17

The Preparation

17.1  Introduction

Gurdjieff is known to have been teaching his “Preparation” in 1946, for the late
Dr. John Lester told me that they were taught it from their first meetings, which
were in that year. At this stage, no evidence of Gurdjieff teaching it any earlier is
available. It is absent from the published transcripts of the Paris groups. However,
the idea of daily Preparation, and also of a daily review, had been in Gurdjieff ’s
mind for several years, even if one discounts the Genuine Being Duty Exercise
from Beelzebub. In a transcript of a group meeting of September 9, 1943, in an-
swer to a question about nightly rest, Gurdjieff gave this advice:

It is not the quantity [of sleep], it is the quality that matters. When you sleep
seven and a half hours and you need two hours to relax in the evening and two
hours to tense up in the evening, that leaves you three and a half hours of sleep.
You don’t relax yourself consciously and this takes time. Everything takes place
mathematically, but it is automatic and this takes time. To start with, you can
relax consciously up until the moment of sleep. On the one hand, you relax and
this rapidly allows you to fall asleep. On the other hand, you begin to establish a
discipline between your consciousness and our body. . . . In the morning when
you wake up, do the same thing: immediately make a program, think, suggest
to yourself how you will spend your day; do the same work as when you relax
yourself. Your activity will double. . . . make a program. Not a fantasy, but a real
program.1

This is significant not only for linking the program to a relaxed state in the
morning, but also because a mutually supporting cycle is established: preparing
each night and each morning for the next phase of the day. The most important
comments on the program, connecting it to a form of the Preparation, seem to be
these of December 9, 1943:

[Y]‌ou will find a quiet place. You will sit down very quietly; you will become
calm in a good state. Do this for one or two weeks or a month, and you will no
longer believe anything or anyone. Make a program. If you don’t have a pro-
gram, anything—​any idiot, any nonentity or shit—​can order you around. Trust

Gurdjieff. Joseph Azize, Oxford University Press (2020). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190064075.001.0001
272  Exercises from Gurdjieff’s Pupils

only this program you have decided on while in a special state. The main thing
is to decide how you want to behave, what you want to do, the relationship you
want to establish with each person; that is what a program is. And you believe
only in this. And even if God comes to disturb you and tells you to do some-
thing else, you must not do it. Maybe he has just come to trip you up. You do
only what you have decided to do in your special state.2

Even during the year 1943, there seems to be a development, as Gurdjieff more
explicitly relates the program to a form of what will be the Preparation. By the
next year, the practice of daily appointments, a usage the Adies intimately as-
sociated with the Preparation, was also being taught, so that on August 3, 1944,
Gurdjieff refers to a task of selecting three times during the day to come to
oneself:

Do not consider the conditions; consider the moment of decision. At each of

the three hours, you absolutely must remember yourself. You enter into your-
self; you feel that you exist with all your presence and this—​this is your task.3

Gurdjieff went on to link that task and its successful completion to the prepara-
tion for it. When Mme. D said she had tried but could neither remember herself
nor achieve a strong sensation of herself, Gurdjieff replied:

Your decision is not strong. . . . You must put yourself in a quiet state—​relaxed—​
and in this state settle your task. You try it. Ten times, a hundred times, you
fail. You continue. You take trouble. Little by little you train yourself and you
achieve it. . . . Remember yourself consciously. Consciously. That is to say, by
your own decision.4

Solange Claustres told me, in 2007, in Paris, after I  had described the
Preparation as the Adies taught it, that it was exactly as Gurdjieff had taught
them. This is not proof that Gurdjieff was teaching the whole of the Preparation
in 1941, but the basic elements were there by that time, and it had been put
together by the time of his death. Touching the transcripts of the Preparation
that are set out below, both Annie-​Lou Staveley and Dr. Lester informed me
that the outline of the Preparation I sketched for them was authentically from
Gurdjieff.
One particularly helpful published source is the chapter “Collection” in
Questions and Answers Along the Way, by Hugh Brockwill Ripman (d. 1980),
posthumously published in 2009. Brockman, like Adie, had been a pupil of
Ouspensky, Gurdjieff, and Jeanne de Salzmann (1889–​1990).5 The practice
described there is not called the “Preparation,” yet it is the same. Other materials
 The Preparation  273

are available in Jean Vaysse’s Toward Awakening. Vaysse (c. 1917–​1975) appar-
ently met Gurdjieff in 1947. A prominent Paris cardiologist, he played a leading
role in the groups. The evidence that in the 1940s Gurdjieff taught the Preparation
to a number of his pupils is overwhelming. It is not so well known today, partly be-
cause of the discipline of secrecy, but also, I suggest, because so few of Gurdjieff ’s
students recorded it. As has been mentioned, what is not recorded is lost. The
authentic Gurdjieff techniques for Transformed-​contemplation suffered this fate
in an extreme form because, from the 1960s on, they were increasingly displaced
by de Salzmann’s “New Work” (see Section 12.5).

17.2  A Preparation by Helen Adie

George Adie said that the Preparation can never be repeated: It must always be
fresh.6 Yet, at the same time, he had many of his Preparations recorded so that the
principles would not be lost. The clue to the paradox is, perhaps, that, from the
perspective of the exercitant, the inner state required to practice the Preparation
must always be found anew: The effort must always be fresh.
There follows a transcript of a Preparation given by Helen Adie on August
23, 1978, to the group in Newport. After that, I shall set out the transcript of
one taken by George Adie. The comparison of the two should allow the skeleton
beneath them both to emerge. I have left in most of the false starts and unfin-
ished sentences. Apart from attesting to the manner in which they were given,
it provides a taste of the extempore nature of the delivery. I have numbered each
paragraph.

