Inside a Question, Henriette Lannes

Usually Our Lives Are Not Disturbed Enough – London 1961

Usually our lives are not disturbed enough. A moment when I am disturbed could bring me to my reality, to a question, an occasion for an observation – not to a dream, or the idea I have of myself. How many moments are there, when there is a question, to see what happens in me? If I am in a routine it will be difficult for me to wake up— but if I am faced with something unusual it may be an opportunity. That moment could make an impression, leave a trace that will call for more, the beginning of these flashes that we need about ourselves.

When we we are less identified our functions work more correctly. Identification takes an incredible amount of energy for nothing. If I can be apart from what I do—that is, the doing of my functions—I will save a lot of energy and work better without identification. It is in fact normal, but for us as we are it is abnormal. For a man who has passed his life lying down, it would be abnormal for him to stand up. His muscles could not hold him. He would be obliged gradually to habituate his muscles to the standing position, which is the normal one. In our inner life we are always lying down. We are the paralyzed man that Christ spoke of—and cured. We can be lying down and dream we are standing up, walking.

Henri Tracol – from a meeting, June 6, 1964, Paris.

Translated from French by D.M. Dooling & Patty de Llosa.

On the hanging suspended above the students’ heads in the Study House (at the Institute), Mr. Gurdjieff had written this aphorism, among others: “Always remember that here the work is a means, and not an end.” To encourage a false mystique of the work in myself and in others does injury to the very essence of our search. It substitutes a mental or emotional image which is, at the very least, suspect. I don’t know how you feel about it, but I think it’s a danger that lies in wait for us all.

One of its chief characteristics is to turn us away from life, to invite us to treat life with contempt, to consider it the beast we must vanquish or the enemy we must overcome. As if the work could be in any way against life! That would mean forgetting, among other things, why the day came when we turned towards this teaching. Whatever form our dissatisfactions and hopes took, we came to the work asking, above all, for help to live this life, help to recover a more real, more convincing, meaning for it. And that’s what we discard when we give way to an image born of experiences that are still fragmentary and hopes that are not yet legitimate…

Attention, Wish, Will, Free Will

A Talk by Mr. Thomas de Hartmann, from the Diary Notes of Thomas C. Daly

In June, 1954, the de Hartmanns made a special visit to their newly constituted Toronto Group, to give a clear direction to our Work.

…During the first hour, …Madame de Hartmann questioned each and all of us together, especially deeply: “Why are you here?—What is your aim?—And what do you wish?”

Typical answers: “To be free from ups and downs” …“To get rid of negative emotions” …“To become something real”…

To each answer she countered with: “Yes, but why? Why do you want that?—One can want all such things just to be approved of by others, just to get on better in life—but why do you want that?”

The Reality of Being

50. Why together?

…We have to step out of the narrow circle of thoughts and feelings in which we are enclosed. We have to escape in order to have the possibility to approach another world and exist in a different way. For this, efforts are necessary.

We come together because we each feel the necessity to become conscious of ourselves. So long as I am what I am—that is, think as I think and feel as I feel—I will know nothing true, nothing real. I need to become conscious of my way of thinking and feeling, which conditions all my actions. Only the perception of truth unites. Real work together, cooperation, comes from a common understanding of truth, from the fact that we each see the truth and feel the necessity to put it into action together. The basis of this Work is not a special approach, a special method or special conditions. It lies, above all, in opening to another order in oneself and in others. …

Each of us is alone and in our self must be alone—alone in front of our understanding, in front of the call of the divine and the fact of our human person. I become linked with others when I begin to recognize my original nature and see that we all have the same difficulty realizing it with the whole of ourselves. This brings a special energy, which allows the action of a finer, more subtle nature. The energy has the power to call and to irresistibly attract. This represents the true help that we can bring to each other. It is the only help, the only true relation. …Everyone is dependent on one another, responsible for one another. …The common direction in which we go is recognized.

The Reality of Being

135. Watchfulness is our real aim

…If we work alone or together without inner watchfulness, it is of no use—we will be taken by one thing or another. …At the same time, I wish to go toward life and, in so doing, to lose myself. Yes, I wish to lose myself. But I do not know what it means. I always think that it is some evil identification that takes me, this awful life that takes me. But it is not true. I go toward it. There is something I like in it. Yet I do not know why. And I have to see that this is an essential question—it is me after all, not something outside. …

How can I live this opening to the one reality and at the same time be in front of life and live my life? …The obstacle is that my mind is occupied all the time. It is not enough to notice this once and for all. I have to live it as my truth until all my thoughts, emotions and actions can be held under my attention without excluding or condemning anything. For this I need a certain inner space and an attention that is free. It is only in a state of free attention that true seeing can appear.