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the three lines of work—what each line means, why they are necessary, what is necessary for each of them and so on. The profit you may get is always proportionate to your understanding. The more consciously you work, the more you can get. That is why it is so important that all this should be explained and understood. Q. How does one need three lines of work? A. In the beginning all depends on the mind—mind must be educated, it must awake. Later it will depend on emotion. For this one needs a school, one must meet other people who know more than one does oneself and one must discuss things with them. Certainly, it you remain by yourself you will forget the things you learn because there are so many momentums in us that things just disappear from our mind. That is why a man cannot work alone and only the combined work of many people together can produce the necessary results. There are many obstacles, many factors which keep us asleep and make it impossible for us to awake. Things WE learn will just disappear if nothing helps them, and what can help them? Only other people around. First one must work on acquiring knowledge, material, practice. Then, when one has got a certain amount, one begins to work with other people in such a way that one person is useful to another and helps another On the second line, because of a certain special organization, one is in a position to work for other people, not only for oneself And later one may understand in which way one may be useful to the school It is all a question of understanding. On the third line you work for the school only, not for yourself. If you work on those three lines, after some time this organization will become a school for you, but for other people, who work only on one line, it will not be a school. You remember I said that a school is an organization where you can not only acquire knowledge but also change your being. A school of this nature is not always the same, it has magical qualities and may be one kind of school for one person and something quite different for another person. You must understand that all you can receive, all ideas, all possible knowledge, all help, comes from school. But the school does not guarantee anything. Take an ordinary university where only knowledge and instruction are given. It can guarantee you a certain amount of knowledge, but even that only if you work. But when the idea of change of being enters, no guarantee is possible, so people may be in the same school, in the same organization, and may be on different levels. Q. You spoke of the aims and needs of the school. Could you tell us what they are? A. First we must prepare ourselves for understanding them. We have school ideas, so we must make use of them: that will help us to understand schools. If we do nothing ourselves and talk about schools, it will only create imagination and nothing more. We must draw profit from the
ideas we have: if we draw no profit from them, schools will not exist for us. You must have your own aim and it must coincide with the aim of the school, it must enter into it. Q. Does the difference between the first and the third lines mean that a school has aims apart from the advancement of its members, such, for instance, as perpetuating its own knowledge? A. Not only. There may be many things, because it is taken in a different line of time. In relation to yourself you can take only the present. In relation to school—a longer time. It may help if I remind you how this work began. A very long time ago I came to the conclusion that many things existed in man that could be awakened, but I saw that this did not lead anywhere, because one moment they were awakened and another moment they disappeared, since there was no control. So I realized that school was necessary and I began to look for a school, again in connection with these powers which I called 'miraculous'. Eventually I found a school and found many ideas. These are the ideas we are studying now. For this study, an organization is necessary, first, in order that people could learn these ideas and, secondly, in order that they should be prepared for a further stage. This is one of the reasons for an organization, and only those people can have a place in it who have done something for themselves already. As long as they are in the power of false personality they cannot be useful, either to themselves or to the work. So the first aim of everyone who is interested in the work is to study himself and find what must be changed. Only when certain things are changed does one become ready for active work. One thing must be connected with another. One must understand that personal study is connected with the organization and with the study of general ideas. With the help of these ideas we can find much more: the more you have, the more you can find. Work is never at an end—the end is far. It cannot be theoretical, each of these ideas must become practical. There are many things in this system that an ordinary man cannot invent. Some things one can discover by oneself; some other things one can understand only if one is given them, but not otherwise; and there is a third kind of things which one cannot understand at all. It is necessary to understand these gradations. Q. It seems to me that what we have been learning so far was theory, and now we need to make it a matter of personal practice? A. Quite right. Only it is wrong to think that until now everything was theoretical. From the first lecture you were given material for self-observation and for practical work. You must not think that this is the beginning of something new that has not existed before. Q. What form of work could we have other than lectures and discussions? A. You must think what you need besides discussion. You need instruc-
tion, you need to be shown the way. One cannot find the way by oneself; it is the state of human beings that they can be shown the way but they cannot find it by themselves. You see, to put it more clearly, you enter the second line of work in this way: these groups have been going on for some time, and there were people and groups before you. One of the principles of school-work is that one can get instruction and advice not only from me but also from people who have been studying before you came, perhaps for many years. Their experience is very important for you, because, even if I wished it, I could not give you more time than is possible for me. Other people have to supplement what I can give you, and you, on your side, must learn how to use them, how to profit by their experience, how to get from them what they can give you. Experience shows that in order to get what it is possible to get from these ideas a certain organization is necessary, organization of groups of people not only for discussing things but also for working together, as, for instance, in the garden, in the house or on the farm, or doing some other work that can be organized and started. When people work together at anything for the sake of experience, they begin to see in themselves and in other people different things which they do not notice when they just discuss. Discussion is one thing and work is another. So in all schools there exist different kinds of organized work, and people can always find what will suit them without unnecessary sacrifices, because sacrifices are not expected. But you must think about it, you must realize that so far people have looked after you, talked to you, helped you. Now you have to learn to look after yourselves, and later you will have not only to look after yourselves but also after new people. This also will be part of your work. The chief point I speak about is understanding. I mean understanding of the work, of the necessity of work, of the requirements of the work, the general plan of the work, and interest in it all. This is what is obligatory. One cannot understand the methods of the work until one understands its general direction. And when one understands the direction, it will help one to understand many other things that one wants to understand. You see, one cannot avoid one's share in this part of the work. If for one or another reason one avoids it, one cannot acquire any more. Some people do not understand the very beginning of work; they do not think about work as work; they take it in the ordinary way. There is one thing that is necessary, obligatory, after a certain time, and this is valuation, because one cannot work without it. On the one hand people want to work, but on the other they want to take things in the same way as usual. But if they want to work, everything in reference to the work must be regarded differently, everything—and they think they can take things in the same way. What I find lacking is work and understanding of
work and valuation of work. Valuation is lacking chiefly. Everything is taken for granted, and at the same time it is taken from an ordinary point of view. As a result nothing changes. Much depends on personal attitude and personal work. A school for one person is not a school for another. Q. How can one have the right attitude and valuation? A. First of all, before beginning to study, one must decide what one really wants to know. It is quite possible that what we study here will not interest one, one may find that one does not need it at all. So one must try to find more or less what one wants, otherwise one may only waste one's time. This is first. Secondly, one must understand certain fundamental principles, otherwise one will fail to understand many other things; something will always stand in the way of one's understanding. A very important principle is that a person cannot study the system alone, and it is necessary to understand why. There are many reasons. The first reason is very simple and obvious—one cannot have a teacher all to oneself. If one finds someone who can teach this system, he will not spend his time on one person. And without someone who can explain things and work with one, one can do nothing. Secondly, if one works alone, or tries to, one cannot put someone else in one's place, and at a certain moment this becomes very necessary in order to pass to the next degree of knowledge and being. You will remember what I said about the staircase in the first lecture, in connection with the explanation of the growth of magnetic centre and the work following? I said that a man can rise to the next step of the staircase only by putting another man in his place. This means that one climbs up this staircase which represents the difference in levels between ordinary life and what is called the Way. The Way does not begin on the same level as ordinary life, one has to go up higher to reach it. This means that the level of our understanding, our ordinary mind, even our ordinary feelings have to be changed. Only, in thinking about putting other people in one's place, it is very important to avoid one dangerous mistake. Some people are inclined to think that this must be their individual work. They fail to understand that this expression is a formulation of a general principle. It is childish to think that it can be done by one person transmitting these ideas to another. First of all it is necessary to understand that people cannot do it and, secondly, that it cannot be demanded of them, because individual work can only refer to oneself. Putting people in one's place is school-work, that is, the joint efforts of all the people belonging to the school. All school-work is organized with this purpose in view, the different branches of the work all pursue the same end: to put new people in the place occupied by the people who are there at present and in this way to help them rise to other steps. But nobody has thought about it in the right way. For instance, very few people think about these lectures and about the house in the country: who arranged them and how they are arranged and run.
This is the answer to the question about putting someone in one's place, because other people look after you and arrange things for you. They studied the ideas of the system before you and came to a certain point in their study; and now they want to go further. For that they have to help other people to know what they know. They cannot do it by themselves, so they help to arrange lectures and other things for newer people. This is part of the general plan of school-work. The principle of the work is that everyone must do what he can. Then, when other people come, it is for them to do what others have done before them. A certain period of effort is necessary and everyone must share in it. Q. Why can a man do more in a group than by himself? A. For many reasons. The first, as I explained, because he cannot have a teacher all to himself. The second, because in schools certain sharp corners are smoothed out. People have to adapt to one another, and this is generally very useful. The third is that one is surrounded by mirrors; one can see oneself in every person. Q. But is there a tie between me and other people here? A. There must be a tie, but the tie is produced by work. Everybody who works creates this tie. We must not expect other people to think about us. They will do so as much as possible, but we cannot take it for granted. Q. Would you say more on that? Is there any obligation between oneself and the people in this room? A. That depends on you, on how you understand it, what you feel about it, what you think you can do about it. There are no imposed obligations. Obligations come from work. The more one does, the more obligations one has. If one does nothing, nothing is asked of one. Mr Gurdjieff explained this in the beginning; he said it was dangerous to do something in the work if you do not want difficult things to be asked of you. Q. You said that the second line is work with people. I find it easier to work alone. A. Everybody finds that. Certainly it would be much better if you could sit here alone and talk to me, without any other people, and particularly 'these' people, because these people are especially unpleasant. We all think that. I thought that when I began to study. It is one of the most mechanical things in the world. The whole work, the whole system is arranged in such a way that you cannot get anything from the first line if you do not work on the second and third lines. In the first line you can get certain ideas, certain information, but after a while you come to a stop if you do not work on the other two lines. Q. While trying to work on the first line, how can one get an idea of the third line? A. By working on the first line to begin with, and then getting a picture of the whole— all the ideas of the system and the principles of school-work. If you work on what we call the first line—self-study and study of
the system—every possibility in the work enters into it. So the more time and energy you give to the study of the system the more you will understand what is included in it. In this way, little by little, understanding will come. In the first line you must be very practical and think about what you can gain. If you feel that you are not free, that you are asleep, maybe you will want to be free, to awake, and so you will work to gain that. In the third line you think about the work, about the whole organization. First of all, organization must be the subject of your study, like the Ray of Creation—the idea of organization, the needs of organization, the forms of organization. Then you will see that the organization is your business, not someone else's business. Everybody must take part in it, when they can. Nobody is asked to do what they cannot, but everybody must think about it and understand it. What is important in the third line is not so much actual doing as thinking about it. You cannot leave other people to think about it for you. There can be no school-work on one line. School-work means work on three lines. It must be taken from a personal point of view and understood that only with these three kinds of help can one move from the passive dead spot. Too many things keep you there, you always have the same feelings, the same dreams, the same thoughts. Q. Is the third line responsible for the progress of the system? A. Everything is. One line cannot exist without another. One line or two lines is not work. But first of all understanding is necessary. You can study—time is given for that—but you cannot decide to do one thing and put off another thing. Q. You say that first we must understand about the third line. But that surely is not yet work? A. It depends. In a sense, to understand is already work. If not enough people think about the work as a whole and understand it, it is impossible to continue. A certain number of people must understand and be able to do what is necessary. You have never realized how difficult it is for the work to exist even in the form it has now. Yet it is possible for it to exist and develop if more understanding and energy is put into it. Then, with right understanding, it will be right development. But you cannot expect someone else to go on putting understanding and energy into it for you. Q. But the initiative does not lie with me? A. Certainly it lies with you. Only on the second line it does not lie with you—it has to be organized. You must come to the understanding of the third line yourself, only then will it be third line. It depends on your attitude and your possibilities, and these possibilities cannot be created artificially. If you feel that it is necessary to do something for the work of the school, and if you are able to do it, that will be third line of work. First you must understand what is needed, and only later can you think about what you yourself can do for the organization.
Q It seems to me that what you want from us is that we should feel that we are the organization, or part of it, that it is not something separate from us? A. Quite right, and more than that. You must understand what a school of the Fourth Way means. It is in ordinary life and therefore it particularly needs organization. Schools of monks and yogis are organized, but ordinary life does not give opportunities for studying the different sides that need to be studied. For this there must be a special organization. Q. You speak much of understanding recently. A. Yes, understanding is necessary, and a personal attitude. People do not make the existence of the school a personal concern, and it cannot be impersonal In many cases words stand in the way of understanding. People speak of first line, second line, third line, just repeating words— and cease to understand anything. They use these words too easily. It is necessary to have your own personal picture of these lines: first of yourself acquiring knowledge, new ideas, breaking down old prejudices, discarding old ideas which you have formulated in the past and which contradict one another, studying yourself, studying the system, attempting to remember yourself and many other things. You must think about what you want to get, what you want to know, what you want to be, how to change old habits of thinking, old habits of feeling. All that is first line. Then, when you are prepared enough and have made sufficient efforts for some time, you can put yourself in the conditions of organized work where you can study practically. On the second line the chief difficulty in the beginning is working not on your own initiative; because it depends not on yourself, but on arrangements made in the work. Many things enter into that you are told to do this or that, and you want to be free, you do not want to do it, you do not like it, or you do not like the people with whom you have to work. Even now, without knowing what you will have to do, you can visualize yourself in conditions of organized work which you enter without knowing anything about it, or very little. These are the difficulties of the second line, and your effort in relation to it begins with accepting things—because you may not like it; you may think you can do whatever you have to do better in your own way; you may not like the conditions, and so on. If you think first about your personal difficulties in relation to the second line, you may understand it better. In any case it is arranged according to a plan you do not know and aims you do not know. There are many more difficulties that come later, but this is how it begins. In the third line your own initiative comes in once more, if you have the possibility to do something not for yourself but for the work. And even if you can do nothing, it is useful to realize that you can do nothing. But then you must understand that if everybody came to the conclusion that they can do nothing, there would be no work. This is what I mean
by making a personal picture, not just using the words: first line, second line, third line. Words mean nothing, particularly in this case. When you have a personal picture, you will not need those words. You will speak in a different language, in a different way. Every line in the work, like everything else in the world, goes by octaves, increasing, decreasing, passing intervals and so on. If you work on all three lines, when you come to an interval in your personal work, another line of work may be going well and will help you to pass the interval in your individual work. Or your individual work may be going well and so may help you to pass the interval in some other line. This is what I meant when I spoke about intervals in connection with different lines The one thing to understand in the work is that one cannot be free. Certainly freedom is an illusion, for we are not free anyway, we depend on people, on things, on everything. But we are accustomed to think that we are tree and like to think of ourselves as tree Yet at a certain moment we must give up this imaginary freedom. If we keep this 'freedom', we can have no chance of learning anything. Q. About thinking personally, I find when I try to do so I bring it down to a small scale. A You mix things, the word 'personal' has misled you. 'Personal' does not only mean your own life and conditions. You must feel it is your own work A school can exist only when people feel not outside it but inside, when they think of it as their own house. Then only will they benefit from it and will know what can help the work, what may be useful. I will give you an example of a personal attitude, you remember the small parable in the New Testament about a man finding a pearl and selling everything to go and buy it. There are also other small parables there which are all pictures of a personal attitude. Imagine a man taking it impersonally—it would be quite different. The New Testament always shows the necessity of a personal attitude, of personal profit. Many things become possible if we think about them in the right way. Every problem connected with the work, if understood rightly, gives you something, there is nothing from which you cannot get more profit than you do now The first thing to learn in this system is how to get things, everything you do must be done for a purpose, your own purpose You benefit from all the three Lines, but from each in a different way. In relation to the third line it is very important to understand the general idea of why this work exists and how to help it. As I said, the idea is to establish a school, that is, to work according to school rules and principles, first studying these rules and principles and then applying them in practice. Many conditions are necessary for that. One of these conditions is that people are necessary There are people who are prepared, who are capable of developing these ideas, but they do not know them.
So it is necessary to find them, find the right kind of people and give them these ideas. But for that one must first understand these ideas oneself. Sometimes I am asked why expansion should be necessary for a system that is meant only for a few It is not difficult to answer this question. It is quite true that this system cannot belong to all; it cannot even belong to many. But we must make every effort to give it to as many people as possible. Expansion of ideas of the system will be limited by the nature of the ideas themselves and by people's inertia and their incapacity to understand these ideas. But it must not be limited by our own inertia The system can reach the right people, that is, people who can not only take, but also give, only if it is given to a large number of people. If it is limited to a small group it will never reach the right people Small groups, if they think that they can keep the ideas to themselves, will distort and spoil them Distortion can be avoided only if work grows and if many people know about it. Small groups, limited and unchanging, will always add something personal to it. So the more the work grows, the more each individual can get from it. Another reason why schools cannot exist on too small a scale is that only a certain number of people gives a sufficient variety of types. For successful group-work, variety of types is necessary, otherwise there is no friction, no opposition. People would think they understood one another. Q. What is the best way to start forming a Fourth Way school? A. We cannot start. A school starts from another school. If people meet together and say 'Let us start a school', it will not be a Fourth Way school. But if a school is started, how to continue, how to develop—that is what you must think about. And for this you must first understand what work on three lines means and then work on three lines. Q. To some people the system appears as selfish. A. The system must be selfish in a sense. The first line of work is selfish, for there you hope to gain something for yourself. The second line is mixed—you have to take other people into consideration, so it is less selfish; and the third line is not selfish at all, for it is something you do for the school, not with the idea of gaining something from the school. The idea of gain belongs to the first line. So the system includes in itself both what is selfish and not selfish Q. How can one understand the third line practically? A. When you begin to understand, this marks a definite moment in the work. Suppose you are in contact with a certain school—which level, or whether good or bad we do not enter into. In this school you get certain knowledge But what do you give in exchange? In what way do you help the school? That is third line. I am often asked what the third line means, how to understand it and how to start working on the third line. This question never presented any difficulty for me personally. From the moment I met the system I felt that it was bigger and more important
than anything I ever knew and, at the same time that it was known only to a small group of people. There were no organizations behind it, no help, nothing. Science, art, the theatre, literature had their universities, museums, books, a large following of people, the help of governments, the help of society, and at the same time all their combined content was very small compared with the system. At best they were only preparation for the system—and in spite of this they had all and the system had nothing. These were my ideas when I met this system. I decided to work on this line, and this was the third line of work. It is quite clear that the work needs an organization and a place for all the people who want to come, and therefore it is necessary to find people who understand this need and are willing and able to support the work in every way they can. Take as an example an ordinary school. It requires a certain plan and organization, and a certain number of people to run it, and one must know who will do one thing and who will do another. So everyone who wants to go on must realize that this work, its existence and its welfare is his own business, that he must think about it, must try to understand its requirements, must regard it as his personal concern that the work should go on, and not leave all this to other people. The most important thing is to make it one's own concern, to think of it as one's own work. There is a Russian proverb: if you like coasting downhill you must like pulling the tobaggan uphill. If someone says, 'I am interested in the first line but not in the third', it is the same as saying, 'I like coasting down but do not like pulling the toboggan up'. Try to think that I may go away and the work, as it is now, may disappear. Look at it from this point of view, do not take it as a permanent institution. Q. I try to take what I can from the work. But how to learn to give back? A. Sometimes one may be in the position to put the question in this form, but sometimes it is sufficient to understand what may be given, not what you can give; to know what is useful and necessary for the work without relation to yourself. Only then can you understand what may be useful at a given moment and see whether you can do something at that moment or not. So before you can put 'I' into it you must understand what can be done in general, what the work needs. Only later can you put 'I' into it. I do not consider so much what one or another person actually does, but I consider very much what he thinks. This is what is important. If he thinks and feels rightly, opportunity may come. He may not have the opportunity to do anything to-day, but circumstances may change and opportunity may present itself. But if he does not care about this side of things, if he does not understand it and does not think rightly about it, he deprives himself of the possibility to gain what he wants to gain.
Q. If circumstances stop this work as it is now, is there a possibility of developing oneself by using what one has heard here? A. I cannot answer this. I can only say that if people do not work in these conditions how can they work without these conditions? Experience shows that with all possible help a long time is necessary to get some results, so if one is by oneself there is still less chance. It is impossible to say what will happen in one or another case. One has a tendency to forget the most elementary things one has learnt. Even what one thinks one has understood one forgets in a couple of weeks. Then, with the best intentions people distort ideas. Supposing they do not come to any groups, they must continue to think, they have problems, ask themselves questions and have to find answers to them. For instance, one of the usual forms of distortion by people who work by themselves or in separate groups is that they invariably take some kind of explanation as a principle. But if a man has learnt to remember himself, that is another thing; it is a different state, different conditions. In the work the first condition is understanding what one wants to gain and how much one is prepared to pay for it, because one has to pay for everything. Sometimes one wants things without realizing what it involves and how much there is to pay. Try to think about it, perhaps you will see what I mean. This means that everything one may acquire needs a certain effort, and in order to make this effort, particularly to make it consciously, one must know why one is doing it and what one can get by this effort. And it is very important to understand too in which conditions one can work and without which conditions it is useless to try to work. Q. You say one must know how much one is prepared to pay. How can one pay? A. Payment is a principle. Payment is necessary not to the school but to the people themselves, for without paying they will not get anything. The idea of payment is very important and it must be understood that payment is absolutely necessary. One can pay in one way or another way and everyone has to find that out for himself. But nobody can get anything that he does not pay for. Things cannot be given, they can only be bought. It is magical, not simple. If one has knowledge, one cannot give it to another person, for only if he pays for it can the other person have it. This is a cosmic law. The idea of payment is very strongly emphasized in the New Testament in Matt. xiii in several beautiful parables that I have mentioned. Man has to be a good merchant, he must know what to buy and how much to pay. Things cannot fall from heaven, they cannot be found, they must be bought. What one can get is proportionate to what one is prepared to pay. And one has to pay in advance—there is no credit.
Q. There is no check on the price? You cannot find out whether it is too high? A. Some people think it is too high, refuse to pay and get nothing. Q. I do not understand about paying in advance. How is it done? A. The only way is to pay in advance, but how to do it is another thing— all that we study here is how to pay in advance. As a general principle, paying in advance means that if you are doing certain work and want to have something connected with it, then if you make it useful for the school, you earn the right to have it. Payment is a most important principle in the work, and it must be understood. Without payment you cannot get anything. But as a rule we want to get something for nothing, and that is why we have nothing. If we really decided to go for this kind of knowledge—or even for quite a small thing—and we went for it regardless of everything else, we would get it. This is a very important point. We say that we want knowledge, but we don't really. We will pay for anything else, but for this we are not prepared to pay anything, and so, as a result, we get nothing. Q. Has payment to do with some loss to oneself? A. Loss or effort. You may gain in that way, but you may regard it as a loss. Payment has many sides. The first payment is, of course, taking the trouble to study and understand the things you hear. It is not yet payment in itself, but it creates the possibility of payment. Payment, in the true sense of the word, must be useful not only to you but to someone else—to the school. But if you are not useful to yourself you cannot be useful to the school either. Q. So in order to progress one must make small payments? A. Or big. Q. What are they? A. This is what we are speaking about—you must find it for yourself. It always means a certain effort, certain 'doing', different from what you would do naturally, and it must be necessary or useful to the work. Q. I do not understand the difference between efforts and payment. A. Efforts may be payment, but they must be useful, and not only to you. It is necessary to understand the work in general and the needs of the work. When one understands all that, one will find ways of doing something useful. Attitude depends on yourself and on your understanding; opportunity depends on circumstances. Q. Is there a connection between work on oneself and payment? A. If you do not work on yourself, you will not be able to pay. This is the connection. Who will pay? False personality cannot pay. So in the beginning payment means effort, study, time, many things. But that is only the beginning. As I said, the idea is that in the way of attaining something in the work one gets only as much as one pays for. It is a physical law, the law of equilibrium.