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Archive of past events

An Introduction to Fourth Way Ideas

Individuals interested in exploring Fourth Way ideas, and learning more about the activities and practices of the Gurdjieff Foundation of Illinois, are invited to join us for one or all of these Sunday afternoon introductory events at the Foundation: 3252 W. Bryn Mawr Avenue in Chicago.

Each gathering will include a presentation and exchange on a significant aspect of the Fourth Way, followed by open questions, discussion, and refreshments. An introduction of relevant reading material and an overview of the Gurdjieff Foundation of Illinois’ activities and facilities will be included. Please be our guest; there is no charge for any of these sessions.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

2:00 – 4:00

GPS for the Spiritual Search

What is the Gurdjieff Work and how can it support your search? What is the role of a teacher? Of a group?

“Gurdjieff’s teaching belongs to what he calls the fourth way. As an embodiment of a fourth way school, it does not have a form defined once and for all – which means neither dogma nor ritual, strictly speaking.

It ceaselessly disappears, and ceaselessly must be discovered and rediscovered.

It imposes no preliminary renunciation but requires, within the frame of ordinary life, a set of appropriate conditions in view of a genuine work upon oneself.

It opens upon the perspective of a profound transformation of being through awakening and self-knowledge.

It presupposes in oneself a sincere quest for truth, the realization of one’s own ‘nothingness,’ the recourse to effort – and to super-effort – toward the development of his power of consciousness.

It also allows the individual to discover and realize certain hidden possibilities, by means of simultaneous and coordinated engaging of one’s intellectual, emotional, and physical capacities toward a voluntary concentration upon the struggle which takes place within the self between one’s positive and negative tendencies.

This perpetual struggle is carried on within every seeker …

Henri Tracol, in

Gurdjieff: Essays and Reflections on the Man and His Teaching

Sunday, March 11, 2012

2:00 – 4:00

Octaves and Triads: Our Place in the Universe

How do universal laws influence us?

“The teaching of G.I. Gurdjieff places emphasis on two fundamental laws – the law of seven and the law of three – as being the prime factors which determine the flow and transformation of energy and matter. The law of seven is the law of processes; the law of three is the law of relationships.

According to the law of seven, every transformative process in the universe, from the life of a cell to the life of a solar system, unfolds as an octave in seven successive steps. The progression of each octave is determined at two intervals by the presence or absence of appropriate shocks.

According to the law of three, every new arising, every phenomenon, is the result of a combination of three different forces: positive, negative, and neutralizing. Through the study of the manifestation of thought, activity, habits, and desires, it is possible to observe the functioning of this law in ourselves.”

William Segal

Opening: Collected Writings of William Segal 1985 - 1997

Sunday, April 15, 2012

2:00 – 4:00

Self-Study and the Practice of Presence

“Know thyself” … is it even possible? How can we observe ourselves? Where does self-remembering lead us?

“Man’s possibilities are very great. You cannot conceive even a shadow of what man is capable of attaining. But nothing can be attained in sleep. In the consciousness of a sleeping man his illusions, his ‘dreams’ are mixed with reality. He lives in a subjective world and he can never escape from it. And this is the reason why he can never make use of all the powers he possesses and why he always lives in a small part of himself.

It has been said before that self-study and self-observation, if rightly conducted, bring man to the realization of the fact that something is wrong with his machine and with his functions in their ordinary state. A man realizes that it is precisely because he is asleep that he lives and works in a small part of himself. It is precisely for this reason that the vast majority of his possibilities remain unrealized, the vast majority of his powers are left unused. A man feels that he does not get out of life all that it can give him, that he fails to do so owing to definite functional defects in his machine, in his receiving apparatus. The idea of self-study acquires in his eyes a new meaning. He feels that possibly it may not even be worthwhile studying himself as he is now. He sees every function as it is now and as it could be or ought to be. Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity for self-change.

And in observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening. By observing himself he throws, as it were, a ray of light onto his inner processes which have hitherto worked in complete darkness. And under the influence of this light, the processes themselves begin to change.”

G.I. Gurdjieff, quoted in

In Search of the Miraculous

Sunday, September 25, 2011

2:00 – 4:00

Who Am I?

Self-study begins with this question. Gurdjieff’s answer: I am many.

“Man such as we know him, the ‘man-machine,’ the man who cannot ‘do,’ and with whom and through whom everything ‘happens,’ cannot have a permanent and single I. His I changes as quickly as his thoughts, feelings, and moods, and he makes a profound mistake in considering himself always one and the same person; in reality he is always a different person, not the one he was a moment ago.”

G.I. Gurdjieff, quoted in In Search of the Miraculous

Sunday, October 23, 2011

2:00 – 4:00

The Work of Centers

How do we find balance among our thinking, our feeling, and our physical body?

“From ordinary psychology, and from ordinary thinking, we know that the intellectual functions, thoughts, and so on, are controlled or produced by a certain center which we call "mind" or "intellect," or "the brain."  And this is quite right.  Only to be fully right we must understand that the other functions are also controlled each by its own mind or center.

Centers in the machine are perfectly adjusted to receive each its own kind of impressions and to respond to them in a corresponding way.  And when centers work rightly, it is possible to calculate the work of the machine and to foresee and foretell many future happenings and responses in the machine, as well as to study them and even direct them.  But unfortunately, centers, even in what is called a healthy and normal man, very rarely work as they should.”

P. D. Ouspensky, The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution

Sunday, November 20, 2011

2:00 – 4:00

The Movements and the Fourth Way

What are Gurdjieff’s “Movements?” Why do we practice them? What do they mean?

“The work of Movements is part of a teaching, every aspect of which is oriented toward the development of consciousness. Engaging in these exercises the individual begins to feel that he is trying to contact deeper energies in himself which, until then, were completely unknown to him.”

Pauline de Dampierre, interviewed in                                                                                                 

Gurdjieff: Essays and Reflections on the Man and His Teaching