The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff
An important book on liberating ourselves from the state of “waking sleep” in which we live our lives, as taught by one of the most influential spiritual teachers of the 20th century

As the closest pupil of the charismatic spiritual master G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949), Jeanne de Salzmann was charged with carrying on his teachings of spiritual transformation. Known as the Fourth Way or “The Work,” Gurdjieff’s system was based on teachings of the East that he adapted for modern life in the West. Now, some twenty years after de Salzmann's death, the notebooks that she filled with her insights over a forty-year period (and intended to publish) have been translated and edited by a small group of her family and followers. The result is this long-awaited guide to Gurdjieff's teaching, describing the routes to be traveled and the landmarks encountered along the way. Organized according to themes, the chapters touch on all the important concepts and practices of the Work, including:

• Awakening from the sleep of identification with the ordinary level of being
• Self-observation and self-remembering
• Conscious effort and voluntary suffering
• Understanding symbolic concepts like the Enneagram
• The Gurdjieff Movements, bodily exercises that provide training in Presence and the awareness of subtle energies
• The necessity of a "school," meaning the collective practice of the teaching in a group

Madame de Salzmann brings to the Work her own strong, direct language and personal journey in learning to live that knowledge of a higher level of being, which, she insists, “you have to see for yourself” on a level beyond theory and concept. De Salzmann consistently refused to discuss the teaching in terms of ideas, for this Fourth Way is to be experienced, not simply thought or believed.
1102297705
The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff
An important book on liberating ourselves from the state of “waking sleep” in which we live our lives, as taught by one of the most influential spiritual teachers of the 20th century

As the closest pupil of the charismatic spiritual master G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949), Jeanne de Salzmann was charged with carrying on his teachings of spiritual transformation. Known as the Fourth Way or “The Work,” Gurdjieff’s system was based on teachings of the East that he adapted for modern life in the West. Now, some twenty years after de Salzmann's death, the notebooks that she filled with her insights over a forty-year period (and intended to publish) have been translated and edited by a small group of her family and followers. The result is this long-awaited guide to Gurdjieff's teaching, describing the routes to be traveled and the landmarks encountered along the way. Organized according to themes, the chapters touch on all the important concepts and practices of the Work, including:

• Awakening from the sleep of identification with the ordinary level of being
• Self-observation and self-remembering
• Conscious effort and voluntary suffering
• Understanding symbolic concepts like the Enneagram
• The Gurdjieff Movements, bodily exercises that provide training in Presence and the awareness of subtle energies
• The necessity of a "school," meaning the collective practice of the teaching in a group

Madame de Salzmann brings to the Work her own strong, direct language and personal journey in learning to live that knowledge of a higher level of being, which, she insists, “you have to see for yourself” on a level beyond theory and concept. De Salzmann consistently refused to discuss the teaching in terms of ideas, for this Fourth Way is to be experienced, not simply thought or believed.
34.95 In Stock
The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff

The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff

by Jeanne de Salzmann
The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff

The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff

by Jeanne de Salzmann

Paperback

$34.95 
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Overview

An important book on liberating ourselves from the state of “waking sleep” in which we live our lives, as taught by one of the most influential spiritual teachers of the 20th century

As the closest pupil of the charismatic spiritual master G. I. Gurdjieff (1866–1949), Jeanne de Salzmann was charged with carrying on his teachings of spiritual transformation. Known as the Fourth Way or “The Work,” Gurdjieff’s system was based on teachings of the East that he adapted for modern life in the West. Now, some twenty years after de Salzmann's death, the notebooks that she filled with her insights over a forty-year period (and intended to publish) have been translated and edited by a small group of her family and followers. The result is this long-awaited guide to Gurdjieff's teaching, describing the routes to be traveled and the landmarks encountered along the way. Organized according to themes, the chapters touch on all the important concepts and practices of the Work, including:

• Awakening from the sleep of identification with the ordinary level of being
• Self-observation and self-remembering
• Conscious effort and voluntary suffering
• Understanding symbolic concepts like the Enneagram
• The Gurdjieff Movements, bodily exercises that provide training in Presence and the awareness of subtle energies
• The necessity of a "school," meaning the collective practice of the teaching in a group

Madame de Salzmann brings to the Work her own strong, direct language and personal journey in learning to live that knowledge of a higher level of being, which, she insists, “you have to see for yourself” on a level beyond theory and concept. De Salzmann consistently refused to discuss the teaching in terms of ideas, for this Fourth Way is to be experienced, not simply thought or believed.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781590309285
Publisher: Shambhala
Publication date: 12/06/2011
Series: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff: Toward a New Being
Pages: 336
Product dimensions: 6.08(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

Jeanne de Salzmann (1889–1990) was born in France and pursued a career in music, dance, and theater. She met Gurdjieff in 1919 and became his closest pupil. Before his death in 1949, Gurdjieff directed de Salzmann to continue his work worldwide. She founded centers in New York, Paris, London, and Caracas, Venezuela. Madame, as she was called with respect, was an esteemed teacher in her own right, transmitting the Gurdjieff Work and especially his “Movements,” or sacred dances.

