Gurdjieff on Man’s Nothingness

I will freely avow that I had not realised the importance of what Gurdjieff said about our nothingness until quite recently. I will explain this in more detail later. For now, I wish to post relevant materials from two books: Gurdjieff’s Early Talks and In Search of the Miraculous. I intend to ponder these a little further before writing of what I found. In long passages, I have placed particularly important passages in blue.

 

Gurdjieff’s Early Talks, 1914-1931

14  “Far below was left to disappear without a trace, Man, converted into nothing. A strange mingling of nearness to the Great Inscrutable with the consciousness of my personal nothingness filled me.”

355 “… we must have as our aim the capacity to wish, and this can only be attained by a man who realises his nothingness.”

392   “Man is afraid to see something bad; and if by accident, looking deep down, he sees his own bad, he sees his nothingness.”

424       “Before seeking the way we must realise our own nothingness.”

428       “Know that this house can only be useful to those who have already recognised their nothingness and who believe in the possibility of altering.”

 

In Search of the Miraculous

102       To be means to be master of oneself. If a man is not his own master he has nothing and can have nothing.

155      Conscience is a state in which a man feels all at once everything that he in general feels, or can feel. And as everyone has within him thousands of contradictory feelings which vary from a deeply hidden realization of his own nothingness and fears of all kinds to the most stupid kind of self-conceit, self-confidence, self-satisfaction, and self-praise, to feel all this together would not only be painful but literally unbearable.

160      It is hard for him to renounce the illusion that he directs and organizes his life himself. But no work on himself is possible until a man is free from this illusion. He must realize that he does not exist; he must realize that he can lose nothing because he has nothing to lose; he must realize his ‘nothingness’ in the full sense of the term. This consciousness of one’s nothingness alone can conquer the fear of subordination to the will of another. However strange it may seem, this fear is actually one of the most serious obstacles on a man’s path. A man is afraid that he will be made to do things that are opposed to his principles, views, and ideas. Moreover, this fear immediately creates in him the illusion that he really has principles, views, and convictions which in reality he never has had and never could have.

218      But in order to be able to attain this or at least begin to attain it, a man must die, that is, he must free himself from a thousand petty attachments and identifications which hold him in the position in which he is. He is attached to everything in his life, attached to his imagination, attached to his stupidity, attached even to his sufferings, possibly to his sufferings more than to anything else. He must free himself from this attachment. Attachment to things, identification with things, keep alive a thousand useless I’s in a man. These I’s must die in order that the big I may be born. But how can they be made to die? They do not want to die. It is at this point that the possibility of awakening comes to the rescue. To awaken means to realize one’s nothingness, that is to realize one’s complete and absolute mechanicalness and one’s complete and absolute helplessness. And it is not sufficient to realize it philosophically in words. It is necessary to realize it in clear, simple, and concrete facts, in one’s own facts. When a man begins to know himself a little he will see in himself many things that are bound to horrify him. So long as a man is not horrified at himself he knows nothing about himself A man has seen in himself something that horrifies him. He decides to throw it off, stop it, put an end to it. But however many efforts he makes, he feels that he cannot do this, that everything remains as it was. Here he will see his impotence, his helplessness, and his nothingness; or again, when he begins to know himself a man sees that he has nothing that is his own, that is, that all that he has regarded as his own, his views, thoughts, convictions, tastes, habits, even faults and vices, all these are not his own, but have been either formed through imitation or borrowed from somewhere ready-made. In feeling this a man may feel his nothingness. And in feeling his nothingness a man should see himself as he really is, not for a second, not for a moment, but constantly, never forgetting it.

This continual consciousness of his nothingness and of his helplessness will eventually give a man the courage to ‘die,’ that is, to die, not merely mentally or in his consciousness, but to die in fact and to renounce actually and forever those aspects of himself which are either unnecessary from the point of view of his inner growth or which hinder it. These aspects are first of all his ‘false I,’ and then all the fantastic ideas about his ‘individuality,’ ‘will,’ ‘consciousness,’ ‘capacity to do,’ his powers, initiative, determination, and so on.

226      “The study of the chief fault and the struggle against it constitute, as it were, each man’s individual path, but the aim must be the same for all. This aim is the realization of one’s nothingness. Only when a man has truly and sincerely arrived at the conviction of his own helplessness and nothingness and only when he feels it constantly, will he be ready for the next and much more difficult stages of the work.

227      But imitation work of this kind gives a great deal of self-satisfaction. One man feels himself to be a ‘teacher,’ others feel that they are ‘pupils,’ and everyone is satisfied. No realization of one’s nothingness can be got here and if people affirm that they have it, it is all illusion and self-deception, if not plain deceit. On the contrary, instead of realizing their own nothingness the members of such circles acquire a realization of their own importance and a growth of false personality.

