What the Work is Not

It's useful to remind ourselves from time to time of what the Work is not.

Newcomers may confuse the Work with other methods of psychological transformation, and we need to remain clear about what the Work is and what it can do, and how it differs from other paths.

So, a brief rundown and comparison of the Work with a few other methods may be useful. I'm sure many readers will be able to add their own definitions here, and I'm offering this post as a starting-point for your own musings.


The Work is not Counselling

Counselling is a psychological process which helps people to overcome their emotional and mental blocks to living a full life. This is just a very rough definition, of course. Perhaps the client is going through a period of depression, or coping with anxiety, or facing a mid-life crisis. Or perhaps the problem is easier to define, such as a fear of open spaces, or an addiction to a harmful substance or behaviour.

For many people, counselling makes it possible to live happy, fulfilled lives in the world. And this is, after all, what counselling aims to do. It does not promise a cure for all life's problems, but gives the client the skills that are needed to cope with a difficult situation or long-standing unhappiness. Freud himself said that the aim of psychotherapy was to change neurosis into ordinary, human unhappiness! In other words, unhappiness is built into life, and impossible to avoid. Gurdjieff said that life on Earth was a pain factory, and no counsellor can remove all suffering.

We are all broken machines, but some are more broken than others. Some machines develop problems as they face different tasks. For someone in the Work, counselling can be a real help to overcoming acute problems in life, perhaps those that have arisen only recently, or perhaps a long-standing psychological block that has come to light after some time in the Work. For some, the ability to continue in the Work depends on overcoming such a difficulty, and counselling can bring more insight that allows the Work student to carry on with his personal tasks.

If counselling is undertaken, the Work student should go easy on their personal work during this time. With the consent of their teacher, they may decide to stop attending meetings for a while, although it's always important to stay in touch with the teacher so that he or she understands what the student is going through. When the goal of the counselling period has been reached, the student may return to Work meetings and personal observations with new vigour.

A Work teacher may be a counsellor or psychotherapist - as my husband and I are - but they don't offer counselling as such to their Work students. Role confusion and blurred boundaries would result, and this would be unhelpful.  The Work helps what we might call "typically broken machines" to repair themselves with the help of the teacher and - ultimately - with Conscious Humanity. But machines with severe problems need more time and space than can normally be given in the context of meetings and personal interviews, and the teacher may suggest that a student suspend their work and attend some counselling to help them over a difficult hump.

If someone is psychologically damaged to a severe extent, then he or she should not attempt to work on themselves. Such a person would probably not have Magnetic Centre, but it's possible that they may have acquired one, yet be unable to enter the Fourth Way because of their mental problems. Here, a teacher may work together with a therapist to assess the student's mental state and his or her suitability for the Work. It's possible that, after therapy, such a student could go on to study the Work, but it's also possible that the Work could do more harm than good. This is why a new teacher should always consult his or her own Work teacher before admitting newcomers - a psychologically unstable student would harm themselves and the group, and should be refused, painful though this may be.


The Work is not self-help

There are plenty of books on the market that promote self-esteem, self-worth, and so on. Many of them are admirable, but they have little to do with the Work.

The Work teaches us that we can help ourselves only to a very limited extent. That we don't possess the necessary abilities or insights to advance spiritually on our own. That the input of a teacher and a group are important if the student is ever going to be able to "do".

Self-help, on the other hand, says that we all have the ability to transform ourselves and we don't need someone else to show us the way.

In the Work, we see that this is a fallacy. Someone trying to work on their own will reach only the first few notes of the octave and continually fall back. To progress higher we need energy and shocks from outside ourselves; we can't provide these from our own resources.

To make any progress in the Work, our self-esteem will frequently have to take a beating - not in a cruel, judgmental way, but simply through honestly seeing ourselves as we are, and admitting that we are often mistaken and at fault.

If we cannot accept these painful insights, we have no business being in the Work. Self-help works by fostering "good feelings", often in the False Personality, and on calming feelings of uneasiness when we suspect we may not be in the right. In the Work, we must at all costs face ourselves honestly and open ourselves up to the painful, but healing, remorse of conscience that will result.


The Work is not a religion

The inner teachings of many religions may be found in the Work, but the Work is not itself a religion. The religion which is closest to the Work and which contains most correspondences to it is traditional Christianity, either Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. This was Gurdjieff's own background, and there are many, many similarities with it in the Work. But you don't have to be a practicing Christian to study the Work; many Work students follow other paths, or none.

