The Possibility of Real Change

According to Gurdjieff, our lives are dominated by mechanical habits and reactions. You can easily verify this assertion experimentally, for example, by making a new year’s resolution. Pick something about yourself that you don’t like, and try to change it. It may well be that no matter how hard you try, eventually your concern will wane and things will go back to what they were. Habitual mechanisms are strong.

If we want to lead a more fulfilled and meaningful life, something in us must change. But what? Trying directly to change our mechanicality won’t work. Instead, we need to cultivate the part of us that is not mechanical. Gurdjieff called this part of us our “being” and taught that the path to real change lies in the development of our being.

The idea of being is typically overlooked in Western culture, and so it may be unfamiliar to you. Being is often experienced as an increased sense of presence, a quiet composure that allows you to follow your life as it unfolds without succumbing to habitual reactions. A person with a more-developed being still has a mechanical nature, but it has become a loyal servant. In other words, real change comes not from an effort to improve one’s machine, but from the effort to become a more complete person.

One exercise to develop being is to confront mechanical habits. For example, you could delay the gratification of an urge, change the pace in which you perform an activity, or listen to your voice as you speak to others. The impressions that arise will help show you who you really are, and the effort to take them in brings an energy that feeds your being. The individual effects of these efforts may be imperceptible, but they accumulate. Gurdjieff told his pupils that “no effort is wasted.”

In this exchange, we will explore the properties of our mechanical nature (habits, reactions) and our non-mechanical nature (being). What do we see when we make efforts to struggle with habits? Is it possible to feel the relentless tug of habits throughout the day with interest, as an explorer of human nature? Is it possible at times to feel the energy of our being, the part of ourselves that wishes to live consciously and creatively?

Please join us for this discussion. Your questions and observations are welcomed.