LIFE IS REAL ONLY THEN, WHEN ‘I AM’

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1877–1949) was born in Alexandropol and trained in Kars as both a priest and a physician. For some twenty years Gurdjieff travelled in the remotest regions of Central Asia and the Middle East. These years were crucial in the moulding of his thought. On his return, he began to gather pupils in Moscow before the First World War and continued his work with a small party of followers while moving, during the year of the Russian revolution, to Essentuki in the Caucasus, and then through Tiflis, Constantinople, Berlin and London to the Château du Prieuré near Paris, where he opened his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in 1922 on a larger scale.

The story of his unremitting search for a real and universal knowledge is unfolded, and his ideas are expounded, in his major works: Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, Meetings with Remarkable Men, Life is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am’ and Views from the Real World.

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This edition first published in the USA by Viking Arkana 1991
First published in Great Britain by Arkana 1999
13

For the preparation of this authorized text, the latest version of the manuscript was used, but all extant versions were consulted. A small number of editorial additions are marked by square brackets. Numeration of each separate paragraph of the Prologue has been omitted. This edition includes an additional 10 pages as printed in the final chapter of the French (Paris 1976) edition

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ALL AND EVERYTHING

FIRST SERIES: Three books under the title of “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson” or, “An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man.”

SECOND SERIES: Three books under the common title of “Meetings with Remarkable Men.”

THIRD SERIES: Four books under the common title of “Life Is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am.’”

All written according to entirely new principles of logical reasoning and strictly directed towards the solution of the following three cardinal problems:

FIRST SERIES: TO destroy, mercilessly, without any compromises whatsoever, in the mentation and feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him, about everything existing in the world.

SECOND SERIES: To acquaint the reader with the material required for a new creation and to prove the soundness and good quality of it

THIRD SERIES: TO assist the arising, in the mentation and in the feelings of the reader, of a veritable, nonfantastic representation not of that illusory world which he now perceives, but of the world existing in reality.

“No one interested in my writings should ever attempt to read them in any other than the indicated order; in other words, he should never read anything written by me before he is already well acquainted with the earlier works.”

“… as regards the real, indubitably comprehensible, genuine objective truths which will be brought to light by me in the third series, I intend to make them accessible exclusively only to those from among the hearers of the second series of my writings who will be selected by specially prepared people according to my considered instructions.

PREFATORY NOTE

Although this text is no more than a fragmentary and preliminary draft of what G. I. Gurdjieff intended to write for the Third Series, “Life Is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am,’” his family feel obliged to obey our uncle’s wish, as he emphasized in his introduction, “to share with creatures similar to himself everything he had learned about the inner world of man.”

We consider we are being faithful to his intention when he wrote the introduction and thus are also meeting the expectations of very many people interested in his teaching.

FOREWORD

“My last book, through which I wish to share with other creatures of our Common Father similar to myself, almost all the previously unknown mysteries of the inner world of man which I have accidentally learned. “

Gurdjieff wrote these words on the 6th of November, 1934, and immediately started to work. For the next few months he devoted himself entirely to working out his ideas for this book.

Then suddenly, on the 2nd of April, 1935, he completely stopped writing.

One is bound to ask: why did he abandon the project at this point and never return to it again?

Why did he leave this Third Series unfinished and apparently give up his intention to publish it?

It is not possible to answer these questions unless one has been oneself engaged in the intensive work which Gurdjieff undertook in the last fifteen years of his life with a certain number of pupils, creating for them day after day the conditions necessary for a direct and practical study of his ideas.

He let it be clearly understood, on the last page of Beelzebub’sTales to His Grandson, that the Third Series would be accessible only to those who would be selected as capable of understanding “the genuine objective truths which he will bring to light” in this Series.

Gurdjieff speaks to the man of today, that is, someone who no longer knows how to recognize the truth revealed to him in different forms since the earliest times—to someone with a deep sense of dissatisfaction, who feels isolated, meaningless.

But, given such a man, how to awaken in him an intelligence that can distinguish the real from the illusory?

According to Gurdjieff, the truth can be approached only if all the parts which make up the human being, the thought, the feeling and the body, are touched with the same force and in the particular way appropriate to each of them—failing which, development will inevitably be one-sided and sooner or later come to a stop.