1. I want to make a certain kind of effort, I need to know what I want. What
do I want to find? What am I looking for? What is there now? What is the
state of my being? I begin with what I find. I want to change the level of my
being. But how is it? What is taking place?
2. I  come here with, I  have something here which wishes for something.
But—​I also bring with me some of my enemies. I need to know what I have
to struggle with. I try to put away my worries, my interests. I have only one
interest—​one interest, to come to something more real in myself, some-
thing I can trust.
3. I am helped when I am here: working with others I am helped, but some-
thing must be active. I  must find some activity in me. I  can’t just wait
passively: I have to make efforts. I have to find some control: control my
attention.
4. How are my feelings? Always there is something going on in my feeling.
I don’t know. I don’t know how to experience my feelings.
274  Exercises from Gurdjieff’s Pupils

5. First, I have to be sure that my posture is right, that my back is straight,

that my head is set on my shoulders in a relaxed way, and my chin not
stuck out, or too much tucked in. I have to make sure that my body is re-
laxed. My body is relaxed, my feelings are quiet, there may be silence in
my head.
6. To make sure that my body is relaxed, in my own time, I quickly go around
the limbs and the parts of the body in the order that we know, just to check
that there are no tensions. In my own time. But first, with my face, because
there are always tensions there. First, I make sure that my face is relaxed,
that my stomach is dropped, that it’s not pulled in . . . and now I go round
my limbs and the parts of the body . . . but not in detail, just to check. Now
I have a general sensation of myself, it is not deep, but a general impression
of my sensation.
7. I try now to get a deeper impression, part by part, beginning with my right
arm, the shoulder, try to sense more deeply . . . my upper arm, feel the life
come into it, inside the elbow, the outside of the elbow and down the back
of the forearm, the front of the forearm, back of the hand, the palm.
8. Then try to feel that sensation in my fingers, separately. Beginning with
the thumb, the nail, even of the thumb . . . then the first finger, the whole
of the finger, its backside and its underside. The point of the finger, its nail,
the little finger. I don’t lose the sensation in the rest of the arm and the
shoulder, and the third finger the same. I travel along the finger, and try to
deepen my sensation of that finger. In the same way the middle finger.
9. I find I can always deepen the relaxation, there’s always some tension . . . try
to . . . find a much finer sensation. I follow my arm and right hand, were it
touches the left hand—​it’s all taken into my experience.
10. I continue with the left leg, the thigh and the buttock, where it rests on the
chair, travel down to the knee. Feel the solidity of my knee. Completely
relaxed. The calf, the bone in the leg, travel right down to the ankles, the
instep of my foot. Try to sense the toes, separately, each toe. The sole of the
foot, and the heel. Try to feel the life now in my right leg and my right arm.
They stand out. I try not to lose that. I pass on to the left foot. The sole of
my left foot. The underneath part of the toes. Each toe separately. Continue
within the instep . . . to the ankles. Up to the shin, the calf of my leg. Feel the
life coming into it. And by itself, I find it waiting for me along the thigh, the
upper part of the thigh, the back of the thigh, where I sit on the chair, feel
the contact with the chair. I have two limbs which are alive.
11. I feel the life in them. I continue with my left arm, my left hand to begin
with, the thumb, first finger, middle finger, the third finger, the little finger.
All my fingers. Feel the way they grow from my palm. I sense the palm of
my hand, through the back of my hand.
 The Preparation  275

12. I still have not lost the sensation of the other limbs. I return to it. I don’t
need to come back, and traveling up my wrist, the inside to the forearm,
the other side, to the elbow . . . and now the upper arm, the inside of my
upper arm. Feel the roundness of my arm. The back of the upper arm to the
shoulder. I am aware of my four limbs full of sensation.
13. I wish to hold that in my attention, not to lose it. I need to be very active
inside. And the shoulder, I can feel across the back, I feel I have an area of
my back with sensation, including the spine, from the base of the spine, ver-
tebra by vertebra, the spine.
14. I make sure that my face is still relaxed. No tension has come back.
15. Now I turn to the front of my trunk, beginning with the sex organs, the
pit of the stomach, the lower part of the stomach, make sure that it is com-
pletely relaxed. It’s very difficult to maintain relaxation there. Continue up
to the solar plexus, and the chest. The neck, front of the neck, collarbone.
The back of the neck, collarbone, the back of the neck, where it meets with
the sensation of the spine.
16. Up the back of my head. The ears. The right ear. My left ear. Travel now up
the back of the head, over the top of the head, and the forehead.
17. My eyes. My eyes. Are they really relaxed? The bridge of my nose. Each side
of my nose. The nostrils. The whole of my nose. The right cheek. My left
cheek. My mouth. My lips: my upper lip and my lower lip. My chin. I find
my tongue lying relaxed.
18. And now the whole of my body is lit: lit up with sensation.
19. I try and hold that for a moment or two. I know my attention must be dis-
ciplined: I must exercise my will, because something is always waiting to
take me.
20. Try to find that experience, to get away from the head.
21. Where do I experience it?
22. Where does the impulse come from?
23. Now perhaps, the state of my physical body is different from what it was
from when I started. I am aware of this active—​something—​which is in
control.
24. Now I want to become aware of my feeling. How do I experience my feeling?
I need to know my feeling, very definitely.
25. I  try to experience my feeling without formulating words about it, or
without query. My feeling.
26. I try, in the same way, to connect that feeling to my four limbs, in my own
time, not in the same detail. I try to feel, and I connect that feeling with my
right arm, and then with the other limbs, the other parts of the body in turn.
I am very vigilant.
27. I try to add one to the other, in the same way as I did with the sensation.
276  Exercises from Gurdjieff’s Pupils

28. It doesn’t have to take long.

29. Now my body feels full, with something that is different from the sensation.
Put more attention on the breathing, without changing it in any way. I try
to get a conscious impression of myself breathing. I take in the air more
consciously.
30. I  am aware as I  take it in that I  take in special elements from the air,
higher . . . hydrogens. Higher energy.
31. I realize it is possible for me now to have more conscious impressions of
myself. I need to maintain that, so that some of the force may remain with
me. They leave a trace.
32. I try to experience my state now. Is it the same? Has it changed? Is it more
conscious? It is more alive?
33. Do I feel now, do I feel the central point that I can call “I”?
34. Am I able to say the words . . . I . . . am . . . without losing—​it’s fugitive—​
without losing the impression? I want to maintain this impression of myself
and to make this statement, because it must be true.
35. I try. Three times I try. “I” . . . “am.” [The exercitants also “I” . . . “am” three
times.]
36. I know that I can’t maintain this state exactly like this. It’s not possible.
I have to go into life. With my wish to keep my attention. To have some
sensation of myself. Try not to lose anything. I try not to go into dreams.
I try to listen in a different way. I don’t forget, it is not easy. Try not to miss
my chance, to remember what I am here for. And now I will play some
Sayyid music.