307      Intellectual theories put man in the center of everything; everything exists for him, the sun, the stars, the moon, the earth. They even forget man’s relative size, his nothingness, his transient existence, and other things. They assert that a man if he wishes is able to change his whole life, that is, to organize his life on rational principles. And all the time new theories appear evoking in their turn opposing theories; and all these theories and the struggle between them undoubtedly constitute one of the forces which keep humanity in the state in which it is at present. Besides, all these theories for general welfare and general equality are not only unrealizable, but they would be fatal if they were realized.

365      “The whole thing is in being ready to sacrifice one’s freedom,” said G. “A man consciously and unconsciously struggles for freedom as he imagines it and this, more than anything else, prevents him from attaining real freedom. But a man who is capable of attaining anything comes sooner or later to the conclusion that his freedom is illusion and he agrees to sacrifice this illusion. He voluntarily becomes a slave. He does what he is told, says what he is told, and thinks what he is told. He is not afraid of losing anything because he knows that he has nothing. And in this way he acquires everything. Everything in him that was real in his understanding, in his sympathies, tastes, and desires, all comes back to him accompanied by new things which he did not have and could not have had before, together with a feeling of unity and will within him. But to arrive at this point, a man must pass through the hard way of slavery and obedience. And if he wants results he must obey not only outwardly but inwardly. This requires a great determination, and determination requires a great understanding of the fact that there is no other way, that a man can do nothing himself, but that at the same time, something has to be done.

11 comments

  1. In his objective eyes we were all “man in quotation marks,” with only a possibility of becoming otherwise (becoming “part of God”) if we would work unrelentingly on ourselves and open our eyes to our essential nothingness. Only from that point of awareness could there be a beginning.

    Our nothingness he called our “nonentity-ness.” To see this for ourselves was our primary task. “To know the insignificance of yourself is extremely difficult,” he said. “It is, for example, like trying to imagine one’s own death. You can imagine Mr. Smith being killed, but never can you imagine yourself being killed. So it is with insignificance, with nonentity-ness. You can know this about another person, but not about yourself.”

    Kathryn Hulme – Undiscovered Country p.91

  2. This article highlights a radical perspective of the Work. 


    It must be asked: Who really has reached this nadir of emptiness and “become a slave”. To what or to whom is this voluntary enslavement made? Is it necessary to find a living Master / group or can an individual find a way alone or through the intercession of Beings non-physical?

    1. I shall be exploring these questions in future posts: but to anticipate, a group is needed with a person or persons who know sufficient to help.

    2. I note that De Salzmann is posted on this site as a reference to our “nothingness”. De Salzmann discusses the issue of group Work, cite approx. p. 113 in Reality of Being, stating Our independant efforts, each by ourselves, are insufficient”. A group offers a “special condition” for change. But the matter of “question and answer” requires that the LISTENER also be in a state or place of openness, the questioner is not coming from a place of less knowledge, rather she says, the questioner is opening the door to the unknown and that requires the listener to be in a place of receptivity….to HEAR the possibilities of the question and to allow an exploration rather than responding based on-its-face answers.
      De Salzmann also writes:
      We are in a group because we need help to find a quality in ourselves, a state in which we can experience something real. We need higher influences that are inaccessible when we work alone with our
      ordinary means. Without the group we cannot come to the necessary intensity. The group is thus a special condition for exchange and a kind of conduit for higher influences, ideas from a higher level of life.
      But we must be wholly present. We receive these ideas in the exact measure that we are present.”

      While it is true that one can receive guidance from “angels” (what I call nonphysical entities), in my personal experience I do not see that the guidance in any way supplants the opportunity to generate something higher in myself when I sit with a group. In fact, I have been “guided” to find and participate in a group…. a difficult task, given my geography.
      Just sayin’……the Work as it is taught, works, and requires Group participation.