In the absence of an effective understanding of this principle, all work on oneself is certain to deviate from the aim. The essential conditions will be wrongly understood and one will see a mechanical repetition of forms of effort which never surpass a quite ordinary level.

Gurdjieff knew how to make use of every circumstance of life to have people feel the truth.

I have seen him at work, listening to the possibilities of understanding in each of his groups and also to the subjective difficulties of each pupil. I have seen him deliberately putting the accent on a particular aspect of knowledge, then on another aspect, according to a very definite plan—working at times with a thought that stimulated the intellect and opened up an entirely new vision, at times with a feeling that required giving up all artifice in favor of an immediate and complete sincerity, at times with the awakening and putting in motion of a body that responded freely to whatever it was asked to serve.

The role he assigned to it cannot be disassociated from his way of teaching. At the precise moment he found it necessary, he would have a particular chapter or a particular passage read aloud in his presence, bringing suggestions or images to his pupils which put them suddenly in front of themselves and their inner contradictions.

It was a way that did not isolate them from life but passed through life, a way that took into account the yes and the no, the oppositions, all the contrary forces, a way that made them understand the necessity of struggling to rise above the battle while at the same time taking part in it.

One was brought to a threshold to be crossed and for the first time one felt that complete sincerity was required of one. It might appear to be a difficult passage but what was being left behind no longer had the old attraction. In front of certain hesitations, the picture Gurdjieff gave of himself was a measure of what it was necessary to give and of what had to be given up in order not to take a wrong turn.

Then it was no longer the teaching of the doctrine but the incarnate action of knowledge.

The Third Series, incomplete and unfinished as it is, reveals the action of the master—of the one who, simply by his presence, obliges you to come to a decision, to know what you want.

Before he died, Gurdjieff sent for me to tell me how he saw the state of affairs and to give me certain instructions:

“Publish as and when you are sure that the time has come. Publish the First and Second Series. But the essential thing, the first thing, is to prepare a nucleus of people capable of responding to the demand which will arise.

“So long as there is no responsible nucleus, the action of the ideas will not go beyond a certain threshold. That will take time… a lot of time, even.

“To publish the Third Series is not necessary.

“It was written for another purpose.

“Nevertheless, if you believe you ought to do so one day, publish it.”

The task became clear to me: as soon as the First Series had been published, it would be necessary to work without respite to form a nucleus capable, through its level of objectivity, devotion and the demands it would make on itself, of sustaining the current that had been created.

Life is real
only then,
when “I am”

PROLOGUE

I am…? But what has become of that fullsensing of the whole of myself, formerly always in me in just such cases of self-questioning during the process of self-remembering.…

Is it possible that this inner ability was achieved by me thanks to all kinds of self-denial and frequent self-goading only in order that now, when its influence for my Being is more necessary even than air, it should vanish without trace?

But in me is not yet atrophied the possibility of actualizing conscious labor and intentional suffering!…

Moreover, my Being is necessary not only for my personal egoism but also for the common welfare of all humanity.

My Being is indeed necessary to all people; even more necessary to them than their felicity and their happiness of today.

By the incomprehensible laws of the association of human thoughts, now, before beginning to write this book which will be my third—that is, my instructive—series of writings, and in general my last book, through which I wish to share with the other creatures of our Common Father similar to myself almost all the previously unknown mysteries of the inner world of man which I have accidentally learned, there has reoccurred to me the above-quoted self-reasoning which proceeded in me during an almost delirious state exactly seven years ago today, and even, it seems to me, at this very hour.

This fantastic soliloquy proceeded in me the 6th of November, 1927, early in the morning in one of the Montmartre night cafés in Paris when, tired already to exhaustion from my “black” thoughts, I had decided to go home and there once more to try whether I might perhaps succeed in sleeping at least a little.

Although my health was, then too, in general bad—yet on this morning I felt particularly miserable.

My miserable state on that morning was also further aggravated by the fact that during the last two or three weeks I had slept not more than one or two hours in twenty-four, and this last night I had not been able to sleep at all.