Nevertheless, the Catholic and Orthodox branches of Christianity are the religions to which the vast majority of Work teachers belong, and Gurdjieff himself never renounced his own faith. We can also find many exercises from Buddhism, Sufism and Essene traditions in the Work; Gurdjieff drew from many sources to create the system he gave us in the Fourth Way. And he never demanded that his followers attend any organized religion whatsoever - they were free to do so, or not, as they wished.

The Work has in common with all religions that it recognizes a Higher Power than ourselves; it does not take Man as the highest evolved form of life, unlike humanism and materialistic philosophies. If you cannot entertain the idea of a Higher Power - if you refuse to believe you need help from a source higher than yourself - then you will not get far in the Work.

In talking of religions, Gurdjieff remarked that for most people it was best to follow the religion in which they were raised as children. In it, he said, the individual's own conscience would be most easily found. And the teachings of the conscience - the Natural Law - are the same for all.


The Work is not a branch of the occult

We've all known people who've come into the Work mistakenly believing it to be an occult training school. They are soon disabused, or else they are made to leave.

Why? Because the occult - although that term has occasionally been wrongly applied to the Work - is a way of thinking which seeks to acquire magical powers for the sake of the student's own gain. It is a "dirty" path, which builds on the seeker's False Personality, and it is very dangerous.

 It's no secret, however, that many saints and pilgrims from different religious traditions have developed the powers of clairvoyance, remote viewing, bilocation, and even miracle working. And it's also true that none of these powers have been sought for their own sake, but are a byproduct of spiritual progress in their tradition.

Christians, Buddhists, Sufis and Jews all warn the seeker against striving for occult powers. If they do emerge - and for most people, they do not - it is because particular "miraculous" abilities were needed for an individual situation, and the person concerned has worked on themselves by purifying their emotional centre. Such a student is free from False Personality, and uses Personality only in the service of Essence. He or she has absolutely no desire to gain any unusual powers, but may discover they can use them in service to others and as representatives of a Higher Power.

If your emotional centre is purified then you are safe to use any such powers that may come to you in a particular situation, especially as a result of prayer. If that centre is not purified, then you may have acquired power by some demonic means. This is a very real danger in the occult. Demons do exist - ask any exorcist! Every Catholic diocese must have at least one exorcist available to deal with such phenomena, because they are quite real and extremely harmful.

 Any path which boasts of training people in such abilities, such as those affiliated with the Golden Dawn, are illegitimate and dangerous. They appeal to people who want short cuts to power, but there is no such thing, and the end result is madness, or chronic ill-health, or extreme distress resulting from obsessing spirits. Demonic possession may also occur, although this is more rare.


The Work is not "mindfulness"

Finally, in this brief survey, the Work is to be distinguished from the popular "mindfulness" movement which so many are following today.

The morning exercise does indeed start with very similar observations and techniques. In its initial stages it has much in common with mindfulness meditation, but it goes much further and deeper. The Work teaches us how to become and remain more conscious in our daily lives. It shows us how to observe ourselves in all our centres, so that our observations are truly useful. And then it shows us how to acquire more energy, and more attention, through receiving shocks.

Some of these shocks may be applied ourselves, but others are best given in groups or by the teacher. We will not, by ourselves, give ourselves exactly the shocks we need! We cannot - we are unaware of what they are, and if we do suspect that difficult shocks may be needed, we shy away from doing so because they are unpleasant, at least to begin with.

Mindfulness training does produce positive neurological changes in the brain, as do many meditation techniques. The whole idea of positive brain changes from deep relaxation and observation began to be popularized in the early 1970s, with Transcendental Meditation, and then with the lay-person's version, the "Relaxation Response" of Herbert Benson. These changes are good for us, it's true, and they are produced even more strongly by the morning exercise we learn in the Work.

But, of course, the Work doesn't stop there. It shows us how we may become more and more conscious, and how that consciousness may be extended for longer periods; how to become balanced; ultimately, how to evolve to a higher level of existence. Mindfulness does not claim to do that. Most people would not wish to do so, nor even suspect the possibility exists.


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 I'm sure you will be able to think of even more examples of what the Work is not, but most importantly, we need to remember that the Work is a truly unique system for psychological transformation.  It is a tremendous gift to all of us who study it, and it is the shortest way to completing this stage of our evolution so that we may be free to live at a higher level. The Way of the Good Householder will one day lead us all there, if that is the way we choose - but the Work is quicker.  And, under the guidance of an authorized teacher, it is also safe. May we all remember the uniqueness of the Work, and value it even more.