Ben's Work Notes

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Ben's Work Notes Ben Bennett, born 1952, works at the Home Depot as in-home design consultant.

10/17/2026

When I wrote my biographical sketch of J. G. Bennett, I opened with the statement that at the time of his death, there was no more effective teacher alive. Friends to whom I showed the initial draft were unanimous that I should remove this assertion, mostly on the grounds that this would alienate potential readers who were devotees of Jeanne de Salzmann. Others stated that the Dalai Lama was more deserving of this characterization—and Osho was just beginning his mission at that time. Overall, this feedback caused me to question firstly my own qualifications to make such an ostensibly objective claim, and furthermore, what criteria I or any other person would use to compare the effectiveness of preeminent and unique individuals. At that time, I still felt myself under an obligation to promote Bennett as a “great man” and important teacher of the New World. To be effective, a teacher must first of all be able to make himself or herself heard; in other words, they must be able to lead. Second, they must have something that is worthy of being passed to others, whether it is the repetition of existing knowledge; interpretation of the same according to new standards; or entirely new and creative material. As Whitehead directly, and Gurdjieff indirectly stated, nobody has advanced philosophical thought beyond what was taught in the Platonic school. Bennett, however, was able to reconcile the problem of mutuality of Essence and Existence by using the metaphor of a third time-like dimension.

A young relative recently expressed the opinion that to procreate and bring children into the present world would be an act of cruelty. I myself observed a subtle internal change when I eventually—and belatedly—found myself in the position that I had money and resources to spare after paying my bills. I experienced the sense that I could relax my efforts in the constant struggle to remain solvent, and I noticed with a sense of shame, that this was echoed in my inner compulsion to work on myself. By extension, the awareness of the world is affected by the sense of a threatening environment: as the threats recede, what opens is the ability to look at the world in a new way as a place of Hope. I wanted to say to my young relative that the entire story of human life, of the planet and of the entire world is one of evolution, of a movement from disorder—tobu bohu—to order. Gurdjieff, followed by Bennett, saw and taught that not only is evolution bringing the world and humanity to a new state of being, but that despite the fact that bad news has better entertainment value than good news, the Good News predominates. I had two Jehovah’s Witnesses asking me to read about the End Times as represented in the Epistle to Timothy. Although I loved those guys for their willingness to undertake missionary work, I shut them down by stating that the “end times” are fictional.

08/18/2026

“For most people, ordinary life is lived, under some blind impulsion, as in a deep sleep or in a narcotic state. Although not lacking an end of sorts, this kind of life has neither heights nor depths. Only a few wake up.” So wrote Lizelle Reymond, following a lengthy description of the years she spent studying with a particular teacher in India. I find this unacceptable for so many reasons, and it echoes the statement of Gurdjieff as recorded by Ouspensky that “a considerable percentage of the people we meet in the streets of a great town are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead.” Is it really possible for any individual to make such statements, firstly about large numbers of people, and secondly about the inner experience of any other person? Why do we allow such grandiose statements to go unchallenged? Such remarks are predicated on two fallacious assumptions, firstly that the author is qualified to judge others, and secondly that he or she is exempt from such strictures. In his introduction to one of the editions of Deeper Man, Tony Blake wrote about the “criminal stupidity of mankind”. When the book was up for republication, I refused outright to allow this passage to stand. I pointed out to Blake that either he is in this instance including himself as a member of the human race and therefore sharing in the criminal stupidity, or he himself is angelically aloof from the rest of mankind.

Just forty years ago this month, Chris Luck and his wife Lynne, Penny and I opened our health foods store in North London. This was my first experience of standing behind a store checkout counter, and my immediate impression was of how rude and objectionable so many customers were, and I immediately saw that this was typical of how I myself had acted in so many instances. I set myself two tasks: first, to make eye contact with every customer, and secondly, not to respond in kind to negative behaviour. As time went by, I began to see more and more about the people I interacted with, and so often made the observation that a chance remark would suggest to me that they – and by extension every other person – had an inner experience that they valued just as I did my own. Nobody, NOBODY is empty inside. I want to make the point that the paradigm proposed in the statements above dismissing human beings as sleeping, empty inside, criminally stupid etc. is not only obsolete, but harmful to the great cause of the so-called Fourth Way. One of the ways in which I was deeply affected by my atypical childhood is that I grew up believing that people “in the work” – and especially our teachers - were different in some way. This is not helpful. I want to propose a model based on honoring each individual human being everywhere, and especially those who are separated from us geographically, economically, ideologically.