Table of Contents

Foreword xiii

Introduction 1

I A Call to Consciousness 7

I Am Asleep 9

1 A nostalgia for Being 9

2 The life force 9

3 I do not know myself 11

4 "I" am not here 13

To Remember Oneself 15

5 Where our attention is 15

6 The first initiation 16

7 Can we become conscious? 18

8 The watchman 20

The Need to Know 22

9 New knowledge is necessary 22

10 Self-observation 23

11 Conscious effort 25

12 The sacred manifests as inner consciousness 27

II Opening to Presence 29

In a Passive State 31

13 My functions are passive 31

14 I need impressions of myself 33

15 Hypnotized by my mind 34

16 What is up to me 36

An Experience of Presence 39

17 The awareness of "being here" 39

18 Conscious of inner being 41

19 An echo of "I" 42

20 Two currents 44

A Movement of Availability 46

21 A new way of functioning 46

22 Awakening to a new force 47

23 The attitude we take 49

24 Coming together 51

III In A Common Direction 53

A Free Thought 55

25 The functioning of the mind 55

26 Not knowing 56

27 A new thinking 58

28 Beyond our usual consciousness 60

An Inner Sensation 62

29 An instrument of contact 62

30 Obeying the attraction of the earth 64

31 A global sensation 65

32 To be spiritualized 67

A New Feeling 69

33 I blindly trust my feelings 69

34 Feeling allows relation 70

35 I feel "I am" 72

36 Love of being 74

IV The Work to be Present 77

In a Quiet State 79

37 A way of understanding 79

38 Each day 81

39 The way up 82

40 An exercise is a temporary aid 84

In the Activity of Life 87

41 Only in everyday life 87

42 The source of manifestation 89

43 A measure from above 90

44 The way down 92

Staying in Front 94

45 To "know myself" 94

46 Only contact, only relation 96

47 The struggle for being 97

48 Playing a role 99

V With Others 103

A Special Current 105

49 We say we are "in the Work" 105

50 Why together? 106

51 To organize 108

52 A school of the Fourth Way 110

Exchange in a Group 113

53 A special condition for exchange 113

54 I need to speak 115

55 Real exchange 116

56 This form 118

Work in Movements 120

57 A double aim 120

58 Why Movements? 122

59 Part of the teaching 124

60 Only with a stable Presence 126

VI To be Centered 129

A Sense of the Whole 131

61 The aim of my effort 131

62 The first feeling of unity 133

63 Centered through consciousness 135

An Inner Center of Gravity 137

64 Our vital center 137

65 Situating the center of gravity 138

66 Becoming second nature 140

67 My true form 142

Breathing 145

68 An imperceptible current 145

69 Stages of breathing 146

70 I live in my breathing 148

71 Without fear of losing myself 149

VII Who Am I? 153

Ego and Illusion 155

72 The imagination of myself 155

73 Ferocious egotism 157

74 Free of fear and illusion 159

Toward the Unknown 162

75 I do not know 162

76 The resonance of "I am" 163

77 Silence 165

78 Inner solitude 167

My True Nature 170

79 A veil over my reality 170

80 What I really am 172

81 Who am I? 173

82 My true nature is consciousness 174

VIII Toward a New Being 177

My Being Is What I Am 179

83 Can being change? 179

84 The intensity must increase 181

85 Degrees of the octave 183

86 First and second conscious shocks 184

A Collected State 187

87 Repeat, repeat 187

88 My thought does not wander 189

89 I feel, I sense, I watch 190

90 How do I listen? 192

From Another Level 194

91 A more intense energy appears 194

92 Exercise of divided attention 194

93 My body needs to open 197

94 A cosmic scale 198

IX IN A STATE OF UNITY 201

The Act of Seeing 203

95 Another vision 203

96 Seeing is an act 205

97 Beyond my usual perception 206

98 The most important thing 208

Conscious Sensation 210

99 Life is in me 210

100 An inner stillness 212

101 A conscious posture 213

102 In a quiet body I breathe in 215

Voluntary Attention 217

103 The feeling of lack 217

104 Obedience and will 219

105 Developing conscious force 220

X A Presence With Its Own Life 223

A Pure Energy 225

106 A particle of the highest 225

107 Feeling this Presence as alive 227

108 From a higher part of the mind 228

109 To become a vessel 229

A Body of Energy 232

110 This immaterial Presence in me 232

111 A mass of energy 234

112 An exercise for opening 235

113 The substance of "I" 236

Voluntary Suffering 238

114 To stay in front 238

115 I must live the insufficiency 240

116 Conscious struggle 241

XI The Essential Being 245

Recognizing a False Attitude 247

117 Stages of work 247

118 A flagrant contradiction 248

119 The affirmation of myself 250

120 My attitude expresses what I am 252

A Reality in Me 254

121 A wholly different vibration 254

122 Sincerity 256

123 Faith 257

124 Remorse of conscience 259

The Emergence of "I" 261

125 The extraordinary impression of existing 261

126 The death of my ordinary "I" 262

127 I see reality 264

128 The radiance of Presence 266

XII To Live the Teaching 269

Creative Action 271

129 "I am" in movement 271

130 The miraculous in action 272

131 Effective through being 274

132 Something entirely new 275

An Attitude of Vigilance 278

133 Meditation is not contemplation 278

134 Opening without fear 279

135 Watchfulness is our real aim 281

136 A look from Above 283

A New Way of Being 285

137 I must live the lack of relation 285

138 Conscience 287

139 Living two lives 289

140 To know means to Be 291

Biographical Note 295

Gurdjieff Centers 301

Index 303

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