A Gurdjieff Anthology

	Book review on The Inner Journey: Views from the Gurdjieff Work by Needleman, Jacob (ed) (2008) Reviewed by Tilo Ulbricht, 2008 published in Network Review No 97
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This book is a collection of contributions to the magazine Parabola. When it was started in 1976, the first editorial stated: 'Parabola has a conviction that human existence is significant, that life essentially makes sense in spite of our confusions, that man is not here on earth by accident but for a purpose, and that whatever that purpose may be demands from him the discovery of his own meaning, his own totality and identity. A human being is born to set out on this quest... Every true teaching, every genuine tradition, has sought to train its disciples... to become followers of the great quest for one's self.'

The attitude of Parabola's writers and, presumably, at least the majority of its readers, is that there is only one truth, which has always been known, but gets lost and distorted and needs to be rediscovered. The truth has been differently expressed through the ages, according to the conditions of the time and the character of the peoples to which it was brought. The different religious traditions, ­Christianity, Buddhism and so on- are expressions of that one truth. This book is one of a series from Parabola, previous publications including Views from the Hindu Tradition, Views from the Jewish Tradition, and others.

Of the 62 contributions to this book, well over half are from previously published books, and there are a few articles also previously published, though not in book form. In addition, there are a few articles specially written for Parabola, and about a quarter of the total are interviews, most of which are with disciples of Gurdjieff. These last are therefore the only new material in the book, most of which will be very familiar to those who are attempting to follow this way. Any critique of the book is therefore, in effect, a critique of the choices made over the years by the editors of the magazine itself.

In addition to selections from Gurdjieff's own writings, there are contributions from his principal disciple, Jeanne de Salzmann, and other disciples such as Henri Tracol, William Segal, A.R. Orage, P. D. Ouspensky, Maurice Nicoll, Lord Pentland, Michel de Salzmann, Pauline de Dampierre, Margaret Flinsch and P.L. Travers. Missing are any extracts from the best writings about Gurdjieff the man, those by de Hartmann, Peters, and Tcheckovitch Those who are not familiar with the voluminous literature on Gurdjieff (Google has 958,000 pages) will no doubt dip in. Whether they strike gold will not only depend on their 'luck' as to the page they open, but their preparedness to receive the truth in this form. The 'work', as Gurdjieff's teaching is known, is not a religion or a philosophy, but a practical way, in which the pupil is guided to discover, or rediscover, the truth for himself. Thus, books can be no more than an introduction to a way which depends on an unbroken oral transmission.

The introduction by Jacob Needleman tells us about the key ideas of the teaching, and something about its forms. It does not attempt to address the difficulty of conveying through the written word that the Work is not the teaching. The Work may be described as a mysterious hidden current of energy which is only visible from time to time, elusive, and incomprehensible to the ordinary mind. Indeed, according to Gurdjieff's ideas, only a man in whom the three principal functions - thought, feeling, and body - are balanced and in harmony, can really understand anything. Only in such an inner state can the 'work' appear. One can imagine a dogmatic statement of the ideas- some have already been attempted - but there could never be a dogmatic statement of the work itself.

Readers may like to know that one of the articles reprinted here is Michel de Salzmann's modestly entitled 'Footnote to the Gurdjieff Literature', a masterly and impartial survey of the subject.

 

Professor Tilo Ulbricht is a retired scientist. He is a poet, and one of

the editors of the internet magazine In-Between: www.in-between.org.uk

 

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