07/13/2026

Re the Decision Exercise—how did Bennett come up with it? The doctrine of “Many ‘I’s” as expounded by Ouspensky and developed by Roberto Assagioli in his “sub-personalities” system, draws our attention to the many ways in which we are indecisive and unable to “do”—consciously and on our own initiative. How many of us have made a decision to do something or other, only to reverse that decision later on when some other factor comes into play? Or something I decided was a good idea in a work situation, for example speaking to my boss or a co-worker, later seems like a meaningless idea when I am at home with my family or in the pub with some mates. Or I agree and decide to make a donation to a certain good cause, only later to discover that I have less cash available than I thought, and I want it for something else, and anyway the good cause is not as good or as deserving as I earlier believed it to be. Or a myriad other ways in which we shift positions on all kinds of matters depending on external or even inner circumstances. Gurdjieff’s analogy was of a taxi which picks up passengers and takes them wherever they want to go, without involving the taxi driver’s intentions, his will, or his beliefs. He does not decide where to go, but waits passively for others to direct him. Do we practice the Decision Exercise because somebody told us to?

Bennett probably formulated the Decision Exercise in response to the observation that he himself was incapable of making a decision and sticking to it. What was needed was a process for making an unbreakable commitment to himself, and in exploring this in himself, he determined the seven steps that go into the Decision. Subsequently, those to whom he taught it dutifully went their separate ways and worked to develop their powers of Will. But according to the old adage “Give a man a fish and he will be able to feed himself for a day; teach a man how to catch fish and he will be able to feed himself for life,” (or whatever) there is obviously an advantage in being able to make an unbreakable decision, but I maintain that the real strength of the Decision Exercise is in its value as a teaching tool. By the repetition of a practice over and over again over many years, patterns appear that are not detectable in the short-term. The self-observation that is a natural effect of carrying out an intentional action in a state of heightened awareness reveals unexpected results. As always, the unexpected observations are of greater value than those which simply corroborate previous experience or what has been taught. And so it was that, in the course of trying to carry out a perfect decision, with innumerable setbacks and false starts, I was finally able to achieve something that revealed to me that I actually have no "I".

05/13/2026

ATHENIAN: Consider, then, to whom our state is to be entrusted. For there is a thing which has occurred times without number in states—
CLEINIAS: What thing?
ATHENIAN: That when there has been a contest for power, those who gain the upper hand so entirely monopolize the government, as to refuse all share to the defeated party and their descendants—they live watching one another, the ruling class being in perpetual fear that someone who has a recollection of former wrongs will come into power and rise up against them. Now, according to our view, such governments are not polities at all, nor are laws right which are passed for the good of particular classes and not for the good of the whole state. States which have such laws are not polities but parties, and their notions of justice are simply unmeaning. I say this, because I am going to assert that we must not entrust the government in your state to anyone because he is rich, or because he possesses any other advantage, such as strength, or stature, or again birth: but he who is most obedient to the laws of the state, he shall win the palm; and to him who is victorious in the first degree shall be given the highest office and chief ministry of the gods; and the second to him who bears the second palm; and on a similar principle shall all the other offices be assigned to those who come next in order.

Plato: Laws, Book 4

05/04/2026

We just republished Bennett’s Sunday Talks at Coombe Springs. A copy is in front of me. I observe the subtitle “Practical themes for human transformation”. There is also a monograph titled “Transformation” (although this title was chosen by editor Ken Pledge.) My question is: what is meant by transformation, and why do we accept as axiomatic that it is necessary or even desirable? In Gurdjieff’s model of human psychology, everything is either essence or personality, with nothing left over. Once again, I am amazed that so few people remark or comment on the connection between Gurdjieff and Plato. Transformation of the personality—if it occurs—is the result of education, environmental conditioning and maturation. What about the transformation of essence? How is it possible to transform what one is? And what are the factors that determine what one is? I am not self-created and did not make myself according to a decision or plan. My parents? They could—and did—attempt to shape my personality, like most parents. But did they have any notion of procreating WHAT I would be? The principles of astrology—the “meaning of the stars”—even though researched and developed over centuries and millennia—are definitely speculative, but are considered to be an indication of what the master-plan, the matrix, of a human being is, and therefore what MAY be. What is it that determines WHAT a person will be, and if this is predetermined, WHY is it so? Why are siblings, raised together, so different?

