Gurdjieff Unlimited

September Soliloquies, part I

Photo: Sunrise, Sept. 20, along the Hudson River, looking east towards the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Sometimes I get the impression that we get so immersed in the idea that we are "working,” that every single instant and action in life ought to be devoted exclusively to some conceptually formed instance of "the Gurdjieff work" that we forget how to live in any ordinary way and instead become creatures identified with the spiritual work we are supposedly doing, instead of creatures that are conscious of being in an ordinary life.

My own teacher strongly opposed such an approach, and literally made me commit to certain principles before she agreed to put me in my original group in order to make sure (she hoped) that that wouldn't happen to me.

I have always, since I was a little child, in general been devoted to the ordinary, and not to being special. People nonetheless seem to indicate to me that I am somehow special, and I always find it irritating, even though there is evidently some grain of truth in it – another disturbing proposition to be struggled with. Then again, in a certain sense, each one of us is special and there is little to be done about that. We are, whether fortunately or unfortunately, unique — "unique idiots," as it were. This must ultimately be accepted.

The question is really whether we’re special in a good way or a bad way; and the fact is that we find so many bad ways to be special that they usually can't be counted with any efficiency.