This is the revised and enlarged edition of that contemporary masterpiece of objective fiction, which has become the vade mecum of the few—those not totally addicted to routine suffering, anger, imagination and other traditional manifestations of the popular human condition.
It an astounding romp with the figure of "G." in post-war Paris, as he leads a young American on extraordinary adventures which redefine the ordinary concepts of reality, consciousness and human knowledge—adventures which shed a new, and at times, disquieting, light on Sufism, Zen, Yoga, The Fourth Way, and intimately, the Work itself. This new edition presents an unequaled and tantalizing glimpse into the everyday activities of the Work group Jan directed for thirty-five years, and includes numerous example of his earliest papers.
**CAVEAT**
"Nothing achieves its highest value until delivered to the place it is needed most. One of humanity's grand illusions is that men need help, and perhaps the grandest of them all is-- that they can be. All books are works of fiction and this one is no different in that respect."
The topic is consciousness; the tools are metaphor and symbolism; and the literary technique is author surrogate-- Jan uses the figure of Gurdjieff to speak his own understandings to present day readers with his own unique terms.
This revised edition contains the original materials from Jan Cox’s classic first edition of The Dialogues of Gurdjieff, plus a new, concluding chapter which was meant to forcefully reveal that which may have already been deduced by the reader. The Dialogues is the second volume in a four part effort that, as a whole, has a certain purpose, although each work can be read for itself on a particular level.
You may read this work directly from front to back, or you may first care to turn to the final chapter for a further explanation of this work’s purpose and origins. Yet, any way you approach it, it is all made up: “Remember: This is not a book about dead men, methods or ideas, and the very parts that may so tantalize the sleepy are the most salient examples of fiction-run-amuck. Lies, all lies. But what else could I do for you?
(The problem, as I see it, with fighting to change the way your consciousness works: it immediately offers to join in and help you…)" JC
It an astounding romp with the figure of "G." in post-war Paris, as he leads a young American on extraordinary adventures which redefine the ordinary concepts of reality, consciousness and human knowledge—adventures which shed a new, and at times, disquieting, light on Sufism, Zen, Yoga, The Fourth Way, and intimately, the Work itself. This new edition presents an unequaled and tantalizing glimpse into the everyday activities of the Work group Jan directed for thirty-five years, and includes numerous example of his earliest papers.
**CAVEAT**
"Nothing achieves its highest value until delivered to the place it is needed most. One of humanity's grand illusions is that men need help, and perhaps the grandest of them all is-- that they can be. All books are works of fiction and this one is no different in that respect."
The topic is consciousness; the tools are metaphor and symbolism; and the literary technique is author surrogate-- Jan uses the figure of Gurdjieff to speak his own understandings to present day readers with his own unique terms.
This revised edition contains the original materials from Jan Cox’s classic first edition of The Dialogues of Gurdjieff, plus a new, concluding chapter which was meant to forcefully reveal that which may have already been deduced by the reader. The Dialogues is the second volume in a four part effort that, as a whole, has a certain purpose, although each work can be read for itself on a particular level.
You may read this work directly from front to back, or you may first care to turn to the final chapter for a further explanation of this work’s purpose and origins. Yet, any way you approach it, it is all made up: “Remember: This is not a book about dead men, methods or ideas, and the very parts that may so tantalize the sleepy are the most salient examples of fiction-run-amuck. Lies, all lies. But what else could I do for you?
(The problem, as I see it, with fighting to change the way your consciousness works: it immediately offers to join in and help you…)" JC
