Outline of "From The Author" by G. I. Gurdjieff

1. Beginning
1. Three Tasks
1. First series - to destroy in people everything which, in their false representations, as it were, exists in reality, or in other words "to corrode without mercy all the rubbish accumulated during the ages of human mentation.
2. Second series - to prepare so to say "new constructional material"
3. Third series - to build a new world.
2. "logical fusion" of beginning with conclusion
1. definite decision was made to append a series of lectures, motivated by love of kind
2. "The sensing of the flow of time is directly proportional to the quantity and quality of ones thought."
3. situation
1. body injured but spirit not in the least depressed, its power intensified by excitation before the accident.
1. my repeated disappointment in people.
2. disappointment in [my] ideals thanks to the commandment "the highest aim and sense of human life is the striving to attain the welfare of one's neighbor, ... only possible by the conscious renunciation of one's own."
3. closed the Institute
1. declared closed, completely and forever
2. inexpressible grief and despondency 
1. planned for 18 sections in other countries
2. without real people around me who could not procure material means without me,  only catastrophe resulting in "vegetation" is possible.
3. first lecture was read more than once by my "pupils of first rank" during the existence of the Institute.
1. some became HASNAMUSSIN after my accident, deserting the common work, opened their own shop with crumbs from my table. Creating candidates for lunatic asylums.
2. Lecture #1 
1. appended because it is the threshold to series of other lectures 
2. "THE VARIETY, ACCORDING TO LAW, OF THE MANIFESTATIONS OF HUMAN INDIVIDUALITY"
1. Man consists of 4 definite distinct personalities.
1. according to scientific research of history
2. according to Mr. Gurdjieff's system at the Institute
1. due to laws and conditions
2. heredity and surroundings
3. respond as a man and not merely as an animal
2. First personality - "conscious" or "mentation"
1. sum of impressions previously received from surrounding reality, everything intentionally, artificially implanted, "day dreaming" 
3. Second personality –  
1. sum of data from the 6 sense organs, 
2. depends upon heredity, circumstances
4. Third personality -
1. prime function of organism
2. "motor-reflex-reciprocally-affecting-manifestations-proceding-in-it"
3. depends upon heredity, circumstances
5. Fourth personality - Totality of the previous three personalities is "I"
1. Each personality has a "gravity-center-localization"
2. Each requires its own education, but this doesn't happen in our times.
3. If each is educated then "I" can be "I."
6. All four parts, correspondingly developed, can harmonize.
7. Metaphor – passenger, cabby, carriage, horse.
1. Real I is owner of carriage. "I" of average man is changing passengers.
2. Contemporary situation is a neglected system 
3. Cabby  - mentation
1. Limited education, 3 R's
2. "The crows he raced but by peacocks outpaced" 
3. Argues with equals,  teaches inferiors, servile to superiors
4. Chief weakness is dangle after cookes and housemaids.
5. Have a couple of drinks and daydream his time away.
6. Works under lash or for tips.
7. Learned to flatter people for types
8. Tries to appear imposing
4. Horse -  "The totality of the manifestation of the feeling-localization in a man." 
1. Due to negligence and solitude
1. "inner life" is driven inside
2. For external manifestations, nothing but inertia.
2. Not education, only abuse.
3. No love, so it surrenders completely to slightest caress.
4. Consequently
1. Deprived of aspirations
2. Inclined to food, drink, and sex
3. Acts inertly from fear of beatings  
5. Cart – body
1. Designed to carry all kinds of burdens
2. Designed to travel the byways, not smooth roads.
1. Example: greasing system works by bumps and jolts. Hence fails on smooth roads.
2. Cabby ignorant of need for grease or if he does grease it is by hear say from who ever happens by.
6. Summary of cart/horse/cabby metaphor 
1. This modern man, no education of his separate parts, hence confused and ludicrous.
2. Example: 
1. Latest model coach from Barmen, Germany
2. "Dglozidzi" (utterly worthless) horse
3. Unkempt, sleepy cabby in worthless coat, shiny new hat, chrysanthemum on lapel
3. Therefore, at the period of his responsible existence for pursuing a single aim, … having never been trained to the requisite automatic:
1. reciprocal maintenance
2. reciprocal  assistance
3. reciprocal understanding
4. When "concerted manifestations are required, they do not appear, due to "education."
5. Cabby has a limited ability to explain his desires to others like him and barely able to understand others.
1. Learns various forms of amiability
2. Learns one street from another
6. Horse has no "education" so some possibilities are not atrophied.
1. Grows up and ignored, abused orphan
2. Ignorant of the forms of reciprocal relationship that the cabby has.
3. Possible for the horse to learn a relationship with the cabby, but the cabby does not know or suspect this.
7. Connections
1. Shaft connects cart to horse, blood.
2. Reins connect cabby to horse, Hanbledzion
1. Hanblezion arises in the common presence of a man from all intentionally made being efforts.
2. Cabby has no effect whatsoever on his horse, except for 3 ideas; right, left, stop.
3. Reins are unreliable due to atmospheric effects.
4. Like in average man, thoughts lose all possibility of affecting his feelings organization.

