This was the first exchange on Tuesday 6 April 1982. Mrs Helen Adie’s answer touched on something of the first importance in the effort to remember myself more often and more deeply. In Part One, I set out the question, in Part Two, I explore what Gurdjieff said about making programmes in practical work, and in Part Three, I add my own notes. But I wish to make clear, those notes are not meant to set out iron rules or to “codify” the method of making a programme: they are merely a handy compendium of ideas.
It should also be borne in mind that it is implicit that a programme only has sense if one has an aim. Without an aim, nothing has a point.
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In the book
Paris Transcripts 1943, Gurdjieff mentions making a programme at pp. 66-67, 256 and 317-318. There may be other passages, but these are the ones I noted. We might as well start with the meeting of Thursday 8 July 1943, where someone says: “
The question that concerns me at the moment is how to be able to follow a schedule – how to do what I have decided, at the time I set to do it” (66). From this is it evident that Gurdjieff has previously given him such a task. Gurdjieff replies:
First, you must learn to relax, to become quiet. Second, once that is done, think, and give yourself the task of making a programme to accomplish what you have decided to do. Of course, you will lose this state; you will again become the slave of your associations. But what you have decided in this special state, take it as a task, as a service. Third, you must never believe in yourself, in your ordinary state. You justify, you believe in yourself. You must not. You must not forget how you decided on your programme – what state you were in.
It is not trite to note that although Gurdjieff himself gave this advice, it still needed to be repeated. Thus, on 28 October, Gurdjieff said:
Before manifesting in life, when you are alone at home, relax and make a programme: how you will manifest during the day. Then tell yourself to follow the programme exactly. You fail, ten times, twenty times. The first twenty times, you fail. The twenty-first time you do what you decided when you were alone. There is no other means for now. … If you do it well, you give yourself something nice. And if you forget, you punish yourself. (256)
When someone objected: “One does not have enough will power to punish oneself,” Gurdjieff answered:
You have to get used to it. This gives strength for the future. You struggle, and this struggle gives results little by little. (256)
Finally, on 9 December, he gave someone advice to find a quiet place, sit down quietly, and come to a good, calm state, and after some time, they would cease to believe just anyone or just anything. Then, he went on:
Make a programme. If you don’t have a programme, anything – any idiot, any nonentity or shit – can order you around. Trust only this programme 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 programme is. … even if God comes to disturb you to do something else, you must not do it. Maybe He has come just to trip you up. You do only what you decided to do in your special state.
… Understand that I am saying something important. … (relax and) think impartially. You think about your state, your class, your temperament, and how all that is connected. [I think this amounts to becoming aware of your self and your self-worth, and connections to ancestors could also come into play here - bm] You think about your programme and how you decide to accomplish what needs to be done in the months to come. For example, what relationship you want to have with this man or this woman. Having established your programme, you go into life and do only what corresponds to it. … you believe only your programme and your decision. It is the only precise path for you. There are no others, because nature puts many dogs in us on purpose in order to make us weak. It’s perhaps in nature’s interests that there be few men on the right path. [It sounds very rigid but we sometimes need it, kind of like the idea of "being a gray rock" when dealing with the world, because nature is impartial and does not show mercy in dealing with us ordinary 3D beings!] (317-318)
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If one works to be more conscious when
forming the programme, by making it immediately after the morning preparation, then the form of the programme will possess the virtue of connecting the two states to actualise a new state, not so high, perhaps, as that of the preparation, but equally valuable for being actualised in the midst of ordinary life.
Time and again in the groups, we would say to the Adies that we had come to a special state in the preparation, but had lost it when the preparation ended. Time and again, they said, this is lawful. We cannot have that state in life, but we can have its influence.
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Mrs Adie had said that it is not inevitable that the work will solve my problems, especially perhaps these large one. But it can help me be aware of them and face them.
So we need to make it clear, balance the requirements so that it is both manageable and demanding, and – making it in a better state – use it to come to a better state, a more perceptive one. I need to connect my ordinary states with the collected state. There is more to this topic: we need an aim, a programme to actualise that aim, and a corresponding knowledge. But this is a start.
