From our Spring 2018 Issue: “Wealth”: Paris Meetings, 1943 contains the transcripts of sixty-eight meetings held by Gurdjieff…
From our Spring 2018 Issue: “Wealth”:
Paris Meetings, 1943 contains the transcripts of sixty-eight meetings held by Gurdjieff with students from January 7 through December 20 of that year, dozens more than have previously been made public. Parabolais pleased to present the transcript of the meeting held on December 23, 1943.
Perhaps most striking in the transcript is the plain practicality of Gurdjieff’s teaching. He gives exercises and direction, always emphasizing the need to see deeper: “Make more observations. Collect more material.” Yet this prescribed activity must not happen willy-nilly. “One must never do an exercise without preparation,” he says. “All your functions are automatized. Before any exercise, you must sacrifice five, ten, fifteen minutes to relax and to calm your associations. Whether the exercise is big or little—all exercises.”
“You Must Have an Aim” by G.I. Gurdjieff
Photograph by Ihor Malytskyi