"And here it will not be superfluous to point out that the Institute-for-the-Harmonious-Development-of-Man, organized on the system of Mr. Gurdjieff, has, among its fundamental tasks, also the task of on the one hand correspondingly educating in its pupils each of the enumerated independent personalities separately as well as in their general reciprocal relationship; and on the other hand of begetting and fostering in each of its pupils what every bearer of the name of ‘man without quotation marks’ should have—his own ‘I.’ "—All and Everything, p. 1201

The above quotation comes after G has given his full accounting of man, using the "hackney carriage" parable, which is digestible on many different scales. For myself, it has taken many years of work efforts to begin to assimilate these data (with their first being accepted by my head-brain, in its usual subtle fashion, as applying to others but in reality still seeing myself as an exception, as this head-brain always in general does without fail). To fully digest this information is to suffer an incredible shock to the vanity and pride of any average being, myself of course being included in this category.

What I wish to write on today is the function of our so-called ‘thinking,’ which I have often suggested is detrimental to preparatory work and which is in reality an illusion, that is, not really thinking but merely a reflex of the motor center. The large pipe, described in Views on p. 133, which currently connects formatory apparatus with moving center, is in reality the source of all of average man’s ‘thoughts’ and the entirety of what G calls the ‘science of the new formation.’ Thus all our modern education consists in, and is directed by, this process, which we call thinking and which in reality is not thinking but merely a reflex. This is the basis for my argument that attaining to what is called Steward, or the third state of consciousness, is not aided in any way by our current ‘thinking’ but is actually hindered by it.

When G says that "hardly anyone" has a real connection to "thinking center," he is being, as always, very careful and exact in his language. For all practical purposes, this means no one, or statistically, a fraction of a percent. We probably have a better chance of winning the lottery!

How are we to take in these data? We must first of all admit, within all our spiritualized parts, to the entire incompetence of what we call thinking and not use the data generated by this process in our preparatory work. If we are to work on the four centers that G suggests, and exclude initially the thinking center, that leaves instinctive, moving, and emotional centers. Incidentally, because most people leave the work when it becomes emotional, it can be safely said that even the methods of the Work rarely produce a connection with thinking center.

Given that it is safe to say that we will not find a person with the said connection to thinking center, we need to redefine the three ways. The fakir does not necessarily have development of moving, although he clearly has control over his reaction to sensations, particularly of pain. So we say the fakir is master of instinctive center. The monk, in turn, endures emotional duress and learns to master his expression of emotion. That leaves the yogi, and anyone who does yoga will quickly tell you it is a discipline of the body, that is, of moving center. The way of the yogi has always been associated with thinking by Ouspensky and others, but we can see quite easily by G’s formulation above that the yogi controls ‘thought’ by controlling the postures of the body, the thinking being a reflex of these postures.

How then do we get to the "coachman"? Before the coachman can get up on the box, much work on the carriage and a new relationship with the horse are necessary for a normal functioning of the ‘organization’ of a man. Only this will attract a permanent passenger, and eventually the owner of the carriage, who will direct the coachman until he is ready for a more responsible level of functioning. Thus we can see that it will be quite some time before we can depend on the functioning of the thinking center.

The problem that inevitably recurs in preparatory work is that the ‘lie’ of the formatory apparatus is believed. Formatory, having the attitude so accurately characterized by G in this parable, will always put itself above its position in reality, which includes but is not limited to attitudes toward one’s teacher and toward the Work Teaching in general. It is in formatory that the ‘ascribing’ of traits to oneself, such as consciousness, will, ability to ‘do,’ and the like, is developed. So we can see clearly that, as G indeed says, "Until we are free of automatism, we cannot learn anything else" (Views, p. 171).

Preparatory Work on the three mentioned centers is what G calls "intentionally made being-efforts" (A&E, p. 1200), which develops ‘Hanbledzoin.’ This allows a possibility of connecting to thinking center. The lack of Hanbledzoin, due to lack of efforts on raising level of being, is in fact the missing link, so to speak, that stops us from properly accessing thinking center. I also further point to the diagram on page 129 of Views in which there is no connection between formatory and the thinking center. No matter how much we develop formatory, we will never connect to thinking center through it.

So it is the average man, who is truly abnormal, who needs development by the methods used by G’s institute, and upon attaining to his own "I" (which would come after connecting to thinking center), a man becomes normal. Then he is free to move along the Way. Thus, becoming normal, and capable of sane mentation, is the essence of preparatory work.

KSR 10/25/01