THE REALITY OF BEING: THE FOURTH WAY OF GURDJIEFF

Shambhala, 2010. First printing. Hardbound in fine condition in very good dust jacket.. 320 pages. Based on notebooks kept by Madame de Salzmann, this book offers new insight on his spiritual teaching—a way of gnosis or "knowledge of being" passed on from remote antiquity. It is a complete and uniquely authoritative guide to the great teacher's ideas and to his methods for liberating ourselves from the state of waking sleep in which most of us live our lives.

Madame de Salzmann's writings will challenge longtime followers and even confound readers who are unfamiliar with Gurdjieff's teaching. Everyone will have the opportunity to recognize the limits of his or her understanding, that is, open to a sense of the unknown that Madame would call the threshold to reality.

"Man remains a mystery to himself. He has a nostalgia for Being, a longing for duration, for permanence, for absoluteness—a longing to be. Yet everything that constitutes his life is temporary, ephemeral, limited. He aspires to another order, another life, a world that is beyond him. He senses that he is meant to participate in it.

"He searches for an idea, an inspiration, that could move him in this direction. It arises as a question: "Who am I—who am I in this world?" If this question becomes sufficiently alive, it could direct the course of his life. He cannot answer. He has nothing with which to answer—no knowledge of himself to face this question, no knowledge of his own. But he feels he must welcome it. He asks himself what he is. This is the first step on the way. He wants to open his eyes. He wants to wake up, to awaken.