I was taken by surprise because I was not at all accustomed to talking in public, but I answered in a low, although to my astonishment firm, voice. ‘I will do my best to repeat what Georgi Ivanovitch was saying to us yesterday. Man absorbs impressions from the outside world on what Gurdjieff calls “reels”, receiving and “winding on” impressions from without as if on cotton-reels or spools. Then from these impressions, man gradually develops his habits and inclinations, his tastes, his longings. From earliest childhood their influence affects him. By the same rule the negative qualities are formed—dislikes, idiosyncrasies And so on. A child who has a musical father, for instance, and who constantly hears music played and talked about at home, although by nature he may not be musical, may develop a musical skill because these impressions are “wound” on his “reels”. Of course, other impressions will be there too, but not so strongly. At some period in his life his surroundings or circumstances may change; then, perhaps, there will be wound on his “reels”, instead of his father’s musical impressions, his mother’s complaints about lack of money.

‘New conditions will create new impressions, but it may happen that, later in life, some deep, forgotten impression may come through to the surface, and will be a deciding factor in forming the life of the individual. And so it follows that when we speak of “I” doing or thinking something, often it is not the true “I”, because all the work is being done by the “reels”—rather like recording for a gramophone. Only through suffering, or rubbing as Georgi Ivanovitch calls it, is the true “I” born. Till that happens we react like parrots, and throw out the impressions we have gathered and stored up, in a distorted form, believing it is a creative process.

‘So Gurdjieff calls such a person a “reel” man: he says, “That was spoken by your reels, not by your ‘I'. And so we must develop the real ‘I’.”

~ Anna Butkowsky "With Gurdjieff in St. Petersburg and Paris"

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UNTIL NOW YOU HAVE NOT BEEN WORKING LIKE MEN

“Every animal works according to its constitution. One animal works more, another less, but all work each as much as is natural to it. We also work; among us, one is more capable for work, another less. Whoever works like an ox is worthless and whoever does not work is also worthless. The value of work is not in quantity but in quality. Unfortunately I must say that all our people do not work too well as regards quality. However, let the work which they have done so far serve as a source of remorse. If it will serve as a cause for remorse, it will be of use; if not, it is good for nothing.

“Every animal, as already said, works according to what animal it is. One animal—say, a worm—works quite mechanically; one cannot expect anything else from it. It has no other brain but a mechanical one. Another animal works and moves solely by feeling—such is the structure of its brain. A third animal perceives movement, which is called work, only through intellect, and one cannot demand from it anything else as it has no other brain; nothing else can be expected as nature created it with this kind of brain.

“Thus the quality of work depends on what brain there is. When we consider different kinds of animals, we find that there are one-brained, two-brained and three-brained animals. But it often happens that he who has three brains must work, say, five times more than he who has two brains. Man is so created that more work is demanded from him than he can produce according to his constitution. It is not man's fault, but the fault of nature. Work will be of value only when man gives as much as is the limit of possibility. Normally in man's work the participation of feeling and thought is necessary. If one of these functions is absent, the quality of the man's work will be on the level of work done by one who works with two brains. If man wants to work like a man he must learn to work like a man. This is easy to determine—just as easy as to distinguish between animal and man—and we shall soon learn to see it. Until then, you have to take my word for it. All you need is to discriminate with your mind.

“I say that until now you have not been working like men; but there is a possibility to learn to work like men. Working like a man means that a man feels what he is doing and thinks why and for what he does it, how he is doing it now, how it had to be done yesterday and how today, how he would have to do it tomorrow, and how it is generally best to get it done —whether there is a better way. If man works rightly, he will succeed in doing better and better work. But when a two brained creature works, there is no difference between its work yesterday, today or tomorrow.”

~ George Gurdjieff “Views from the Real World”

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MUST ASK YOURSELF, WHENEVER YOU SEE YOUR OWN LAZINESS: WHAT IS THIS LAZINESS IN ME?

“What with adolescence, lack of supervision, lack of interest, and just plain laziness, I managed to do as little work as possible in the Herb Garden. I avoided going there except when it was necessary for me to bring various herbs to the kitchen. When the quality of the herbs became noticeably poorer and when I was at times unable even to supply a small quantity of some particular herb, someone must have taken it upon themselves to investigate the garden and report their findings to Gurdjieff.