The fundamental cause of such sleeplessness and general disorder, in those days already excessive, of nearly all the important functions of my organism, was the uninterrupted flowing in my consciousness of “heavy” thoughts about the apparently insoluble situation which had then unexpectedly arisen for me.

In order to be able to explain, at least approximately, what this insoluble situation for me was, I must first say the following:

For more than three years up till then I had been writing, almost day and night, with constant self-driving, the books I had resolved to publish.

I say with constant self-driving because, due to the consequences of an automobile accident which happened to me just before beginning to write these books, I had been very ill and weak, and therefore, of course, had not had the possibility for any active action.

Yet I had not spared myself, and had worked very hard in such a state, chiefly thanks to the factors that formed in my consciousness, from the very beginning, the following idée fixe notion:

Since I had not, when in full strength and health, succeeded in introducing in practice into the life of people the beneficial truths elucidated for them by me, then I must at least, at any cost, succeed in doing this in theory, before my death.

While writing out in outline during the first year the different fragments intended for publication, I had decided to write three series of books.

I had decided with the contents of the first series of books to achieve the destruction, in the consciousness and feelings of people, of deep-rooted convictions which in my opinion are false and quite contradictory to reality.

With the contents of the second series of books to prove that there exist other ways of perceiving reality, and to indicate their direction.

With the contents of the third series of books to share the possibilities which I had discovered of touching reality and, if so desired, even merging with it.

With such intentions I began from the second year to write out this material in definite books, in a form now for general understanding.

And just before the events I am now describing, I had finished writing all the books of the first series and was already working on the books of the second series.

As I had the intention of publishing the first series of my writings the following year, I therefore decided, parallel with working on the books of the second series, to hold frequent public readings of the first series.

I decided to do this in order, before finally sending them to press, to review them once more but this time in accordance with the impressions with which different fragments were received by people of different typicalities and different degrees of mental development.

And in view of this aim, I began from then on to invite to my city apartment different persons of my acquaintance of corresponding individuality to hear the chapter proposed for correction, which was read aloud by somebody in their presence.

At that time I had my principal place of residence for my whole family as well as for myself at Fontainebleau, but because of my frequent visits to Paris I was obliged also to have an apartment there.

During these common readings, in the presence of listeners of many different typicalities, while simultaneously observing the audience and listening to my writing, now ready for publication, I for the first time very definitely established and clearly, without any doubt, understood the following:

The form of the exposition of my thoughts in these writings could be understood exclusively by those readers who, in one way or another, were already acquainted with the peculiar form of my mentation.

But every other reader for whom, strictly speaking, I had goaded myself almost day and night during this time, would understand nearly nothing.

During this common reading, by the way, I enlightened myself for the first time with regard to the particular form in which it would be necessary to write in order that it might be accessible to the understanding of everyone.

So, when I had clarified all this to myself, there just then appeared before me, in all its splendor and full majesty, the question of my health.

Above everything else, there then flowed in my consciousness the following thoughts:

If all this, which was written during three or four years of almost unceasing day and night work, were to be rewritten from the beginning in another form more accessible to the understanding of every reader, at least the same length of time would be required.… But time is needed for the exposition of the second and third series; and time will be also necessary for introducing into practical life the essence of these writings of mine.… But where can so much time be obtained?…

If my time depended solely upon me I could, of course, rewrite all this anew. Moreover, from the very beginning of this new writing, I would acquire the certainty of a peaceful end, for now, knowing how to write, I could fully expect that at least after my death the principal aims of my life would certainly be realized.

But, due to all kinds of accumulated consequences of my past life, it so happens that just now my time depends not upon me but exclusively upon the “self-willed” Archangel Gabriel. And indeed there remains to me but one or two or perhaps, at the most, three years more of life.

Concerning this, that is, that I have soon to die, any one of hundreds of physician-specialists knowing me can now confirm.

Besides this, I myself in my past life had not in vain been known as a good, above the average, diagnostician.

Not for nothing had I during my life held many conversations with thousands of candidates for a speedy departure from this world.

It would, strictly speaking, even be unnatural if it were not so.… For the processes of the involution of my health during my past life had proceeded many times more rapidly and intensively than the processes of its evolution.