Bennett’s insistence on transformation implies that he was not happy or satisfied with what he was, and wished to change. The old joke: How many psychotherapists does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: one, but the lightbulb REALLY has to want to change. In Herman Hesse’s Siddharha, the end of the prince’s journey is that he is content to be what he is—reminiscent of the T.S. Eliot poem I quoted some time back. Bennett often referred to the Christian teaching of original sin. I first learned about this when my little sister was a newborn, and I remember looking at her and thinking, how can such a little helpless child be considered to be in a state of sin? I cry “Bullsh*t!”—but doubts persist. Genesis chapter 3, the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve suggests that, as soon as we begin to observe, think, and process our observations, the possibility and even the certainty of sin enters us. But this is happening after we are already formed. If I am autistic, for example, this is a lifelong condition, and cannot be transformed, only mitigated. Is this a result of random selection, or predetermined, and if so according to what laws? This puts a different spin on the first of the Beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Those who have little preconditioning are worthy to be rulers of higher worlds. Where does that leave the rest of us?

04/10/2026

Workmanship is a term used as a kind blue-collar equivalent of professionalism. Riffing on this theme, a British writer named Stephen Potter published a book in 1947 which he titled “The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship, or The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating”. His book was a great success and led to various spinoffs and certain words entering the popular vocabulary – such as ‘one-upmanship’, ‘brinkmanship’ etc. Potter wittily drew attention to ways in which we ordinarily manipulate one another in our ordinary interactions, (a darker and more depressing take on this was given in R.D. Laing’s “Knots”.) Now in the 21st Century, “Work”manship has taken on a more specialized significance, which in turn is a spinoff of Gurdjieff-manship, as we try to outdo one another in our attempts to unearth ever deeper and deeper meanings to Work and Fourth Way teachings. Back in the 90s, some wag put up an April 1 gag inviting entries for the Fourth Way Olympics, in which events included Practical Work timed trials, X-treme Movements, Self-Remembering Smackdown, Group Leader Authenticity Challenge, Summarizing Beelzebub-athon etc. It was a joke but drew attention to ways in which ordinary group work tends to indulge “work personalities” and lead us into a lot of time-wasting and blind alleys. Social media can be a very reactive medium, through which it is tempting to respond quickly and impulsively, knocking one another down, trying to outdo or set others straight. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky’s names are hugely popular on social media.

Several decades ago, I was for about two years a member of a Gestalt group. We were a fairly representative cross-section of thirty-something Londoners, and on a weekly basis we met to explore and express our feelings of stress, love, hatred, rage, sadness, fear, anxiety, sexuality etc. I was at that time simultaneously a member of a “work” group of which my own mother was one of the elders, affectionately known as the Gang of Four. I was staggered by the distinction between the two groups, and the Gestalt group felt so much more relevant to me. I was a participant in the Gestalt group when my mother sickened and died from cancer of the liver. A prominent Gestalt therapist at that time observed that people tend to engage in the therapeutic process from one of two possible motives – either to try to change, or to get help with staying the same. In our “work” communities and groups, a similar distinction can probably be discerned. The “workmanship” leads to competitiveness between group members and groups themselves, as we vie for authenticity. An obvious example is to be seen with the current preoccupation with “lineage”, or the claim of authenticity proportional to the number of years a certain individual was in contact with Gurdjieff. The natural attraction towards gerontocracy means that we listen to all manner of repetitive nonsense coming out of the mouths of people whose only qualification to be heard is that they are old. Give me a break!

