GURDJIEFF, G.I. – Life is real only then, when I am - Integral Book

The first, formed in my being while yet in childhood, and which is the sovereign of my convictions, may be formulated as follows: "Only thenmay a man be a good altruist to his nearest, when at times he can be a complete egoist."And the second was formed within me two years after I began toactualize the three aims of my seven-year task. While working intensively on the books intended for publication, under conditions of law abidingly arisen misfortunes, I, when I noticed that because of my pursuit of my egoistical ideas those near me were becoming worse and worse, once brought myself into a state of mind bya technique I acquired from my father, and through self-suggestion crystallized in my presence this psychic factor, in terms of the following supposition:If I should attain my self-imposed aims, and should still survive, then I would live with a definite program, as follows: one third of all my waking state I shall devote to pleasures of my ownbody; the second third, exclusively to those by that time remaining near to me, in spirit as well as in blood; and the third part to science, that is, to all humanity. Thus now, after everything that has been clarified in this introductorychapter, I advise, and at that very sincerely, all my readers, both those who know me and those who do not, and also all my dear friends and not less dear "enemies," to try to understand properly the essence of the text of this, my last book, and especially the essence of the concludingchapter. The concluding chapter of my final book I intend to name "The Inner and Outer World of Man" and to explain in it a question, unusual in thementation of people, but nevertheless the most preeminent of all questions, from the totality of