In fact, all the functions of my organism which previously had been, as my friends said, “steel-cast,” had gradually degenerated, so that at the present moment due to constant overworking not one of them was, even relatively, functioning properly.

This is not at all to be wondered at.… Even without considering the many other events unusual in human experience which had taken place in the accidentally peculiar pattern of my past life, it would be enough to recall that strange and inexplicable destiny pursuing me, which consisted in my having been wounded three times in quite different circumstances, each time almost mortally and each time by a stray bullet.

If the full significance of only these three incidents were comprehended, which inevitably implanted ineffaceable results in my body, one could understand that they in themselves were sufficient to have caused my final end long ago.

The first of these three incomprehensible fateful events happened in 1896, on the island of Crete, one year before the Greco-Turkish War.

From there, while still unconscious, I was brought, I don’t know why, by some unknown Greeks to Jerusalem.

Soon, with consciousness returned, although with my health not yet quite restored, I in the company of other—just such as myself—”seekers of pearls in manure” set out from Jerusalem for Russia not by water, as normal people ordinarily do, but by land, on foot.

From such wandering, continuing about four months nearly always through places almost impassable, with my health still in precarious condition, there must, of course, have been implanted in my organism for the rest of my life some “chronically manifesting” factors of evil influence upon my health.

In addition to everything else, during this foolish trip, there visited me and found delight in my body, for quite a long stay, some specific “delicacies” of local character, among which, by the way, were the honored and famous “Kurdistan tzinga” [scurvy], the not less famous “Armenian dysentery” and, of course, that common and omnipresent favorite of many names: la grippe, or influenza.

After this, willy-nilly, I had to live some months, without absenting myself, at home in Transcaucasia, and then again began, animated of course as always by the idée fixe of my inner world, various trips through all kinds of bush and jungle.

And this time in my unfortunate physical body I again played host, during their long visits, to many other specific delicacies of local character.

Among such new guests were the honored “Ashkhabadian bedinka,” “Bokharian malaria,” “Tibetan hydropsy,” “Beluchistan dysentery” and many others who also left their calling cards permanently whenever they called.

In the following years my organism, although it had already acquired immunity from all such local delicacies, nevertheless could not, of course, due to its increasing tenseness, eradicate the consequences of these old delicacies.

Under such conditions of tension years passed; then, for this unfortunate physical body of mine, came another year of destiny, 1902, when I was punctured by a second stray bullet.

This occurred in the majestic mountains of Tibet one year before the Anglo-Tibetan War.

On this second occasion, my unfortunate physical body was able to elude destiny because near me there were five good physicians—three of European education and two specialists of Tibetan medicine, all five very sincerely devoted to me.

After three or four months of unconscious life, for me there flowed still another year of constant physical tenseness and unusual psychic contrivance—and then came my third fateful year.

This was at the end of 1904 in the Transcaucasian region in the neighborhood of the Chiatura Tunnel.

Speaking about this third stray bullet, I cannot here deny myself the opportunity, for the pleasure of some and for the displeasure of others of my acquaintances of the present time, of now saying openly about this third bullet that it was plunked into me, of course unconsciously, by some “charmer” from among those two groups of people, who, fallen on one side under the influence of the revolutionary psychosis and on the other under the sway of imperious superiors, accidental upstarts, together laid then, also of course unconsciously, the basic foundation stones of the groundwork of the, at least today, indeed “great Russia.”

There then proceeded firing between the so-called Russian army, chiefly Cossacks, and the so-called Gourians.

In view of the fact that certain events in my life, beginning with this third nearly fatal wound and up to the present time, have among themselves, as I have recently noticed, a very strange, and at the same time very definite, connection in terms of one physical law, I will therefore describe some of these events with as much detail as possible.

It is necessary before going further to mention here also that on the evening of November 6, 1927, when, after a good sleep, I began to think of the situation that had arisen for me, then into my consciousness flashed one idea, among others, which then appeared to me entirely absurd; but now, after having constated unexpectedly and having elucidated during the last seven years various facts previously unknown to me, I have become convinced without any doubt that it must be true.