03/21/2026

Sometime in the 1990s, the London Institute of Group Analysis published findings to the effect that in an established group, there is a tendency for the members to “act out” the unconscious processes of its leader, and that none of the parties involved are aware of this. This reminded me of a remark by a former Sherborne House student that she and other women students observed that their menstrual cycles seemed to become synchronized. When I mentioned this to a friend who is a healthcare professional, she told me that this is a well-documented effect where women live together, and that it is usually observed that there is a “lead menstruator” whose cycle the other women follow. Taken together, these findings seem to suggest that there is both a psychological and an organic/somatic tendency to follow a leader, whether intentionally or otherwise, and irrespective of the leader's self-assertion. My personal observation is that this is a likely eventuality in Fourth Way groups or any groups where members experience intense feelings of admiration for a group leader and they unquestioningly copy their ideology and mimic him/her in mannerisms and even appearance—as witness the number of men in Gurdjieff groups who shave their heads and grow big mustaches. Gurdjieff allegedly valued initiative and creativity of thought, even as he vilified and ridiculed those who exhibited them. Bennett encouraged his Sherborne students to practice skills of leadership and even referred to the planned Sixth Course as a Course for New World Leaders!

What is there in our canon of “work” teachings that is either open to question, is actually no longer valuable or even is obsolete? It is probably more useful to view the work teaching as a kind of encyclopedia, rather than a set of rules which must be followed without divergence from any detail at every stage of our lives. Using intelligence and discrimination, we can access teachings, technique and guidance appropriate to our level of experience and particular requirements. But I have to say that some teachings which I blindly repeated in the past are now anathema to me. The famous “Step Diagram” of Man #1 through #7, imparted by Gurdjieff to Ouspensky in 1916 and taught in groups ever since, now appears to me as a recipe for disaster, for the most destructive kind of spiritual materialism. But there is a conundrum here: those that lead must lead from the front and by example. They must teach what they know. But unless they have reached the stage of “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and understand that they have no spiritual possessions, they are leading from a position of falsehood. Bennett’s answer was along the lines of “Speak first and ask questions later”, not being delayed by the inner considering of asking “How can I pass anything on to others when I myself am so ignorant and empty inside?” Our dear departed Michael Sutton would have expressed his favorite maxim “Trust the Work!”—tantamount to “Help will come!”

03/07/2026

“Either be what you appear to be, or appear to be what you are,” said Jellaludin Rumi—allegedly, and this seems to correspond to the Gurdjieff/Ouspensky doctrine of Personality and Essence, where Personality is what you appear to be, and Essence is what you are. The problem is that such doctrines are likely to mislead us if we accept them at face value and superficially in the early stages of our Work, and become habituated to not challenging them; of failing to question whether we really understand the full meaning of either term, and whether it is either/or. According to the principle of the mutuality of Essence and Existence, Essence is what is and Existence is what becomes. However, in ISOTM (p. 161), G. states: “It must be understood that man consists of two parts: essence and personality. Essence in man is what is his own. Personality in man is what is ‘not his own.’ ‘Not his own’ implies what has come from outside, what he has learned, or reflects, all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory and in the sensations, all words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation—all this is ‘not his own,’ all this is personality.” I don’t feel comfortable with this definition, not so much the personality half of the statement, but that a) it asserts that all is either one or the other; also b) that the suggestion of the ownership of essence implies a third element.

A more troubling concern is that taking this model of Essence beyond human psychology gives us a counterfeit notion of the universe, even as presented by those we regard as our teachers. Does the mutuality of essence and existence pertain to higher bodies? Bennett remarked on one occasion that “the body is almost pure essence” which accords with the Gurdjieff quote above, but not with either Plato or Jean-Paul “Existence precedes essence!” Sartre. Rumi’s remark suggests that our task is to bring about the congruence of essence and personality. But what is ‘essence’ in the human sense, other than “what is his own”? Does it change or transform? Or is essence immutable? If essence is unique to each individual, what are its parameters? Can essence be evil or destructive, and thus make the task of an individual’s personality to either attempt to mitigate its manifestations, or give in to it? What if we are “born under a bad sign”, as in the classic Albert King song? So we can extend our inquiry about Essence beyond human beings (psychology) to the essence of the world (cosmology) and the Essence of higher powers and God (theology). All of these three studies are taken together and aspects of each help to clarify the rest. Bennett’s metaphor: “Plenty of people can tell us what electricity does, but nobody can tell us what electricity is”. The question “Who am I?” concerns my manifest part (my personality) while the question “What am I?” examines my Essence.

