In 2008 Jacob Needleman wrote "The Present Need" as an introduction to the definitive edition of Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff. The calamities facing the world then, including wars and a global financial crisis, had brought to mind the tumultuous upheavals while Mr. Gurdjieff was bringing his teaching to Moscow and St. Petersburg. Nearly two decades have passed since "The Present Need" was written, but Needleman’s forceful words continue to orient us back to our own work, to our own possibilities, in our own shifting landscape of grave uncertainties.
Here we share the first two paragraphs:
The Present Need
Jacob Needleman
"The authors of this book, now reprinted in its final and definitive form, met their teacher, G. I. Gurdjieff, at a time when Russia was disintegrating. Railroads still ran and citizens could still buy food, and even matches. But the end was clearly in sight for tsarist Russia. A time of such turmoil hardly seemed an opportune moment for the introduction of a new teaching, conveying fresh possibilities and equally serious demands. Yet Gurdjieff stated forthrightly that the period of great stress, uncertainty and danger they were then experiencing was “the only time” when real headway could be made.
"Did he mean that literally? Did he mean that only when the tectonic plates of an era shift radically can we find the interest, the need and the requisite attention to work on ourselves? Or did he mean that only in the present moment, whatever the conditions, can we find … the right time, 'the only time'? He is not here to answer and neither are the de Hartmanns, Olga and Thomas, who followed their teacher through (and herein relate) one of the great spiritual adventures of the 20th century. But here we are, and again the “plates” are shifting. Again we confront a present moment characterized by uncertainty, extraordinary stress and change. Again we encounter a sudden need to work, to examine ourselves in ways that transcend previous self-imposed and culturally imposed limits, in search of new openings within ourselves and in our mutual relations. This book offers a great deal in this present stage of our individual journeys, in this unexpected time."
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