And so, at the time of this third bullet, near me there was only one man, and at that a very weak one. As I learned later, he, surmising that the situation and surrounding circumstances were such that very undesirable consequences might arise for me, quickly somewhere found a donkey and, placing me, completely unconscious, on it, in haste drove it far into the mountains.

He found some kind of a “barber-physician” and necessary bandages and returned with them late in the evening.

They did not find anyone in the cave and were astounded, because neither could I have left by myself nor could anyone else have come there, and as far as wild animals were concerned, they knew well that in this region, aside from deer and goat and sheep, there were no animals.

They noticed traces of blood, but it was impossible to follow them because the night had already fallen.

Only the next morning, when it began to dawn, after spending the whole night in anxiety and fruitless search in the forest, did they find me between some rocks, still alive and apparently sound asleep.

The barber immediately found some roots, and with these he made a temporary tourniquet, and after giving instructions to my weak friend what to do, he at once set out somewhere.

Late in the evening he returned accompanied by two of his friends, called “Khevsurs,” with a two-wheeled cart to which were harnessed two mules.

That evening they drove me still higher into the mountains and again placed me in a cave, but this time a large one, adjacent to another immense cave in which, as later appeared, sat and reclined, perhaps contemplating human life of past and future ages, several score Khevsurian dead, “mummified” by the rarefied air of that high place.

In this cave where they placed me, for two weeks, in the presence of the aforementioned weak man, the barber and one young Khevsur, there proceeded in me the struggle between life and death.

After that my health began to improve at such a pace that in one week more my consciousness had entirely returned, and I could already move about with the help of someone and a stick, and a couple of times even visit the “secret meeting” of my “immortal neighbors.”

At this time it was ascertained that below, in the process of civil war, the upper hand, as it is said, had been taken by the Russian army and that already everywhere the Cossacks were poking about and arresting every “suspicious” inhabitant who was not a native.

As I was not a native, and knew also the process of the mentation of people fallen under a “revolutionary psychosis,” I decided to flee from these parts as soon as possible.

Taking into consideration the surrounding conditions of the Transcaucasian region as a whole, and my personal prospects for the future, I decided to go into the Transcaspian region.

Subjected to incredible physical sufferings, I set out in the company of the above-mentioned weak man.

I experienced unbelievable sufferings chiefly because I had everywhere on the way to preserve an unsuspicious exterior.

An exterior not arousing suspicion was necessary so as not to become a victim either of this “political psychosis” or of the so-called “national psychosis.”

The fact of the matter is that, in places where the railroad passed, there had only recently been completed a so-called “realization of a higher gradation” of the “national psychosis,” in this instance between the Armenians and Tartars, and some peculiarities of this human scourge still continued to flow by momentum.

My misfortune in this case consisted in the fact that, having a “universal appearance,” I represented to the Armenians a pure-blooded Tartar and to the Tartars a pure-blooded Armenian.

To make a long story short, I, by hook or by crook, in the company of this weak friend of mine, and with the help of a “mouth harmonica,” arrived in the Transcaspian region.

This mouth harmonica, which I discovered in the pocket of my coat, rendered us a great service.

On this original instrument I then played, I confess, not badly—although I played only two tunes: “The Peaks of Manchuria” and “Valse Ozhidanie.”

Arriving in the Transcaspian region we decided for the time being to establish ourselves in the city of Ashkhabad.

We rented two good rooms in a private house with a charming garden, and I could finally rest.

Yet, on the first morning when my only near person there went to a pharmacy to get for me the necessary medicaments, he did not return for a long time.

I began to be anxious, chiefly because I knew that he was here for the first time and did not yet know anybody.

Suddenly, listening to my questions, the druggist’s boy says that he saw this same young man, who was there in the morning, arrested by the police in the street not far from there, and taken away somewhere.

What is to be done? Where to go? I know no one here, and besides I am hardly able to move because during the last few days I have become completely exhausted.

By chance an unoccupied carriage passes. I ask to be taken to the center of the city, somewhere near the bazaar where after the stores close there is still life.

LIFE IS REAL ONLY THEN, WHEN ‘I AM’

ALL AND EVERYTHING

CONTENTS

PREFATORY NOTE

FOREWORD

Life is realonly then,when “I am”

PROLOGUE

Life is real
only then,
when “I am”