People would ask Gurdjieff, particularly in the 1940s, about prayer. Some of those conversations are as clear as anything in the record of how he viewed traditional religious practice and work on oneself to become a real human being. A human being who progressively knows himself or herself. Who progressively can follow all the movements inside.
There are many movements inside us, many impulses shaping our thoughts, feelings, body. Shaping our gestures toward others and the world than — all without a strong, faithful attention. Attention is key in this teaching. What it reveals is a multitude of impulses that one hadn't seen before. In turn that allows one to see similar impulses in others. The richest source of wisdom is one’s own experience when attention is awakened. The source of wisdom about others is one's search for self-knowledge and the birth of genuine empathy for others.
The source of wisdom about others is one's search for self-knowledge and the birth of genuine empathy for others.
Someone asked, "Mr. Gurdjieff, can our work be helped by prayer? And how can we pray?" He responded, "You can only pray with your three centers, which means mind, feeling, body. And at the same time, it's an exercise. What interests me is not your prayer; it is your concentration with your three centers. Without this, your prayer does not go any further than your atmosphere," by which he meant something like a meter around one, not further.
The questioner followed up, "How can I pray with the three centers?" He responded, "Today you must do something serious for the future. Learn to concentrate. Not only with one center, but with all three. You have to think, sense, and feel. That is what is important. For this, there are different exercises."
There was another exchange of this kind on another occasion. "What is the value of prayer?" someone asked. "When I feel weak and powerless, and when I can't do what I have to do, I can't prevent myself from praying, but it's unworthy and automatic. Nevertheless, I come back to it. I have the impression that it's unworthy because it's not even a prayer. It's a cry. A call for help. Can I continue?" You can imagine what comes next.
Gurdjieff said, "Prayer must not be used for this. Everyone does that. One prays and one is forgiven. All is well. One is already a candidate for paradise."
You must pray with all your presence and with your centers concentrated on the same thing. You must pray with your head, your feeling, your sensation ...
And he continued, "Perhaps you pray automatically and you calm yourself automatically. Both are without value for the future. It is even criminal for the future. For the present, you must pray as if doing an exercise. Your prayer must not be just a habitual prayer. Do not pray to calm yourself. You must pray with all your presence and with your centers concentrated on the same thing. You must pray with your head, your feeling, your sensation as a task, as an exercise. The prayer that I'm talking about will not calm you, on the contrary it will tire you. But later you will come to what is necessary for you.
“If before you were in the habit of praying automatically, I would advise you to pray for whatever you like, but not as before. I will give you an example. You pray, but you only pronounce your prayer, and at the same time you sense. Don't go far. Don't try to know to whom you are praying. All that is stupidity. You're not able to have an objective contact with anything. If you believe so, it is fantasy. With thought alone you cannot have contact. And the three centers, with the three centers you can have contact, and not only with God, the saints, or the devil, but also with your comrades."
Truly rigorous prayer is very much a Gurdjieffian movement — the total uselessness of the prayer of one center, the absolute need for a unified prayer, for integration of oneself.
The second half of religion — the lost part, the forgotten — does not necessarily look like religion at all. It looks like work on oneself.
The second half of religion — the lost part, the forgotten — does not necessarily look like religion at all. It looks like work on oneself. It looks like a secular, person-centered activity. It's hard work, work for self-knowledge. But something is hidden in that work on oneself. As self-knowledge deepens, as one somehow becomes more stable at deeper levels of consciousness, those deeper levels have, let's say, long tendrils out, up, down. Those deeper levels have a fundamentally religious quality.
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Coming in early October: A Work in Life: Ten Minutes With My Cat, Ed Sciore
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