Questions Early On Fueled a Later Search
- Robin Hlobeczy
- Sep 1
- 4 min read
I was 6 years old. It was an early autumn day and slightly overcast, which for Ohio on Lake Erie also meant it was a bit muggy. I was sitting under the towering silver maple tree on our ‘tree lawn’ (possibly a Cleveland term for the grassy swath of land between the sidewalk and the street curb). The tree cast substantial shade. It had slender, delicate, pointed leaves, as opposed to the broad dark green ones of sugar maples, and shaggy, light gray bark. Somebody—I don’t remember who—told it got its name because the leaves are a pale silvery blue-green on the underside and turn their bellies up when rain is coming, fluttering silver in the breeze. I had seen that happen, so it sounded like a reasonable explanation to me.
I had been sent outside “to play”. I was at loose ends because my parents always seemed to be busy doing things. Important things. Somehow, they knew what their reason to be was. I felt that I didn’t have a purpose, and was sad about that. Why didn’t I know?
“Why am I here? What is my reason for being?”
I thought about what I had heard: children had a purpose. It was “to play”. But I wasn’t sure what that meant, or what exactly to do. I began to peel some of the loose, gray bark strips off of the silver maple trunk and broke them into various lengths. I arranged them at the base of the forked tree roots in a sort of floor plan with bedrooms, a living room, dining room, and kitchen. I used small acorns from the neighbor’s oak tree to serve as tables, chairs, beds, and other furnishings. All the while I was wondering if I was successfully “playing”. I quickly got bored of this activity and was left still unsatisfied, sitting cross-legged in my dress and anklets in the grass with the deeper question: “Why am I here? What is my reason for being?” These weren’t my exact words as a child, but this was the sense of it.
Throughout my life I’ve has similar unsatisfactory moments when I’ve wondered about my place and have come up empty. These moments were often associated with a not-too-pleasant feeling that I still had no idea “what to do” about any of it. I realized that I could identify the feeling as a longing that went very deep and couldn’t be classified; it was open-ended and stubbornly remained as a permeation. One might say that the longing had a flavor of questioning.
My search in life is strongly tied to these rather indescribable feelings of unknowing.
My search in life is strongly tied to these rather indescribable feelings of unknowing. I can say that though books, intellectual discussions, and deep thinking are interesting and useful, they are not the answer. At least not for me.
So why the Gurdjieff teaching in particular? Why did this teaching become a guide that fit my search?
Many reasons, but I write mainly about what I have found being involved in group meetings and activities that I have never found in other groups once familiar to me. Yes, there is a good feeling, working with others who have similar questions and are like-minded; there’s a sense of community. Human beings are communal creatures. Working, meditating, reading, and meeting together to speak of personal efforts all have their place. As valuable as those features are, however, they aren't what makes the Gurdjieff teaching valuable to me.
The energy that holds all of this together for me is that when I make a real effort of attention and self-awareness—in the presence of others who are doing the same—something of another level opens, includes, and connects us all. This is palpable. There’s a united understanding that surpasses words. When this understanding is made possible by individuals working together, a new energy, a new sense of being is accessible. Once I lose the attention, however, that higher sense of being and understanding dissipates like a gossamer fog, and only the memory of it remains.
But with effort, I can return. Every time I work in this way with others, this sense of being builds inner depth. It becomes easier for me to find my way again when I am alone—even though, in the beginning and for a long time, working alone is much more difficult. My longing for place and a sense of being is answered, not in words but in the experience.
I am a witness and a participant at the same time.
This is my why: to reconnect with that creative energy at the center of all life of which I am part. When I am a witness and a participant at the same time, I sense expansion, a sense of myself as a part of something greater, and an awareness of my connection with others and to life that is simultaneously independent and interdependent.
There are no final answers. The Gurdjieff teachings is a work in life. This teaching is alive and, to be valuable, it must be so. We are not alone if we are connected with this kind of questioning in our lives.