Historical Note: In 1949 before he died, Gurdjieff asked his chief pupil Jeanne de Salzmann to take on the responsibility for establishing the teaching in the world. After her passing in 1990, her son Dr. Michel de Salzmann (1923-2001) took on the role of guiding the worldwide network of Gurdjieff foundations.

Michel de Salzmann

As human beings, we have the capacity for another dimension to appear simultaneously with all this that thinks, feels, reacts.

There is a subtle energy penetrating the body, moving through it, and I can perceive that because I am a human being.

With a very active attention, I can receive this energy. When this energy is there and I am sure of it, aware of it moment by moment, I begin to be.

Situate yourself in this calm, empty space. When very quiet inside—need an atmosphere of sensitivity—aware of breathing….

Listen to life in this moment.

Let everything be, inside, just as it is, and open to the attention.

When the attention is with this other energy permeating me, very concentrated yet very light, free, wishing nothing, needing nothing, everything opens to this:  the head, the heart.

Freedom in a moment, freedom from fear and being anxious, freedom to be just as I am, giving all to what is number one in me.

Attention: a sacred energy coming into me. Be sensitive to it. Recognize again and again that it is there.

Join this Attention, the gold from which something can start.

“Absolutely terrific…. A book, if you will, outside the realm of books. It carries the authentic flavor of inner work as it is practiced today. There is a tangible intimation of the sacred in every passage. I very highly recommend this book to all readers.”

–Lee van Laer, Senior Editor, Parabola

Historical Note: After Michel de Salzmann’s passing in 2001, Jean-Claude Lubtchansky (1930-2020) succeeded him in guiding the worldwide network of Gurdjieff foundations for twenty years.

Can I be in contact with that in me that recognizes a Life in me of another quality?

I need to be in the Light to know myself.

Silent mind.  No thoughts, no judgments, just this Intelligence.

Present here, receiving impressions. Deep contact with the Source.

I can begin to have confidence, to trust this other energy coming through me.

It is like a flower, opening to the sun.

Have this Look upon you. Sense the body. That is the opening for higher part of mind—silent mind—to allow this Intelligence to enter.

Work is not something you can “do.” The higher energy does the work. Open to it.

To work is an act of creation.  It is allowing this creative force to come into the world.

I need to come, every second, to a deep, strong contact with this Intelligence. We were made for it.

The Teaching comes from within. Presence is the teacher.

“Immediately stimulating. What this book brings is so vitally important. The essence of Work is here. Not just the essence of the Work:  the essence of practice.”

–Lee van Laer, Senior Editor, Parabola

“There are two men in me. There is the one who when he is centered, when he is in relation with higher energies, is intense, alive, generous. And then, at another moment, back in my usual state, the one who thinks he is in charge, controlling everything—fears this, wishes that, all my problems. Can let him go for a moment.”  –LeClair

In the transcendent light of the Elysian Fields coffee shop, in the lofty atmosphere of the Matterhorn mini-mart, a group of Americans talk of conscious living and convenient shopping. On a summer’s day, we’re traveling through the Swiss Alps on our way to a weeklong retreat at a place nicknamed, by the neighbors, Le Zoo. The compound includes a large chalet, a small chalet, and a meditation/dining hall. Spectacular alpine vistas surround the property, along with sloping meadows, dirt roads carved out of the mountainside, and the prying eyes of the locals who think the chalet is being used as a sanatorium. Actually, something else is going on there. Something amazing.

“Expect moving, expect funny, expect joyous, and above all, expect enlightening…. This is truly a work of high attention and great love.”

–Whitley Strieber, best-selling author of COMMUNION and JESUS: A NEW VISION, unknowncountry.com

“The book is a perfect book…. A series of memoirs about inner work…. Each character…is led…to moments when everything drops away, when the inward nonsense clears up as if a thunderstorm were over…. The gentle guiding hand of LeClair, the clear one, is ever-present…. Every foible is our own foible…but they don’t become burdens to carry or knives to wound ourselves with. They are flaws in our love that can still be loved… the opportunity to come back to something real…. The book quickly won me over, because Shaw has a delightful and subtle touch… a liberating lack of deadening weight and a loving sense of humor…. I AM STORIES is about people; all of us… about community; and thank God for that.”

–Lee van Laer, Senior Editor, Parabola