The entire Preparation took about 35 minutes. Where there were pauses in the
delivery, I have started a new paragraph. There were more and longer pauses
from paragraph 20, and especially from paragraph 30.

17.3 Commentary on the Preparation by Helen Adie

1. This sort of introduction, asking questions to prepare the exercitants for the
effort, was typical. The chief thing is to prod the exercitants to examine their
own state at the present moment.
2. At this point, Adie acknowledges that the exercitant has both desires and
resistance. They can be reconciled by an impartial commitment to coming
to:  “something more real in myself,” alluding to Gurdjieff ’s overriding
search for reality.
3. It was axiomatic in Gurdjieff groups that by coming together, an atmos-
phere could be formed, which helped all the group, and that one person
 The Preparation  277

alone could not do this. But far from meaning that one could be passive,
each person’s effort was needed. It was described as independent partici-
pation in an interdependent process. The exercitant’s tool is the control of
attention, as Adie states.
4. Adie passed from placing in question the exercitant’s general state, and
focused on the feeling. It would be futile to “decide,” as it were, what my
feeling is: One must actually experience it.
5. After introductory remarks, Adie attends to posture, and then to relaxation,
which for her comprise a relaxed body, quiet feelings, and a silent head.
Sometimes she would speak of relaxing the feelings and the thoughts.
6. Note that Adie here begins bodily relaxation with the face and then passes
to the stomach, the two parts of the body that she stressed. But this was a
preliminary exercise; she will return to relaxation at a deeper level.
7. Adie takes the exercitants through the body, in some detail, commencing
with the right arm.
8. The very fine sensation of the fingers of the right hand will not be repeated
for every part of the body, but the theory was that having gone so deeply at
the start, the attention would by itself proceed just as subtly, elsewhere, and
even more quickly, and less would need to be said.
9. The aim is not to completely abolish, as it were, tension and become utterly
relaxed: Tension and relaxation are to be calibrated so that one can retain
the most beneficial posture.
10. When Adie states, “by itself, I find it waiting for me along the thigh, the
upper part of the thigh,” she is referring to the phenomenon referred to two
paragraphs above: Once the attention has been set on its course, it proceeds
by the light of its own intelligence, so to speak. Speaking of feeling “life” in
the limbs is not simply poetical: The attention is active with an initiative
that is surer than that of the intellectual mind. As Gurdjieff said to Hulme
about an exercise: “not with knowing . . . but with sure-​ing.”7
12. Adie here gives the essential instruction that one does not sense each part of
the body, seriatim, and then move to the next. Rather, one adds the sensa-
tion of each part to the sensation of the one before, so that at the end of the
cycle, the entire body is sensed.
13. As stated, there must be a wish to hold the sensation of the whole in the
exercitant’s attention, and this requires an inner activity.
14. Adie now returns to the relaxation of the face. Gurdjieff sometimes said to
commence with relaxing the face and head, and sometimes to end with it.
He changed his advice depending on the proclivity of the person he was
speaking to: If engaged with someone who found it hard to relax the face, he
would suggest ending with it, presumably on the basis that having relaxed
other parts, the face might follow suit.8
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19. Once the whole body has been “lit up with sensation,” it is maintained
for a little before moving on to the next aspect of the exercise. As Adie
states, the attention must be disciplined because distractions are al-
ways available.
20. Another reason for remaining with the sensation is “to get away from
the head”—​that is, to have the experience of the sensation rather than
the thought of it.
22. The impulse she is asking about is the impulse to be conscious of one’s
own reality.
23. Before adding the experience of feeling to the experience of sensa-
tion, it is desirable to be able to sense that an active impulse “is in
control.”
24 and 25. As noted above, the feeling cannot be approached as directly as the
sensation: It was usual to ask about the experience of the feeling,
yet Adie instructs that it be experienced “very definitely” and
wordlessly.
26. Adie directs the exercitant to connect the feeling to the sensation of
the four limbs, thus effectively blending feeling and sensation. As the
head is directing, the three “centers” that Gurdjieff considered the
most important in daily life are now working together.
27. Adie insists that as the limbs are filled with the force of feeling, one
after the other, the experience of the limbs is accumulated, as it were.
29. It is perhaps paradoxical, but George Adie would say that when the
feeling was strong and the attention good, the feeling could be sensed,
even if it was usually the sensation that, by definition, one sensed. But
the sensation of the bodily sensation is a different one from that of the
force of feeling, which is more subtle.
30. Adie specifically states that higher hydrogens and energy enter with
the breath.
31. Again, it is axiomatic in Gurdjieff ’s Transformed-​contemplation that
when one has been more conscious, a trace is left by that experience.
33. As this implies, the purpose of the entire Preparation can be under-
stood as coming to experience: “the central point that I can call ‘I’.” It is
not necessarily meant that this is “I” in the highest form possible: There
can be intimations of its presence, and, additionally, Gurdjieff said that
before the Master (real I) comes, a more responsible “I,” or “Deputy
Steward,” can appear. The Deputy Steward prepares the way for the
Steward, and he for the Master.9
34. Adie says that the affirmation “I am” must be true, because in this
sphere, imagination is dangerous:  One will not proceed if one
believes that one has attained the final goal.
 The Preparation  279

35. Here, Adie gives the affirmation “I am” only three times, aloud. On other
occasions it will also be given silently, but more often, three times three: three
times silently, three times “breathed” with barely a murmur, and three times
very softly voiced.
Not all of Gurdjieff ’s pupils used the affirmation “I am” at the end of the
Preparation, although Claustres knew of it (oral communication). Willem
Nyland (1890–​1975), a personal pupil of Gurdjieff, knew of its use at the end
of the relaxation exercise he taught.10
36. Adie would then play music as a sort of intermediate state between the full
collected state and the conditions of the social domain. She emphasizes that
one cannot maintain the state of the Preparation in life but can have the
influence of it, with more sensation of myself and fewer dreams. After the
Preparation, the state is continued wordlessly, as an influence. The Sayyid
music is from Gurdjieff ’s oeuvre.