1. Conclusion – Strive to have own "I" is the fundamental task of the Institute, built on:
1. Education of the three personalities
2. Fostering the "I" in each student.

1. Definition: "Man is a being who can do, and 'to do' means to act consciously and by one's own initiative."
1. Today's man
1. The Institute experimentally proves that there is nothing a contemporary man does.  "… everything  does itself in him and through him, …" 
2. Consistent with the view of modern science
3. "Man is a … transmitting station of forces."
4. "… will is exclusively only the resultant of desires [in average man]"
5. Example of day in the life of average man.
1. "Your life is a bed of roses."  "A clever man … a model of culture."
1. Wake up under the impressions of some oppressive dream
1. Crack mirror
2. Annoyance
3. Cannot stand the servant in the house.
2. Go for a walk
1. Sunshine somewhat calms you.
2. Unconscious man on pavement, ambulance
3. Associations lead to meringue
3. Have meringue in café with coffee
1. Charming blonde notices you
2. Change of mood
4. Return home humming
1. Broken mirror elicits smile
2. Forgotten business of the walk, use the phone instead
1. Wrong number, wrong again and again
1. Upset
2. Trip on rug
3. Rebuke servant bringing you a letter
3. Letter of compliments to you. Now happiest mood.
2. So what kind of self-initiated, i.e. willed, manifestation doe we see?

1. Acme of creation … comes into the world a clean sheet of paper.   
1. "… which immediately all around him begin vying with each other to dirty and fill up with education, morality, the information we call knowledge, and with all kind of feelings of duty, honor, conscience and so on and so forth."
2. "… the dirtier it [the sheet of paper] becomes … the 'cleverer' and worthier is he considered by those around him"  … i.e. talented.
3. "And the temper of our 'talent' when it wakes up in the morning, is spoiled  for the whole day if it does not find its slippers beside the bed."
4. "The ordinary man is not free in his manifestations, in his life, in his moods."
5. "He cannot be what he would like to be; and what he considers himself to be, he is not that."
6. "… man should be the acme of creation … has … all possibilities for acquiring all the data exactly similar to the data in the ACTUALIZER OF EVERYTING EXISTING in the Whole of the Universe"
2. How to be a man   
1. … desire from thought, feeling, and organic instinct
2. … work on an all around knowledge of oneself.
3. Strive for eradication of one's weaknesses without mercy toward oneself
3. Study of mechanicality
1. Think deeply from every aspect, impartially to fully appreciate mechanicality, its consequences, results for:
1. His life
2. Justification of  the sense and aim of his arising and existence
2. Correctly conducted self observation
1. Prerequisites
1. Sincerity with oneself
2. "language"
2. Consequences
1. Robbed of all the pleasant "values dear to his heart" [false values]
2. Grasp his powerlessness and helplessness
3. Sees that .. life is a blind reaction to attractions and repulsions
4. See how his persona was formed
3. "language" words are perceived "elastically"
1. Due to education by rote
1. Loss of all capacity to ponder and reflect in talking and listening
2. Unconsciously gives words his own subjective meaning
3. "cacophonous-fantastic-nonsense"
2. Result is isolation of inner life increases and the "mutual instructions" necessary to people's collective existence is destroyed.
3. Example "world" each person brings their own meaning:
1. Astronomy – stars, galaxies, etc.
2. Physics – atoms, electrons, light, etc.
3. Philosophy – how do I know it exists?
4. Polydimensional spaces – a slice of a higher dimensional world
5. Religion – heaven , hell, etc.
6. Spiritism  - spirits, forces, …
7. Theosophy – interpenetrating worlds
4. Psychic inner life of the average man
1. Nothing but "automatized contact" of 2 or 3 series of associations…
2. "All the  particularities of the world view of the ordinary man and the characteristic features of his individuality ensue, and depend on :
1. The sequence of the impulses proceeding in him at the moment of the perception of his impressions
2. The automatism established for the arising of the process of repetition of these impressions.
3. Several associations having nothing in common that simultaneously flow through him.
4. Recordings of impressions perceived via three apparatus act as perceivers fo all seven "planetary-gravity-centered-vibrations."
1. Record all impressions from first days of life.
2. Automatically acting adaptively
1. New impressions recorded alongside previous similar impressions
2. New impressions recorded alongside impressions perceived simultaneously with the latter [previous similar impressions ]
3. Hence, every impression inscribed in several places as several reels, preserved unchanged.
3. Recordings "source themselves" if in contact with homogeneous vibrations of the same quality.
4. Hence, "memory" of average man is a thin slice of experience
5. Memory of a real man keeps tack of all impressions without exception.