      1. It’s an interesting question Karen. I was in a group in London for about 15 years – that was about 10 years ago. Yes, it was said that we cannot work alone – do I believe that? G said ‘believe nothing’. Maybe I will find out at some point that that is true – and some things perhaps take many years to learn. But I can say that my work has continued to deepen outside of a group. I have also experienced some benefits – in a group, and involved in the varied activities connected with it, one can become so identified with it all – and so much ‘considering’. Of course this can be viewed as a help -good conditions, and something we need to see. A friend who became a group leader once said to me ‘I don’t think it’s impossible to work alone – it’s just more difficult’. For myself, I found that being ‘on my own’ enabled me to catch a clearer or fresher view of myself – a work truly ‘in life’ (changing nothing) not mediated by what I’ve been ‘told to do’ – working for myself. I’ve had to adapt and be creative/imaginative about lines of work. Then there’s the question about what ‘working with others’ means. If I’m working outside of a group am I really alone? Could I have worked alone had I not once worked with others in a group? There can also sometimes be a sense of connection to that mysterious conscious ‘something’ that surrounds us. Which brings me round to this question of our ‘nothingness’. I think when I first left the group, I was feeling a need for something more – something akin to prayer. It has been said before that ‘God’ isn’t mentioned overtly in the Work. Perhaps there was a good reason why that was so when Gurdjieff brought the ideas to the West, but he then describes the Work as ‘esoteric Christianity’. Increasingly I find a need for something ‘more’. I’ve found that the question of ‘humility’ has become crucial. Even just remembering the word/idea, inwardly during sitting, brings about a change in my disposition – something is given up – I become more receptive. This seems to me to be an important threshold – to stay in front of that – ones ‘lack’, as Madam De Salzmann often said.

    3. Hello,

      “Who really has reached this nadir of emptiness and “become a slave”.

      > I suppose that this may be achieved by “nobodies”; for example, seeing how the current society keeps us like “slaves” – and does not care – we may feel how powerless, but as well how insignificants we are. Well, technically speaking, what our society does to us is pure slavery. I was assigned on a trial after a heavy discussion with my father, put under “state watch”. This is called “tutelle”. Since then, people stopped looking at me like before. To my family, my suggestions and thoughts have less “weight” and they are “right before me” about any subject, in their minds.

      I have few money, and must sometimes report to some guys from the state. I lost my friends, my hopes, my professional career. From one day to another. Society pushed me to the trash bin. This may be an example.

      Some cold shower, about the reality and the true nature of our world

      Some cold shower about who we believed we were and the huge discrepancy with who we really are

      ***

      To what or to whom is this voluntary enslavement made?”

      > It does not imply that you should go seek enslavement(!) or go hire a guru

      Gurdjieff’s way, among others, suggest sincere reflection about ourselves, and our flaws. If done properly, we may, one day, see something.

      If we manage to see how greedy we are, how much we like money, what is this if not “enslavement”?

      Seeing it is a first step; then, you start to work on it, then later get rid of it. There is a process during which you must accept that you are, still, yet, “bound” to it.

      It means (to me!) that until you get rid of it you have to accept that you will have impulses, manifesting, there and there, that you are dependant, sometimes.

      Does this makes sense? I hope that I am not off-track 🙂

  3. Thank you for pulling these quotes together Joseph. I’d like to add one more, in addition to the quote from Kathryn Hulme. That is the first Beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount – “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. The original Greek for “poor” describes a beggar with nothing and starving. The beggar knows he is starving, knows he can do nothing, and so he begs for help.

  4. An interesting exploration for sure!
    Thank you Joseph for your ponderings upon the nature of ‘nothingness’.
    The closest I come to this state of ‘nothingness’ (“Far below was left to disappear without a trace, Man, converted into nothing. A strange mingling of nearness to the Great Inscrutable with the consciousness of my personal nothingness filled me.”), or when I disappear even briefly, is when I am out in the natural world (Great Nature) with full (three-brained) attention to incoming impressions. C.S. Lewis often refers to this state as ‘Joy’ for the beauty of nature elevated his being to the point where he caught a peek “over the wall” (identification) into the “garden.”
    I had the privilege of being part of Keith Buzzell’s work group for years, where he would always stress the need, and importance, of conversation and exploration and I believe it is a critical need because it is the ‘Bridge’. Being part of that which is larger than myself – my family, community, world (aka Great Nature) – allows me to see myself as a cell (by itself nothing) within that larger universal body. It is a constant struggle within the moment, and ultimately where the Work requires expression within or into daily life. I do see the celebration of that greater awareness coming into play in numerous ritualized ways today, and ponder often how the concept of a “group” itself is transcended.

  5. There are many theoretical descriptives here and in the related posts. Some of them — particularly Gurdjieff’s — are strongly allusive though all in essence mostly remain as indicative conceptual “hints”.
    Is there any published record of a Work practitioner’s actual experiencing of this realization of “nothingness / non-entityness” and a detailed recapitulation or journalistic tracking of how it presented factually for them?
    Is there anything on par (for instance) with Jean Toomer’s report of his “awakening” experience?
    For any leads in this direction I would be most grateful.

    1. Our experience of nothingness belongs to group work. Toomer’s account is quite unique, and he does not link it to his own work. On the other hand, our experience is, and so can only be spoken of there.

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