17.4  A Preparation by George Adie

This Preparation was taken by George Adie on June 9, 1982, again at Newport in
Sydney. After some introductory comments, he said:

1. How do we understand this event, this beginning of a new session? . . . What

is the purpose of this work about?
2. It’s an expansion of consciousness, and in that consciousness has to be an
understanding, eventually, of all the necessary elements, of all the aspects.
How could it afford to omit any? And then some aspects are more important
than others, they have a degree of importance.
3. We have this as the aim, but it depends upon work. Do we realize that we
actually come to work together? . . . How am I going to work? How are you
going to work? . . . How?
(Pause)
4. How? There’s the question. . . . Before it was mentioned, it was hardly there
like it is now. “How” is the question for me; how, how do I work?
5. Our whole chance arises because we work together. For a moment perhaps,
I remember myself. Then conditions inwardly change, then finer material is
received, it’s transformed, and emanated. And then I forget, I go to sleep, but
someone else is working. We have eighty here, so there is all that more possi-
bility of a sum of consciousness between us. This isn’t a fantasy, this is a fact,
much more factual than all our thoughts of the day.
6. So, we are engaged on work. How? What is our tool? Our tool is our at-
tention. We work with that. And we work to expand our attention. It’s an
280  Exercises from Gurdjieff’s Pupils

expansion of consciousness, it’s an expansion of our attention. We have very

little chance unless we gradually acquire the capacity to have attention in our
three bodies, in our mind, in our feeling, and in our sensation.
7. Remember how it is said that everything has to have those three elements: the
affirming, the denying and the reconciling; otherwise—​nothing. So, for my
consciousness there has to be that: that awareness in my mind, my body, and
my feeling. So this is a tremendous event. In a moment we will sit for a little
while together, working inwardly, and then perhaps we will find the useful-
ness of these thoughts.

Adie then began the Preparation proper.

8. When we prepare, we represent our envelope for a meter around. This is the
actual circle of our radiation. We represent that, and we go inside that. And
we go inside that with the intention of working. We close the eyes, and the
first thing is not to let our thought go outside that envelope. We are now
in it. It is our inner, it is our holy of holies, it is our oratory, it’s our . . . our
inner place.
9. We don’t let our thoughts go outside that. Many thoughts can be there,
dreams, but I  am all inside now, I  am working inside. And immediately
something occurs which would take my mind out, I don’t go out. I wish that
my thoughts would stop, that they would die down. If I try and resist them
direct, they only increase.
10. So how do I work? I work through beginning to divide my attention, to di-
rect it. I begin by directing my attention, with the aid of my head, onto my
body . . . not just generally on my body, but very specifically on the parts of
my body. I start, in this case, with the right arm, with the right hand. The
hand is resting on my thigh; the right hand is resting inside the left hand,
with the thumbs touching, and I can feel on the gaps between the fingers, the
backs of the fingers of the right hand, I can feel the pads of the finger of the
left hand. I sense them, I have the sensation. Immediately, I begin to see the
fact of that sensation which previously I was unaware of.
11. Now I let my attention, I direct it upwards, travel upwards, into the palm
of the hand, into the wrist, up into the forearm. I trace the consciousness
of sensation, up into the triceps, the bicep, the hollow underneath the arm,
the shoulder. There’s the peripheral sensation of the right arm. Definite.
Consciousness beginning in that arm. Because this is a peripheral sensation,
there are sensations much deeper inside. There is the sensation in the bones,
in the veins, in the nerves, very fine inner sensation.
12. Well, there is the sensation of that right arm. Before I pass to the right leg,
I just check on my posture, the posture, the spine quite erect, and the head
 The Preparation  281

not thrust forward, not tilted upwards, but as perfectly balanced as I can on
the spine, easily, so that the head can turn to the right, or to the left, so that
it is not poked forward, because it’s a very heavy member, and if it is poked
forward, a lot of unnecessary work is being done, and the apertures through
which the impressions and the material has to flow become closed.
13. This is the vertical line of the chakras right there. They have to be open, and
they have to be erect for that purpose. Not tensely rigid, but perfectly bal-
anced, like the body of a serpent.
14. Now I return to that arm, but I see that I have already acquired some sen-
sation in the spine. I don’t let that go. To the spine, which runs right up to
the base of the crown of the head, and to the right arm, now I add the right
leg. I pass on with my attention to the right leg; I start with the hipbone,
right down, over the thigh and the knee; feel the sensation, as it were, flowing
down into the shin and the calf of the leg, into the instep, the ankle. Sole of
the foot. Toes. And return upwards.
15. While I do this, I haven’t left the arm behind, I still sense that. I still sense
the spine. Now I  have the right half of the members of the body there
unquestionably.
16. Now I pass on, adding each limb as I come to it. And I find perhaps, when
I  come to the left leg, it’s already waiting for me, the sensation, it almost
springs at me. There it is, the left foot, the ankle, the shin, the knee.
17. As I follow up, I still maintain this posture, but now I am dividing my atten-
tion. I am expanding my attention. And there is the left leg added right up to
the spine, right up to the hip, so that I have my spine, the right arm, the right
leg, the left leg, and now the left arm.
18. I have not time for thoughts and wandering thoughts. I just follow carefully
these factual parts of the body.
19. Now I add the area of the sex organs, sensation, the very base, the adhara
lotus, and then into the pot-​shaped, the bottom of the stomach, the pit of the
stomach: what in Zen Buddhism is the tan-​dien.
20. The diaphragm, I let it fall down. I don’t push the belly out but nevertheless it
isn’t drawn in and up; it’s allowed to round itself out.
21. Now the solar plexus, the breast. And now again the head, balanced, finely
balanced.
22. Now with that balance, I begin to notice my breath. I never interfere with my
breathing, but I turn some on it. I don’t leave the sensation of my body, but
I divide my attention. I leave enough attention on the body to be aware of all
those parts separately and together, and I begin to notice the entry of the air
as it comes in, and the impact of that air in the breast. And I may or may not
notice a force rising from the pit of the stomach to meet it, to meet the in-
coming air which creates this impact which I sense in the breast, in the solar
282  Exercises from Gurdjieff’s Pupils

