Introduction to the Gurdjieff Work

by Jacob Needleman

The Gurdjieff tradition, commonly referred to as "The Work,” describes people’s day-to-day lives as completely mechanical, conducted asleep. Gurdjieff's intent, as with many sacred traditions, was literally to aid in one's awakening. The tools for doing this are many, but integrated. The various methods of "The Work" are intended to specifically integrate a person’s physical, emotional, and intellectual centers into a fourth way of consciousness. Like Zen, Gurdjieff’s work is structured as an oral tradition emphasizing the relationship of teacher to student. But there have also been extensive writings on his views, and this short, pocket-sized book is one of the most useful. A clear, concise summary of Gurdjieff's life and teachings, this is the first book to describe the actual practices of the tradition. It provides comprehensive resource information for readers who wish to pursue further inquiry, including a reading list and a summary of the most important published music from the Gurdjieff vault.

Genres: Philosophy

57 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2009

About the author

Jacob Needleman is Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University, former Visiting Professor at Duxx Graduate School of Business Leadership in Monterrey, Mexico, and former Director of the Center for the study of New Religions at The Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. He was educated in philosophy at Harvard, Yale and the University of Freiburg, Germany. He has also served as Research Associate at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, as a Research Fellow at Union Theological Seminary, as Adjunct Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of California Medical School and as guest Professor of Religious Studies at the Sorbonne, Paris (1992).

Reviews

[Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

This tiny book of necessity barely scratches the surface of the subject of G. I. Gurdjieff and his spiritual teaching, which I originally became curious about through Antares' (author of Tanah Tujuh: Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos) mythopoeia on the subject of Jorge Luis Borges' A Bao A Qu, and then later became reinvested in through the discovery that King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp studied in the Gurdjieff lineage. The book describes Gurdjieff's teaching as miraculous and revelatory, but frustratingly, fails to describe what makes it so, especially what sets it apart from other, older teachings. Needleman describes Gurdjieff in some ways as a kind of Aldous Huxleyan perennialist, and in other ways as a complete spiritual revolutionary.

Regardless, Needleman seems to be clearly a believer in the Gurdjieff Work, and thus, I don't feel like I've gained any information from reading this book about the degree to which Gurdjieff may or may not have really been onto something (if that even has a definitive answer). But it's enough to keep up the mild flame of my intrigue, and in fact, Needleman's list of further reading (and listening!) at the end was, to me, the most enticing part of his book. Maybe it'll be enough to get me to finally take Meetings With Remarkable Men off my shelf, and see if Gurdjieff, through the medium of his own words, looks like the real deal!

[CrossTrees · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does exactly what it says, I've always been told to read The Fourth Way by Ouspensky and have always gotten overwhelmed by the book. Maybe after reading this I can tolerate the main sources of this tradition now.

On its own merit it's not an insanely insightful book, I came away understanding the general orientation of the Work and it introduces the life of Gurdjieff well with a very adequate bibliography in the back. What else could you want?

[Barry Paul Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love a tiny book that also gets me on a path towards the absence of self 🥰