When A Student Leaves the Work .....

People come and go in the Work, for different reasons. Some attend for a few weeks or months, but realize it's not for them, and leave. All groups experience this sort of fluctuation. It's actually quite good for a group to be in the company of such tramps or lunatics, as it can spur the members on to renew their own efforts.

Occasionally, people attend meetings for several years, but without really conjoining with the Work. They may undertake the exercises - or at least, those of which they personally approve, for they are sure they know best! - but their observations are superficial and they don't take the Work deeper into their centres.

They're afraid of the changes they will be called on to make if they let the Work become real to them, and so they leave.

More serious is the situation of people who leave the Work after studying and practicing it, as well as they can, for ten years or more. Theirs is a difficult state, and it's always, without exception, the result of identifying with the False Personality.

As the Work penetrates into inner parts of centres, False Personality puts up a tremendous fight. Those who are honest with themselves see exactly what is happening, and resist the temptation to identify with the I's which are opposed to the Work. They draw on their Work I's, sometimes called Deputy Steward or Steward, to strengthen their resolve and resist the urge to give up.

The I's in False Personality, and most especially those connected with Chief Feature, always resist the Work with the arsenal of weapons they have at their disposal. They insult the Work and their teacher, pour scorn on the ideas, raise doubts and difficulties in the mind of the student.

They have to, because it's a fight to the death!

There comes a time for every student when the temptation to abandon all they've accomplished in the Work and to side with their False Personality, their Imaginary I, becomes particularly acute. All of us who are long-time students and/or authorized teachers have fought this battle.

Why is it so difficult?

Because the student begins to see - to really understand - that to continue in the Work will totally change their priorities. And they don't want to give up their most cherished I's. They can't imagine life without, for example, their self-importance, their conceit; they can't bring themselves to give up gossiping, or worrying, or compulsively helping, or their favourite form of negative emotion, whatever their individual addiction happens to be.

Vanity and Pride maintain the False Personality and preserve its mask. They form a tight crust around the Essence of the student, and real courage is needed to break through it.

If the student will persevere, and ask for help, they will be given it. Their teacher will set them particular exercises to overcome their individual problems, and Conscious Humanity will send them extra support in the form of very fine energies that will enable their Work I's to grow stronger and to resist the temptations that are encompassing them.

But the basic battle is always the same: to remain clear-sighted, honest, and unflinching in the face of the knowledge they now have of themselves. They must carry on their task of observing their False Personality I's, and disidentifying with them. They must continue to purify their Emotional Centre so that their Higher Centres can speak to them and show them the way.

And absolute honesty - with themselves and with their teacher - is fundamental to success. Without it, they will fail, and will leave.

It's always sad when someone loses the fight after many years in the Work.

All a teacher can do is to provide the right conditions for students to be able to work on themselves. Nobody else can do the Work for them. And if what they learn about themselves is too terrible to acknowledge, because they have not asked for help and have not called on the resources available to them, then they may decide it's easier to maintain their illusions about themselves than to face reality, and they leave the Work.

When this happens, the other students in the group, and the Work teacher, have to leave the student to face the consequences of their choice.

Those consequences will include the feeling of being abandoned, the knowledge that is always there at the back of the mind that they have thrown away something infinitely precious. They will discover that their habitual sleep is now less easy, because they have seen a part of their reality; and their conscience, however deeply it may have been buried, pushes them to change.  But now, outside the Work, the chances are slim that they will be able to achieve any real change, and their suffering increases.

The best hope for such a student is to follow the path of the Good Householder, preferably associated with one of the traditional religions so that they have clear ethical and moral guidelines, and the company of other pilgrims on the way.

Even here, if they persevere, they will be brought back once more to  the point that led them to leave the Work - seeing their own False Personality, their own helplessness, their nothingness. And without the Work to help them through this stage, they may once more abandon the spiritual way, and fall back asleep.

We don't talk about the Work with former students. That's a very important school rule, and the reason is obvious - those who leave, have to try to justify their choice to themselves. They know, deep down, that they made a poor choice, so they have to keep persuading themselves that, after all, they were right - their own False Personality knew best!

And in order to persuade themselves of what they basically know to be a lie, they try to convince others of the same. They lie constantly, to themselves and to others, to keep up the pretence that all is well.

We are told never to talk badly about the Work, and to keep company with someone who's abandoned the Work would lead to bad talking. We avoid it, and them.

We don't completely shun them, as various cults are said to do. If our paths cross, we greet them in a friendly but impersonal way, but we avoid conversation with them as much as possible.  We can't take the risk of their wrong attitude to the Work beginning to affect us, so we stay away from them as far as we can.