1. An addition has been made as my "concluding chord" to make it possible for the reader ... to assimilate this truth... as befits a being who claims to be an "image of God" [this reminds me of Chapter 47's ending, constant awareness of one's death.]
2. The Addition – "Average man – an unconscious slave … may live … as his and … be destroyed forever."  "Great Nature has given him the possibility … of working for his own "egoistic individuality."  "… For equilibrium of objective laws, such relatively liberated  people are necessary."
1. Chief difficulty in the way
1. Eradication of Kundabuffer's consequences
2. Predisposition to the consequences which may arise again by the law of "the assimilation of the results of oft –repeated acts"
2. Man's death 
1. Can a man really picture to himself … his own  death?
2. Kundabuffer's consequences prevent it
3. Example of fear of mouse, but no fear of death
4. "childish experiencing"
1. Sustains life's action [for Great Nature]
2. Precludes sensing reality
5. In the face of death, why live and act, suffer?
6. Due to decrease in quality of vibrations Grat Nature needs a greater quantity, hence Kundabuffer to prevent us from seeing the terror of our situation.
3. "man" and real man are equally slaves to Great Nature but real man is  conscious and acquires the possibility of applying part of his manifestations for "imperishable being."
4. Two Rivers
1. Life of a man is a drop of water in a river
2. The river divides in two
1. One to ocean of life
2. One to crevice of death
3. Dividing of river corresponds to reaching adulthood.
1. A drop of water with "struggle of one's own self-denial" attains a single "I", enters river of life.
2. Others enter river of death
4. Ocean of life has "reciprocal exchange of vibrations between various great cosmic concentrations."
1. "Pokhdalissdjancha"
2. Aka "cyclone"
3. Drop may evolve to next higher level of concentration.
5. For contemporary people, chiefly due to "education" acquires presence corresponding to rivers of death.
5. "It is not yet too late."
1. Possible to acquire a kernel of their own "I" even after responsible age.
2. Possibility to cross to another stream, the 1^st liberation of man
1. Must have a constant unquenchable desire for the crossing
2. Long preparation
3. Become dead to ordinary life – renounce "blessings"
4. "without death no resurrection"
6. Summing up  -  2 categories of contemporary people with nothing in common innerly:
1. Consequences of Kundabuffer increase in intensity
2. Misunderstandings, disagreements, … due to "the –reflecting-of-reality-in-ones-attention-upside-down"
1. Example, even average man can see how a fly becomes an elephant and vice versa in our presence
2. Intensification of war
3. Mass psychosis – manifest themselves completely automatically.
4. Conscience ceases.
3. Great Nature no longer needs "mass psychosis"
7. Master - Division of the river has been happening since the time of "Tikliamishian civilization" before Babylon.  
1. Organization of society into master and slaves is unworthy of man.
2. Compromise – certain people consciously set chief aim to become masters in the objective sense of devout acts toward those around them … acquire that something which constrains others to bow  and carry out his orders.

1. Ending – Conclusion 
1. Old  Calvados
1. Rest for one month
2. "old Calvados" 27 bottles buried by monks in cellar
3. Gives me the possibility of tolerating without suffering the beasts similar to myself around me, …
2. Publication of three series of my work
1. First – general access to public
2. Second – access via public readings
3. Third – for hearers of 2^nd series, selected by specially prepared people according to my instructions.
3. "As regards the second and third series",… one of my fundamental tasks to prove…" there is no "other world" with its famous and so beautiful" paradise" and its so repugnant" hell", but that all should know "that Hell and Paradise do indeed exist, but only not there "in another world" but here beside us on Earth".