plexus. But that is not all: There is another thing, there is something of feeling
there, which is quite different from the sensation. It is another experience, it
is the experience of the body of feeling.
23. Without losing this overall sensation, which can even increase now, I begin
to have this different experience of the rhythm of the breath, and the force of
that mingling of two energies in the breast, the solar plexus, and the rhythm
of it as it flows down into the pit of the stomach, is also the upward move-
ment of the part that is not used.
24. And then the rising from the stomach again to meet the incoming next
breath. Now I begin to really feel the force of that, not only in the pit of the
stomach, but flying into the rest of the body. Into the arms, and again, this
is a proof to me, because previously I had a sensation in the arms, I have it
now, but there is also this added force of the breath coming in, and I see also,
the sensation is more marked peripherally, and that this other force of the
mingling of the air is more centrally placed.
25. If I am very well balanced, I might be able to perceive something of great
fineness entering in through the center of the cranium; there is an aperture
there, in the center of the skull, at the top of the skull, something of incredible
fineness, which mingles with the air as it comes in.
26. This is a sort of triple-​feeding, a feeding of this “I,” a very fine high ele-
ment in through the head, this breath of life, this sensation of the body,
the spine erect, everything relaxed within its right place. The tongue very
limp, not tense, lying in the mouth, the sides of the tongue touching the
insides of the teeth. The mouth not drawn down at the corners. The eyes
very relaxed in the sockets. I feel the sensation: the skull, right over the top
of the skull.
27. I begin to have the whole of experience, the sensation definite and separate,
the feeling, the feeling, the force, and this added something, altogether, as
one whole of experience. Now I seek to interfere with nothing. I seek . . . My
thought is entirely inside.
28. I  work. How economical is this work! My thought passes, my attention
passes, to one limb, or simultaneously to all limbs, connected, and yet also
present clearly. The rhythm of the breath.
29. Now my body begins to awaken me, and help to maintain this balance be-
cause immediately attention is lost in that part, it begins to even call me, and
my attention is even helped back to that part. There is the consciousness of
the body, the bodily consciousness. I don’t have to be persuaded, it’s a fact
for me. There is this unquestionable sensation: a fact. And there is no doubt,
there is this other kind of experience, maybe I can’t describe it, but I don’t
need to describe this force of air which I take in, which I feel in the solar
plexus, and this finer reality.
 The Preparation  283

30. In my possibility of refraining from tension, refraining from any doing in

the ordinary sense. My first doing is to refrain from doing. I interfere with
nothing. I work with my attention. Within this envelope, my effort is doing
for being. I now have conscious, relatively conscious being. I cannot sus-
tain it for an indefinite period. It is possible for a limited period, and before
it starts to degenerate, I terminate it.
31. And I wish to test my state. Perhaps I test it in this way. With three breaths,
three times, silently, on the in breath, silently I say “I” . . . and on the out
breath “am.” Three times. I experience “I” connected with all my feeling,
in the solar plexus, and “am” silently, connected with my spine and all my
sensation . . . with the rhythm of the breath.
32. I test it three times with my breath. I breathe, for this I have to have my
mouth open. “I am.” I feel, I experience the opening of this duct right down
through my breast, right down into the pit of my stomach, with all my
feeling, with all my sensing.
33. I force nothing, it’s very quiet, but I don’t make the mistake of doing it with
my mouth closed. “I” . . . “am.” And now three times I murmur, and this is
audible, I wish to experience that vibration, and it has to be as quiet as pos-
sible, not forced.
34. “I am” with all my feeling. “I” with all my sensation, the spine. “I am.” “I
am.” “I am.”
35. Presently I open my eyes, but I don’t lose this state when I open my eyes.
The state has to change, but I try not to lose it all. I force nothing. When
I open my eyes I have to allow impressions to enter, but I do not have to
sacrifice all of this; something can be retained, the balance, the awareness.
The impact of the impression coming in will certainly affect it. Enough.

17.5  Commentary on the Preparation by George Adie

I shall not deal with matters that have been adequately addressed when
commenting on the Preparation by Helen Adie.

1–​4. As with Helen Adie’s Preparation, initial animation by a question is

considered important. Adie here refers to the integrated unity of all
Gurdjieff ’s ideas and methods but states that there is, nonetheless, a hier-
archy of importance.
5. Adie explains why it is that “our whole chance arises because we work to-
gether.” There being eighty people together, some at least will remember
themselves, even if only briefly. But that is sufficient to receive, transform,
and, most significantly, to emanate finer material. Even if those who have
made that effort lose their way, they have helped others present, whose
own work will help the others.
284  Exercises from Gurdjieff’s Pupils

6 and 7. It is critical in Gurdjieff ’s method to understand that “our tool is our at-
tention . . . and we work to expand our attention.” One of the specificities
of the Gurdjieff method is that one strives to have an active attention
simultaneously in mind, feeling, and sensation. Adie means that in
any effort to have this simultaneous attention of the three, one of these
impulses will enter the exercitant’s presence as the affirming, denying,
and reconciling forces of Gurdjieff ’s Law of Three. He then states that in
their common work they may “find the usefulness of these thoughts.”
8 and 9. The coming inside an “envelope” was seen in Section 11.6, Gurdjieff ’s
Atmosphere Exercise. Adie says that one meter is the extent of our
radiations, these being the substances automatically produced by the
organism, while the emanations of paragraph 5 are produced by a con-
scious effort and so disclose the nature of one’s individuality, not only
one’s mass. Adie does not say that the envelope can be directly sensed,
but rather that it is represented. To “go inside” it is to not allow thought
to stray to anything outside that sphere. In Gurdjieff ’s system, thought
is quite literally material and can be restrained. Interestingly, Adie uses
religious language to describe the atmosphere in which one makes this
effort: “holy of holies” and “oratory.”
10. Here Adie began with the sensation of the right hand. In her Preparation,
Helen Adie commenced with the face, and in the Preparation of August
14, 1985, Adie commenced with the feet.11 One could say that it does
not matter where one starts, only provided that one starts. I suspect that
Adie began with the feet more and more because, the feet resting on
the ground, their sensation is clearer. In the Second Assisting Exercise,
Gurdjieff had his pupils sense the right foot before adding awareness of
the breath, etc. This goes to show how the Preparation was given as a
flexible template, and one could improvise.
11. Here Adie speaks both of directing the attention and of tracing it. Both
active direction and passive following of the sensation are appropriate—​
first to start the process, and then to observe it. It is also typical of Adie
to speak of a sensation deeper than the skin, in the bones, veins, nerves,
and, he would sometimes say, the atoms.
12. Although a good, meaning a serviceable, posture is basic, Adie often
came to it only after the sensation had been aroused. This makes taking
a conscious posture easier. The balancing of the head on the spine is
critical, partly because, as Adie says here, it was his experience that
unless the head is upright and even on the neck and shoulders, those
areas could not be fully sensed: Perhaps the resulting tensions would
make it harder to sense them. The apertures referred to are first of all
the throat and the eyes, but also the mouth, internal passages, and the
sutures on the top of the head.
 The Preparation  285