The teacher cannot talk about the Work with them any more, since they have made their choice. There is no violence in the Work, and everyone is free to choose to leave, if they wish. But they must accept the loss of their teacher and the friendship of the group members.

What their ultimate fate will be, we don't know. They must have had Magnetic Centre to have persevered with the Work as long as they did, but now they have left, they have no way to satisfy the hunger for truth that will have grown in them over the years.

We're told that we have three lifetimes in which to meet the Work. What we do not know is which lifetime we are currently living - whether it's our first, our second, or third.

Personally, I would not want to take the risk of losing the Work for ever. I have been given so much, have been so greatly changed, over the years I've been in the Work that there is nothing for which I'd willingly exchange it.

But someone who hasn't understood the real value of the Work - or who has, but can't face the effort they know they must make to persevere with it - loses sight of the fact that it may be their last chance to meet with it.

Perhaps they will encounter it again in their next life, if they are given one. But if not, they've thrown away that pearl of great price which gave meaning to their existence, and the only way they may continue their progress is by the long, hard Way of the Good Householder.

We should be very sorry when someone leaves the Work - and very grateful, too, that we have remained.

The Work and Our Surroundings

We've moved! Now we're settling in to our new life by the sea, in a little Arts and Crafts house which we're filling with our books, art and music. It will take months before we've finished putting it all together, but already we can confirm that it's a wonderful move, and that this is the place where we intend to spend the rest of our lives.

The Work tells us that our Being attracts our Life. After more than 40 years in the Work, half as a student and half also as a teacher, I can attest to the way in which our circumstances change according to our needs.

If we're living "in the Work", then Conscious Humanity arranges for us to have the very best surroundings for our own development. To someone brought up in a palace, this could well mean life in a tiny apartment with few belongings. Their task would be to learn to do without the material goods and luxuries that they may have depended on before they met the Work.

For me and for my husband, however, both of us in the Work, we've found that each house move has brought us different tasks and challengers, to meet which we have had to change and adapt, observing ourselves and externally considering those around us in order to live in harmony.

This final move - at least, we hope and pray that it proves to be so! - has given us the most beautiful surroundings, by the sea, in a lovely, genteel resort town with huge parks and lakes, and with plenty of resources of every kind.

 We feel that we are at last planted in the place where we most truly belong, out of all the many we have inhabited in this life; different continents, different environments, and different neighbourhoods. All have given us material for our personal work. But here, in this little seaside town, we're more free than ever before to concentrate on our inner lives and our closest relationships, since we're now living near to our families.

Christianity has always taught that God will bring good out of every situation as long as we are honestly trying to do His will.

And the Work goes further: Conscious Humanity - all the great saints and holy ones, at the head of which is Jesus Christ - takes a keen interest in the wellbeing of anyone sincerely working on themselves.

They do so because our own personal transformation is of tremendous significance to them. When we evolve, when we become able to cooperate with them in aiding the evolution of our planet and ultimately of our part of the Ray of Creation, they rejoice greatly! They are constantly looking for men of women of "good will", as the Bible says, people who can join in the Great Work of the evolution of the universe.

And, because the Fourth Way is so demanding and intense, and can produce results in a much shorter time than any of the religions, Conscious Humanity willingly helps us by giving us the very best circumstances for our development.

They ensure that we will meet exactly those challenges that we need.  And that does not mean we will have an easy time. Far from it!

Depending on our individual situation, we could be placed in financial hardship, causing us to work harder to support ourselves while at the same time keeping in mind our ultimate goal of spiritual growth; or we might find ourselves embroiled in difficult family situations, that encourage us to purify our emotional centre as quickly as possible so that we can externally consider others and see what needs to be done.

It might be that - as has happened to me quite frequently over the course of my 70-something years - we are called to physically move over large distances, so as not to become too dependent on our physical or human environment, and to be willing to leave behind everything familiar in order to follow our higher purpose.

The Work will do this for us, and while we always have a choice in these matters, we will slowly become more able to understand what's best for our development, and hence be able to adapt to many different circumstances - just as Gurdjieff did over his long and eventful lifetime.

Someone living according to an orthodox religious path will be able to see the hand of God at work in their lives, and will see what conduces to leading a good, conscientious life in the midst of challenges.

But the Work is quicker! It speeds things up! And if we can see what each change calls on us to do, how we can best develop in understanding and Being with every new situation, we will find ourselves one day in the best of all possible worlds - for us, that is.

Of course, this life is only one stage in our pilgrimage. Our development continues after physical death, though in exactly what form we cannot know. But we can trust that the unfoldment that has begun here and now will give us the very best circumstances now, and in eternity - and that, in God's wonderful celestial economy, what is good for us is ultimately good for the universe.