The Reality of Being

A Remarkable New Book
by Jeanne de Salzmann

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Based on notebooks kept by G. I. Gurdjieff 's closest follower, 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.
 

Gurdjieff respected traditional religious practices, which he regarded as falling into three general categories or ways: the Way of the Fakir, related to mastery of the physical body; the Way of the Monk, based on faith and feeling; and the Way of the Yogi, which focuses on development of the mind.

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He presented his teaching as a Fourth Way which integrated these three aspects into a single path of self-knowledge. Progress in the Fourth Way comes through conscious effort toward a quality of thinking and feeling that brings a new capacity to see clearly and to love.

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Origin of the Text

The decision to publish Jeanne de Salzmann's teaching was made by her daughter and heir Nathalie de Etievan, who was privy to her mother's plan to produce a book. She asked Stephen A. Grant to translate and edit the material based on Mme. de Salzmann's work with him editing her notebooks while she was still alive.

 

Draft texts were compiled by Grant and reviewed word by word, chapter by chapter, in four bilingual committees to ensure accuracy and faithful reproduction of the original entries. Reviewers included Etievan, her daughter Anne-Marie Grant and nephew Alexandre de Salzmann, and senior followers from New York, Paris, London and Caracas.

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The four-step process involved periodic meetings in the Americas and Europe, and took over eight years to complete. Grant's name as editor was left off the title page, an act of deference to an author regarded as a spiritual teacher, conforming to the practice in publishing Gurdjieff's books for over sixty years.