If you find that you are interested in these notes, you might also be interested in this printed volume I put together j...
02/23/2026

If you find that you are interested in these notes, you might also be interested in this printed volume I put together just before Christmas, and published on Amazon for $7.95. I really only made this little booklet so that I could get a point across to a certain individual I know who has an abhorrence of social media and would never read what I wrote otherwise. The advantage of print-on-demand is that I can update at any time, so I apologize to the person in England who bought the only printed copy—I think I added five more pages since they bought it. I am attempting to tease out a clear narrative from a myriad disparate threads, but I’m not highly educated. (I barely passed my A-Levels!) “It is precisely because there is little time and because there are many difficulties ahead that it is necessary to do as I am doing,” said G. “If you are afraid of these difficulties, what will it be like later on? Do you think that anything is given in a completed form in schools? You look at this very naïvely. You must be cunning, you must pretend, lead up to things in conversation. Sometimes things are learned from jokes, from stories. And you want everything to be very simple. This never happens. You must know how to take when it is not given, to steal if necessary, but not to wait for somebody to come and give it to you.” [ISOTM p. 277]

Both Gurdjieff and Bennett laid great emphasis on not wasting time. The words quoted above were recorded in 1916 during the Great War. Bennett was a young soldier—20 years old when he shipped out—who spent eleven weeks in the combat zone before being wounded and returned to England. He met Gurdjieff and Ouspensky soon after their respective escapes from the Bolshevik Civil War, and reconnected with Gurdjieff just three years after the end of the greatest mass destruction in human history. After the comparative hiatus of the 1950s and 1960s, a series of events in the early 1970s reminded us all that the time of crisis was far from over and was likely to become more intense rather than less. We are now living in the 21st century under radically different conditions. Those old enough to remember what life and the world were like previously are winding down their activities and preparing for a quiet old age. But if the Fourth Way really serves to steer thought and intention, then it must be acknowledged that this idea of ours is not something that reveals itself naturally and readily—it must be shown; and those that are prepared and self-qualified to lead must be proactive. It is for this reason that I keep trying to communicate what is important to me, and how to share it with others. (But I'm so inept in social media usage that I inadvertently opened this page under the classification of Real Estate!)

02/21/2026

Many years ago, during a discussion centring on Gurdjieff’s Five Obligolnian Strivings, (Beelzebub p. 386) a member of the group asked the question: why is “the conscious striving to know ever more and more concerning the laws of World-creation and World-maintenance” necessary? Ken Pledge, a physics professor, replied without missing a beat, “Because we need to understand the reasons why we work.” There is a third view. In 1974, Bennett gave a stunning talk [The Notion of the transfinite, Sherborne House May 1974] in which he used an exposition of set theory to open a discussion on infinity and higher dimensions. I wasn’t present for the lectures and had to listen to the recordings at least six times before the penny dropped. The “striving to know ever more and more” means to never cease to ask questions; but there is a dimensional difference between the questions “What?” and the questions “Why?” for which Bennett uses the terms: Fact and Value. The man who asked about the necessity for the Third Striving took the view that dedicating his life to righteous activity was sufficient - and axiomatic - and no further inquiry was necessary. In this respect, he was affirming the “ways of Objective Morality.” Bennett on the other hand, made it clear that striving to “understand” opened doors that otherwise remained closed, and that seeing the Pattern and one’s own place in it was tantamount to assisting the work of the higher powers and would bring unexpected and objective rewards.

What, if any, are the objective benefits of activities that are loosely grouped under the heading of the Fourth Way? How does the world as a whole fit into the scheme? Fifty years ago, in his “Cults of Unreason”, Christopher Evans analyzed group activity, firstly of ordinary religious communities and congregations seeking new paths; also for-profit religious groups – those which collect resources beyond their requirements and enrich their leaders; and then those which not only enrich their leaders but also take steps to prevent members from leaving. I was amused some years ago to learn that a teenage daughter of two group members told her friends that her parents were cult members. What is generally termed the “Fourth Way” can hardly be called a cult according to Dr. Evans’ definitions, but appears to be more akin to physical and psychological therapy. Activities are based on congregations without overt rules (albeit with unstated rules). Self-development is just that, with the possibility that it might indirectly be of benefit to others. The Two Streams of Life Doctrine divides us into those who ask “what?” – seeking ways to make their world and everybody else’s function – and those who ask “Why?” and thereby seek for reasons and directions. Both questions are infinite as we strive to “know ever more and more”. Bennett’s three “time-like dimensions”: ordinary time sees impermanence and decay. Eternity is the repository of all that can be in essence. Hyparxis is the dimension of Creation, of what is coming into being.

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