13. This is the only occasion I know of when Adie referred to the “chakras.”
It is more usual, in Gurdjieff circles, to speak of the “centers.” Adie
would have had in mind the seven centers of Gurdjieff ’s system, but
White states: “The number [of chakras] is variable: certain systems
describe a system of nine, twelve, or even twenty-​seven cakras.”12
Adie says that while the line of the chakras must be erect so that they
may be open, they are not to be “tensely rigid,” but rather “perfectly
balanced, like the body of a serpent.” Adie spoke more often of the
spine being balanced and without unnecessary tension than of its
being erect.
14 and 15. Adie mentions several times that the sensation of each part is included
in the exercitant’s consciousness with the sensation already there.
18. Adie does not advise that one should oppose one’s thoughts, but one
should be so busy with the exercise that they do not distract. The head
is acting to keep the exercise going, and if that is all the thought one
has, that is no problem. Adie would often advise that one work at this
practice with a thoughtless awareness.
19. Just as important as the adhara or muladhara chakra (the sex
center, in Gurdjieff ’s terms) is the “pot-​shaped,” the tan-​dien. Adie,
like many in the Gurdjieff groups, was impressed by the writings
of Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, who mentioned the concepts of tan-​
dien and hara (belly).13 So important was he to the Gurdjieff groups
that de Salzmann visited him.14 However, Adie could also have been
singling out the belly because, as de Salzmann stated, Gurdjieff had
“always pointed to this place as the center of gravity of the being,
the point where the second body is attached to the first.”15 Adie
certainly stated that that area was or could be a center of gravity
(whether he thought it was always the center is another question),
but I have no other authority for the idea of it as the site of connec-
tion of two bodies. I have not come across that statement elsewhere.
20. If a part of the body was tense, Adie would allow one to touch or even
slap it in order to better sense it, and so be able to relax it. But more
often he preferred, as here, to observe the part and let it take a more re-
laxed position simply by virtue of the attention releasing the holding.
22. Once the body has been raised to conscious sensation, one adds ob-
servation of the breath, and especially of its impact in the breast.
Adie would often speak of two meeting forces:  one descending
through sutures at the crown of the skull, and the other ascending
from the sex organs and pit of the stomach. These forces then mingle,
and the result of that blending is often noticeable in the region of the
solar plexus.
286  Exercises from Gurdjieff’s Pupils

Rarely, as he does here, Adie mentioned the experience of the body

of feeling. But the formation of the astral body, which is the body of
feeling, is crucial in the Gurdjieff system.
23. As the two energies blend, part of the breath is exhaled, while part of
it is retained.
24 and 25. In Gurdjieff ’s thought, because the force that attends on the blending
of the subtle energies is so fine, it spreads throughout the body almost
at once—​far more quickly than the sensation, and more quickly than
the force that accompanies the breath. Hence Adie speaks of that en-
ergy “flying into the rest of the body.” As that energy works in the
body, the exercitant’s awareness of the sensation is said to become
even stronger. The force of the “mingling of the air is more centrally
placed,” partly because it takes place in and around the solar plexus,
and partly because it brings with it a sense of presence wherein the
consciousness is experienced not so much in the head but along a
central line, focused at certain key points.
26. Although Adie is coming to the end of the Preparation, a finer pos-
ture is demanded by the effort, including a deeper relaxation of the
tongue, mouth, and eyes.
29. The Preparation comes to an experience of “this finer reality.”
30. Adie often spoke of the ability to refrain from acting as being the mark
of the master. Here he enjoins the exercitant to refrain from tension,
and also “from any doing in the ordinary sense.”
31 and 32. In giving the “I am” thrice three times, Adie follows the more usual
custom. It was critical for him to be able to sense the duct, what he
often called the “organ pipe,” from the crown of the head down to the
base of the sex organs.
Adie sometimes improvised by ending the Preparation by
sounding the word “Aieioiuoa,” from Beelzebub. In that book, this
word is said to be the name of a “fundamental cosmic second-​degree
law,” or “Remorse.”16 Of it, Gurdjieff says:

[T]‌his cosmic law is, that there proceeds within every arising large
and small, when in direct touch with the emanations either of the
Sun Absolute itself or of any other sun, what is called “Remorse,”
that is a process when every part that has arisen from the results
of any one Holy Source of the Sacred Triamazikamno, as it were,
“revolts” and “criticizes” the former unbecoming perceptions and the
manifestations at the moment.17
 The Preparation  287

I interpret this to mean that when one comes into contact with a higher
reality (the emanations of a sun), one sees where one has fallen short,
and feels remorse. I once asked Adie why he used this word there, and he
replied: “Perhaps it corresponds to the feeling of genuine remorse.” This
was connected with how the Preparation was meant to be, quite literally,
a Preparation for life in the social domain: Thus, one could go into that life
having seen how one has been, regretted it, and changed.
Adie also told me that he had always felt that the spelling of the word
Aieioiuoa did not quite correspond to the sound he felt it should have. He
had amended it in his book. When the French translation was published,
it was exactly the same: “Aïeïoïouoa.” That is, there was an additional “o”
before the “u,” and it is clear that the three “i”s are each separately and dis-
tinctly pronounced.18 Adie also believed that this word, Aïeïoïouoa, was
ideal for the “final straightening” of what he called “the organ pipe.” On
some occasions, Adie would even pronounce it thrice.
Whether he used Aïeïoïouoa or not, Adie would often end the
Preparation with a word he pronounced “Ah-​mon.” I once asked him what
it was, and he replied that it was “Amen.” I asked him why he pronounced
it that way, and he responded that he did so because that was how Gurdjieff
had pronounced it. Adie had retained Gurdjieff ’s pronunciation perhaps
because of Gurdjieff ’s view that the pronunciation of certain words had a
virtue if sounded in a particular way.
35. The Preparation should be given a definite and clean end, rather than being
allowed to meander along. On March 30, 1982, Adie said:

I should go from it willingly . . . I cannot stay seated in my room, and catch

the bus, and get paid for my day’s work at the same time. It doesn’t follow.
If I sit for a quarter of an hour that is mine, then I am a person who has sat,
who has made an effort. There is an record of effort inside of me that tends to
make me more aware of impressions. . . . you could say that every morning’s
Preparation is the creation of facts. Creation of reality for the day. I begin to
create facts. . . . Then it is not a question of “seems”; the fact is it was. I was
there. There’s no doubt about it. And I can remember the state.19

Adie stressed that if one got up from the Preparation in a hurry, returning
too quickly to “life” (the social domain), and allowed any random manifesta-
tion, it not only accelerated the dissipation of the collected state, but the ben-
eficial effects of the entire Preparation could be lost. Compare, in this respect,
Gurdjieff ’s words at the close of the Four Ideals Exercise about the need to “rest
contained” so that the “results” could be “assimilated.”
288  Exercises from Gurdjieff’s Pupils

17.6  The Purpose of the Preparation

The purpose of the Preparation can be stated in many complementary ways.

However, perhaps the most important aspect of all is that it is intended to com-
mence a line of activity, employing an esoteric understanding of the Law of
Seven, as outlined in Section 2.2. That is, the exercitants strike the note “DO”
at the start of their day, and bringing to their mind the likely events of the next
sixteen hours or so, make a plan so that their conscious aim can continue to in-
fluence the entire day, rather than fading out when the octave comes to one of the
lawful intervals. On October 7, 1986, Adie stated:

I go from a full night’s sleep to a waking sleep. That is the ordinary course: from
sleep to waking sleep. But in that passage is the best time to try and go from
sleep to awakening, to really awake, when my consciousness is working. I’ve got
a little while there, it’s the best time. It’s not the only time. Any time I remember
is a good time. But that time is a special time when I have a little, a little good
clean energy left from the night, a certain amount, and in a jiffy it’s going to go
there and there, and there, and I’m just an automaton again.
If I can take the first ten or fifteen minutes, and really work to become
balanced and erect, and breathing, and know it, and with regard to people and
my life, acknowledging the gift of my life, and then, as a result of that, trying to
think: “Now what can I do today that will not just let all that go by the board?”
And you choose a certain number of specific things, or one specific thing, and
try and work on that.

In other words, Adie was suggesting that when we are awake we are already on a
trajectory from sleep to waking, and that “wave,” as it were, can be used to pass
from “waking sleep” to “clear awareness” or “self-​consciousness,” the third level
of consciousness in Gurdjieff ’s schema.20
Henriette Lannes (1899–​1980), a personal pupil of Gurdjieff, wrote of the
Preparation:

During this attempt at calm work, we draw nearer to the possibility of knowing
a state of being where it is not a question of doing something but of silently
experiencing impressions connected to our internal reality. This state is a state
of non-​doing.21 [The author’s translation]

The notes of Jane Heap (1887–​1964), a personal pupil of Gurdjieff, record:

In morning when doing preparation my aim is to keep myself separate from all
these things:
 The Preparation  289

All cares of the day—​

All tiny things that have to be decided—​
All little grievances—​
All that I have to fight that pulls me away from the state that I want to be
in—​in my preparation.

But when I come into life my effort is to be somewhere where I can observe
myself at certain moments—​without losing all memory of my prepara-
tion when there is a struggle.22

We possess few of Gurdjieff ’s own words on this, but these, the statements of
his students, point to the common source.

17.7  The Details of the Preparation: Time and Posture

Vaysse states that the amount of time required in the Preparation is variable, and
that each person must decide, but equally, that we need to “promise ourselves”
to come to “complete relaxation” at least once or twice a day.23 Demonstrating
that the time to be spent depends on the person and the person’s situation,
Ripman variously limits the Preparation (which he called the “Collection”) to
five minutes, ten minutes, and also thirty minutes, in the latter case to obtain a
deeper sense of relaxation.24
George Adie considered that (1)  unbending rules were not possible, and
(2)  one always had to be practical. However, he did state that anything less
than seven minutes for the main Preparation of the day was the absolute min-
imum, and he preferred somewhere between ten and twenty minutes. However,
on occasions, much longer might be needed, and the time to be spent quietly
afterwards “digesting” the results was to be between ten and twenty minutes it-
self. This totals twenty to forty minutes.
Vaysse provides a rather detailed treatment of the necessary posture, rele-
vantly stating:

[F]‌irst of all, we have to take a position suitable to work of this kind. Any such
posture must be stable in itself, comfortable, and without strain of any kind.
For us, the one which is probably the best is simply sitting in a straight-​backed
chair . . . with the lower back supported or not, but with the pelvis well-​balanced,
the body erect and the head straight, that is, neither too low (which is a sign of
inertia and even sleep) nor too high (a sign of running away into the intellect
and ideas and even imagination). . . . The knees should be at right angles and the
feet close together or only slightly apart, flat on the ground.25
290  Exercises from Gurdjieff’s Pupils

Referring to circuits of energy that move through the body, Vaysse asserts
that this posture allows “a free flow everywhere within us for all these circuits
of energy.”26 He makes a number of other comments about the correct posture
or placing of the various parts of the body, especially the hands, spine, neck, and
head, concluding that the ideal posture, if possible, is the “lotus position,” taken
on the floor, with slightly raised buttocks, using a cushion of a height appropriate
to each individual.27 The late Dr.  John Lester, who often visited Gurdjieff be-
tween 1946 and 1949, told me that Gurdjieff himself always sat on the floor when
showing them the Preparation and various exercises.
Rather typical of statements about the posture of the head is Ripman’s advice
to “try to balance your head so that it rests lightly on your spine. Feel as though it
were being supported by a thread going up from the crown of your head.”28
Touching the “posture,” so to speak, of the eyes, Adie would say that the eyes
should not be tightly shut, lest that induce tension not only in the eyes but else-
where as well. Rather, he would say, the eyelids were to be gently lowered not so
much to shut out visual impressions as to turn inside. Conversely, he also paid
significant attention to the way in which the eyes were opened at the end of the
Preparation. Helen Adie would often advise that when they had been opened, to
slowly close them, and then re-​open them, and then to close and re-​open them.
The idea was to make the return from the special state of the Preparation to that
of activity a deliberate one, and especially not to reintroduce tensions.

