Questions put to Gurdjieff in 1922

Questions put to Gurdjieff 1922 Soon more English people, sent by Ouspensky, came from London. At the same time Katherine Mansfield also arrived. The English asked Mr Gurdjieff some questions. It is interesting to see which questions concerned them most at that time. Orage and I interpreted for Mr Gurdjieff and recorded the questions and answers as follows: Question 1: Has Mr Gurdjieff’s educational system produced a example of the type of man that he wishes to develop? Answer: With regard to the results achieved by pupils here during this short period of time, first of all we can note: 1. Improvement in their health. That means that there was established a basis to improve their future health from the chronic diseases that they had. The following can serve as examples: improvement from obesity, the strengthening of their weak memories and bringing in order their disordered nerves. 2. The second result is the enlargement of their horizons. In general, people have a very narrow outlook on life; it is as if they wear blinkers which prevent them from seeing more. Here, thanks to a great variety

of new conditions of work, and thanks to many other things, this field of view is enlarged, as if a new horizon is acquired. 3. A new interest has been created. The majority of people who came here had quite lost any interest in, and for, life. This is also because they had such a narrow outlook on life. Here, a new interest is born for them. (This result had to be stressed as the most important, Mr Gurdjieff said.) It is possible to list a thousand examples of results acquired by people from being here, but most of the results would come from these three fundamental ones; that is why it is not important to list them. Since the Institute has been in existence for a very short time, it is only recently that some pupils have emerged who measure up to the results I expected. But generally speaking there are no limits for selfperfecting, and so each attainment is only a temporary state. People in their outer life are not tied to the Institute. They can play any social role, fulfil any job, have any occupation that occurs in life. Many people live their own independent life and Work at the same time. The difference lies only in that if, before, someone was a good shoemaker, by becoming a pupil of the Institute and continuing to learn, he will become a different shoemaker; if someone was a priest, he will become a different priest. Question 2: How do you explain the despair that some pupils of the Institute fall into in the beginning? Answer: There exists a principle in the Institute about which I will tell you at once, and then this period of despair will begin to be quite clear to you. A man generally lives with a ‘foreign’ mind. He has not his own opinion and is under the influence of everything that others tell him. (The example was given of a man who thinks badly of another person only because someone else has said bad things about that person.) In the Institute you have to learn how to live with your own mind, how to be active, to develop your own individuality. Here in the Institute many people come only on account of their ‘foreign’ mind;

they have no interest of their own in the Work at all. That is why when a man arrives at the Institute, difficult conditions are created and all sorts of traps laid for him intentionally, so that he himself can find out whether he came because of his own interest or only because he heard about the interest of others. Can he, disregarding the outside difficulties that are made for him, continue to work for the main aim? And does this aim exist within him? When the need for these artificial difficulties is over, then they are no longer created for him. The periods of despair in life are the result of the same cause. The man lives with a ‘foreign’ mind and his interest arises accidentally, owing to some outside influence. As long as the influence continues, the man seems quite satisfied. But when, for some reason or other, the outside influence ceases, his interest loses all meaning and he falls into despair. What is his own, and cannot be taken away from him and is always his - this does not yet exist. Only when this begins to exist, is it possible for these periods of despair to disappear. Question 3: Does Mr Gurdjieff view the Institute as something experimental. That is, is one of Mr Gurdjieffs aims the acquiring of some knowledge through the Institute? Or is it the putting into practice of a system that he has already completed during his life? Answer: The putting into practice of a system I completed during my life, but at the same time there are also other aims. Question 4: Why does Mr Gurdjieff put so much emphasis on physical work? Is it temporary or permanent? Answer: Temporary. For most of the people now gathered in the Institute, the physical work is indispensable, but it is only a period of the whole plan of the Work. Question 5: Is the attainment of any kind of occult possibilities one of the subjects of this ‘education’? Answer: Truth is one. It existed always and is as old as the world itself.

In distant times there existed a real knowledge, but owing to all kinds of life circumstances, political and economic, it was lost and only fragments of it remain. These remains I collected with other people. We learned of them and found them through people, monuments, customs, literature, our own experiments, comparisons and so on. Question 6: What is the origin of this system? Has Mr Gurdjieff personally acquired it? Or has it been transmitted to him? Here, Mr Gurdjieff did not answer. (I wish to say that Mr Gurdjieff s silence was not meant to avoid the question. It was obvious that he felt that the question had already been answered in other words.) Question 7: What does Mr Gurdjieff hope to do in Europe? What is his opinion about the value of Western science? Why has Mr Gurdjieff chosen Paris? Answer: I chose Paris because it is a centre of Europe and I have thought for a long time that an Institute was necessary here. It is only political circumstances that have held that up for two years. From the West I wished to take the knowledge that the East could not give me. From the East I took theory; from the West, practice. That which is in the East did not exist in the West and vice versa. That is why each alone has no value. Together they complete each other. Question 8: What made Mr Gurdjieff choose his pupils? Did he think he would produce teachers from some of them? Can they begin to be as he is? Answer: Each pupil is a teacher to the one who stands lower than he. Everybody can become like me only if they wish to suffer and work as I did. Question 9: Is Mr Gurdjieff alone in this undertaking, or is he a part of an already existing group?

Answer: Alone. All of my doings are personal. Those who came before are scattered around the world and I have lost contact with them. Question 10: Does the teaching of Mr Gurdjieff form part of some historical school still in existence? Was the knowledge that he possesses ever the property of a ruling caste? And was there any kind of civilization founded on it? For example, was there in India a government in the hands of people who wished to put into practice the ideas of Mr Gurdjieff? Answer: Tibet is an example where, ten years ago, all government was in the hands of the monks. But they couldn’t put my ideas into practice, because my teaching was not known to them. My teaching is my own. It combines all the evidence of ancient truth that I collected in my travels with all the knowledge that I have acquired through my own personal work. Question 11: What is Mr Gurdjieffs doctrine about Necessity, Free Will and Death? Can people in general become immortal or only some of them? For those who have not acquired immortality, what will happen to them? Does there exist for them something like reincarnation or eternal recurrence? Answer: Yes and no. Those people who have a soul are immortal, but not everyone has a soul. A man is born without a soul, with only the possibility of acquiring one, and he has to earn it during his lifetime. For those who have not acquired a soul, nothing happens to them. They live and they die. Individuals die, but the atoms live because in the world nothing ceases to live. But even immortal souls exist in different stages. Full immortality is quite unique. In general, in his discussions with us Mr Gurdjieff never used the word ‘soul’. He referred only to a ‘something’. However, in his discussion with these new people, it was necessary for him to use words that they would understand and for that reason he used the word ‘soul’. Source: Thomas & Olga de Hartmann - Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff