Hello Tony,
What I found is that it is easy to lie about ourselves. We need the other we help us see us. I’ve tried many self-help books without success. I met my teacher and with his students I was able to begin to learn the value of studying together and sharing about my problems that causes me discomfort and pain. Hearing the insight of others was beginning to free me.
Lewis

Hello Lynda,
Yes, it’s so easy to imagine that spiritual consciousness should be a given without any effort on our part. It’s like going to college and demand that a Nursing degree should be given to us automatically just for showing up.

All pursuits that have any value at all requires great effort on our part: life demonstrates this rule or law. To come to a high level of Spiritual-Consciousness demands continuous and persistent efforts: the benefits are enormous.
Lewis

Hello Jeff,
Well, I really don’t know about how other groups go about teachings Gurdjieff’s ideas, I can only share with you my experience being in a Spinoza and Gurdjieff Group in Santa Monica CA during the 70’s 80’s 90’s about 24 years. My teacher wrote a book which I published; it’s about us students and the daily problems we faced and how Gurdjieff and Spinoza offered keys in coming to self=mastery which took time and patience to understand. I followed my late teacher’s basic plan is that we do the work from where we are. We have enough material (our nature) to gather all the information to examine and study because life offers us many opportunities to raise our awareness level by the problems we face on a daily bases. The book is called “How to Solve Life’s Problems” by Gregory Grover it’s available on amazon.com the reason I’m bringing this up is because there are many wonderful stories and example of what his students faced while they were in the group.

Lewis