he Gurdjieff 'Institute' at Fontainebleau has lately been described at considerable length by a correspondent of the Daily News; but his description conveys almost nothing of the real work that is being done there, even on its purely physical side. The life is very simple and uncomfortable, the food is adequate but too starchy for an ordinary stomach, the work is extremely hard. The physical work, indeed, results often in a degree of exhaustion which perhaps exceeds anything that was produced even by a prolonged spell in the winter trenches of Flanders in 1917. Yet behind it all there is no theory either of asceticism or of the 'simple life'. Abstinence is not praised, physical work is not idealized or exalted. Work at Fontainebleau is a medicine and a curse. Carried to extremes it creates increased capacity for effort and provides rich material for self-study—no more than that. Cold, hunger and physical exhaustion are things to be endured not for their own sake, nor to acquire 'merit' of any description, but simply for the sake of understanding the physical mechanism, making the most of it, and ultimately of bringing it into subjection. Other conditions provided at the 'Institute'—with an ingenuity that is almost diabolical—offer similar opportunities for the study of the emotional mechanism, but that side of the work cannot be described in a few words or sentences, and must here be passed over.
via gurdjieff.org
This connects to the previous post.
Extraordinary also, is that Mr. Gurdjieff, was working in a time of war, revolution, depression, the great cycles that humanity is subject to.
He worked with the intelligensia of Europe, and he had to work fast.
One of the great pivotol roles of the twentieth century.
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