17.8  Willpower and Transformation

Adie often recommended, especially in one-​on-​one meetings, that persons faced

with a particular knotty problem should sit alone, quietly, without distractions,
and ponder. That meant that they were to collect themselves, as in the
Preparation, and then, when they were present and their associations were rela-
tively quiet, to bring the problem before them. The difference between thinking
and pondering was, for Adie, that thinking was a one-​centered activity: It was
the activity of the intellectual brain, and could be done better or worse, with the
lower or the higher parts of the intellect. Pondering, on the other hand, was a
three-​centered work: One would raise sensation to consciousness, then feeling,
and then call up the problem, rejecting bad ideas, and awaiting a good quality of
thought. A real idea, Adie would say, brings with it a powerful feeling of myself
present to it: I remember myself at that moment.
Related to this was the development of willpower. The secret here, according
to Adie, was again to come to the collected state, to free oneself from any purely
selfish desires, and in that state to consider the occasion for which one needed
that willpower. It was axiomatic in Gurdjieff that one could not develop will
 The Preparation  291

unless and until one was relatively free from negative emotion, and had a need
for it. Perhaps one could say that one had to have a good reason for requiring
willpower; otherwise, persons with negative emotions and willpower would be a
danger to everyone else and to themselves. Adie gave as an example how he had
to have a meeting with his father, who had been refusing to speak with him for
a while. He made a Preparation beforehand. Then, when he had collected him-
self, he came to his aim in attending the meeting, and how he had to allow his
parents some satisfaction. When the confrontation came, he was ready. It was
not so much that he had prepared what to say as that he had prepared his being-​
state (i.e., the state he would be in). He heard his father out, chose one small point
to dispute so that his father did not imagine that he was remaining calm because
he was indifferent, and the hoped-​for reconciliation was achieved.
As noted, one was to end the Preparation by making a plan for the day. For
example, one might make a plan that one would come to oneself at 9 a.m., noon,
3 p.m., 6 p.m., and 9 p.m., and internally or out loud make an affirmation such as
“I am,” trying to sense one’s presence. In addition, one might know that one was
to meet a certain individual at 11 a.m. for an important meeting, and would plan
to retain some sensation in, say, the right foot during that meeting. The idea was
that these appointments and this small task would mean that one would not be
taken by events as customary: The practice would make a connection with the
morning work.
However, in addition, Adie recommended that a short Preparation be made
before going to bed. On March 30, 1982, he said:

I should do some Preparation at night, not a long, long one, but something to
give myself a chance of being there in the morning, to have some continuity. . . .
It’s a question of stretching our total experience if we can. Am I prepared to try
and make continuity with my life: night, morning? Otherwise what am I trying
for? I am trying to be a sort of god, permanent I, with all sorts of powers yet
I can barely stand the thought of connecting the night and the morning.29

There is an idea, related to concepts in Beelzebub called “Djartklom,”30 that by

separately and simultaneously raising to consciousness each of the three main
faculties (intellect, feelings, and sensation), they can be combined in the course
of the Preparation so that one can exercise a truly human willpower during the
day. I have set out the details elsewhere, but my conclusion is that

by remaining within calmly the crucible of one’s atmosphere, the three internal
forces can be separated out and their operation consciously directed. . . . This
also has the corollary that the negative force, the resistance, is an integral part
of the entire operation: it is not to be excluded but rather to be employed in the
292  Exercises from Gurdjieff’s Pupils

transformation of forces. The resistance is as essential to the Preparation as it

is to a carpenter when hammering in a nail, for the resistance provides a def-
inite object for the application of the positive force, and the entering in of the
neutralizing. The three forces are always present in us, on this theory, but only
by not identifying with the negative or denying force, can it be seen with any
objectivity.31

The Preparation became the pillar of Gurdjieff ’s practical methods.

Notes

1. Gurdjieff (2017) 151. Similar advice was given throughout 1943: Gurdjieff (2017) 66–​
67, 230, and 256.
2. Gurdjieff (2017) 317–​318.
3. Gurdjieff (2009) 147.
4. Gurdjieff (2009) 147.
5. Ripman (2009) v–​viii.
6. Cited in Azize (2017) 42.
7. Hulme (1997) 71–​72.
8. Oral communication from a source who wishes to remain anonymous.
9. Ouspensky (1949) 60–​61.
10. Azize (2017) 50.
11. Azize (2017) 44.
12. White (1996) 367, n.95.
13. Adie often referred to Dürckheim (1962).
14. http://​www.gurdjiefflegacy.org/​40articles/​realityofbeing.htm, accessed June 26,
2017, but the fact was reasonably well known in the Gurdjieff groups.
15. De Salzmann (2010) 139–​140. This is surprising: If Gurdjieff mentioned it so often,
why is it not found in records either of his writings or of what he said? It is, however,
stated in the sayings of Master Okada found at the back of Dürckheim (1956) 195,
“Tanden ist der Schrien des Göttlichen,” translated in (1962) 176.
16. Gurdjieff (1950) 140–​141.
17. Gurdjieff (1950) 141.
18. Gurdjieff (1983) 140.
19. Unpublished transcript.
20. Ouspensky (1949) 141–​142.
21. Lannes (2003) 17.
22. Heap (1994) 21.
23. Vaysse (1979) 162–​163 and 165–​166.
24. Ripman (1999) 68, 81–​82.
25. Vaysse (1979) 163.
26. Vaysse (1979) 164.
 The Preparation  293

27. Vaysse (1979) 163–​164.

28. Ripman (1999) 68.
29. Unpublished transcript.
30. Gurdjieff (1950) 140.
31. Azize (2017) 56–​57.