“…The benefit or usefulness of groups is determined by their results.”
The Reality of Being
56. This form
…There is a time for everything. I speak of the form that our work today has taken, of groups, and of the possibility that has been created.
If this possibility is not sufficiently realized, this form will degenerate by itself, and will never give birth to a new, more inner form, with a new possibility. Forms do not invent themselves. They arise from the need to work together, that certain elements feel is necessary to preserve their existence.
…I need to collaborate in a common effort of ascent. If I do not, whether or not I wish it, I am responsible for the stone I do not bring to the edifice…
Orage with Gurdjieff in America, by Louise Welch
Orage’s Farewell Address to NY Groups upon departing to England May 1930
“…a circle: meet(s) for themselves individually; to help each other; and to help a common cause, ‘to make the world safe for consciousness.’ …The first sense of individual responsibility is that, unless I spend my day advantageously from the point of view of consciousness and development, I am lapsing, or disloyal. This is consciousness of the first side of the triangle.
“The second responsibility is toward our neighbors, the members of our tribe also striving for consciousness. When you can say that no wave of circumstance is so high that you are submerged and lose sight of the method, you have developed consciousness of the second center. This is the first crystallization of individuality. And still I hear people complain that in a crisis, it is ‘trifling’ to talk of the method at such a time!
“The third form of consciousness requisite for membership in a circle has to do with the work, in which respect I think we are weakest. Jesus’ personality, as I have sometimes said, was not different from ours. He was not an occultist — not a Californian. He spoke of Living Jerusalem as the City of God — the circle of workers…
“…members of a circle have a communion which is not perceptible but… rises from their common understanding, their ability to be in each other’s places…
The Reality of Being
55. Real exchange
When I exchange in a group… How can I understand the other, understand his question and relate it to my own in order to have a real exchange?…
There is an attitude that we must not allow in ourselves… either with our questions or in our responses, we affirm our ordinary “I” and even presume to teach the others.
Nobody can teach. We can only work… Nobody can ask us to be more than we are. But we have no right in the name of the Work to pretend in front of others to something that is not true. Above all I need to work myself, to take my measure…
We need to exchange what we have received in order that this material remain alive in us. If it is not exchanged, it will not live… At the moment of exchange… thirsting to be free enough to obey the law of the highest force and aware of my incessant reactions, I know what I am…