Exchanges Within

Selections from nearly thirty years of teachings by one of the principal students of Gurdjieff.

Exchanges Within concentrates on one main question: How do we find within ourselves what we have lost-our reality, wholeness, and significance-as the human kind of being in the universe?

Through the intensity of his own search, John Pentland radiated the help necessary for group members again and again to discover and try to express where they actually are in the process of understanding and in the movement toward "being." The "exchanges" in Exchanges Within provide a glimpse into the dynamics of a living teaching and reflect genuine efforts toward the discovery and practice of meaningful living in the face of forces that drain human life of the sacred.

From Publishers Weekly
Most traditional ways of self-knowledge, whether psychological, philosophical or spiritual, emphasize the necessity of direct work with a teacher. This work entails an exchange of energies but also of ideas and observations. The energies are recorded only in the being of the student, but the observations, expressed through words, may be recorded on paper. Because esoteric traditions reserve a portion of their teachings only for initiates, any publication of hitherto sequestered records of such exchanges is a notable event. This extraordinary book presents selections from several decades' worth of discussions conducted at group meetings between students and John Pentland, a leader of the Gurdjieff Work from the late 1940s until his death in 1984. The influential psycho-spiritual teachings introduced by G.I. Gurdjieff (1866-1949) emphasize "self-observation" and "self-remembering" engaged within a definite cosmology with the aim of self-transformation. The myriad selections here have been chosen with care to allow the teachings to unfold within the unruly Q&A format, and to impress upon readers the extreme difficulty, yet real possibility, of seeing themselves as they truly are, as a necessary first step in transformation. "The beginning of evolution of oneself is sincerity," Pentland says. Those who read these "exchanges within" with attention and an open mind are bound to be moved by Pentland's own sincerity, and to benefit from his ability to solicit and to respond to the question behind the question. As a document of the dynamic search for truth among teacher and student, this work fascinates; as an adept extension in written form of that search, it can galvanize.

Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

John Pentland was a student of the Ouspenskys, Gurdjieff, and Madame Jeanne de Salzmann, and was instrumental in spreading Gurdjieff's teaching throughout the United States. He was president of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York from its inception in 1953, and established the Gurdjieff Foundation of California.