“The result was that Gurdjieff made a personal inspection of the garden with me, walking up and down between all the small beds, examining every plant. When he had finished he told me that as far as he could see, I had done absolutely nothing at all there in the way of work. I had to admit that I had done very little work, but defended myself to the extent of pointing out that I had done some occasional weeding. He shook his head and said that in view of the state of the garden it would be better not to defend myself at all. He then assigned several of the children to work with me in the garden until it was in proper shape, and instructed me as to what had to be done to the various plants: hoeing between rows, trimming certain plants, dividing and replanting others.

“Although the children were very annoyed with me for having shirked my own work and thereby caused them to have to work on "my" garden, they all pitched in and we carried out Gurdjieff's orders very easily and quickly. It was a very small plot of land and it could not have taken us more than a day or two. When we had finished the work, Gurdjieff pronounced it satisfactory, complimented all the other children on their work, and said that he wanted to have a talk with me, alone.

“He first told me that I could see for myself that I had not performed a task that had been assigned to me, and that it had been necessary for him to intervene in my work and take measures to repair the damage that had been caused by my neglect. He said that this was a very good example of the way in which one person's failure to accomplish his duty could affect the general welfare of everyone else and that, while I might not think of herbs as important, they were important to him and were needed in the kitchen; also that I had caused him an unnecessary, if minor, expense because various plants had had to be purchased, which would not have been necessary if I had done my job properly. He went on to say that it was true, in one sense, that the herb garden was not important; what was important, however, was to be responsible and to do one's work, particularly when that work could affect the welfare of others. However, there was another, still more important reason for accomplishing any assigned task, which was for one's own sake.      

“He spoke again about the exercise of "self-observation" and said that since man was a three-centred or three brained being, it w as necessary to do exercises and perform tasks that were valuable for all three centres, not just the physical or "motor" centre; that "self-observation" as I knew it was a purely physical exercise in that it consisted in the observation of one's physical body and its movements, gestures and manifestations.

“He said that there were various important exercises having to do with "self-remembering" which was a very important aspect of his work. One of them was to conscientiously and with all one's concentration, try to remember, as on a movie film, everything that one had done during each entire day. This was to be done every night before going to sleep. The most important thing in the exercise was not to let the attention wander—by association. If one's attention did wander from the focus upon the image of oneself, then it was absolutely necessary to begin all over again at the beginning each time this happened—and it would, he warned, happen.

“He talked to me for a very long time that morning, and emphasized the fact that everyone had, usually, a particular, recurring problem in life. He said that these particular problems were usually a form of laziness, and that I was to think about my laziness, which took a fairly obvious physical form, as in the case of the garden: I had simply put off doing anything in the garden until someone had taken notice of that fact. He said that he wanted me to think seriously about my laziness—not the outward form, which was not important, but to find out what it was. "When you see that you are lazy, necessary find out what this laziness is. Because in some ways you already lazy for many years, can take even many years for you to find out what it is. Must ask yourself, whenever you see your own laziness: What is this laziness in me?' If you ask this question seriously, and with concentration, is possible someday you will find answer. This important and very difficult work I give you now."

“I thanked him for what he had said and added that I was sorry that I had not done my work in the garden and that I would do it properly in the future.

“He brushed aside my thanks and said that it was useless to be sorry. "Is too late for that now, and is also too late to do good work in the garden. In life never have second chance, only have one chance. You had one time to do good work in garden, for self; you not do, so now even if you work all your life, in this garden, cannot be same thing for you. But also important not be 'sorry' about this; can waste all life feeling sorry. There is valuable thing sometimes, thing you call remorse. If man have real remorse for something he do that is not good, this can be valuable; but if only sorry and say will do same thing better in future is waste of time. This time is already gone forever, this part of your life is finished, you cannot live over again. Not important if you do good work in garden now, because will do for wrong reasons—to try to repair damage which cannot be repaired ever. This serious thing. But also very serious not to waste time feeling sorry or feeling regret, this only waste even more time. Must learn in life, not to make such mistakes, and must understand that once make mistake is made forever."

~ Fritz Peters “Boyhood With Gurdjieff”