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Newsletter 1/2004
All and everything conference 2004
by Dimitri Peretzi
The annual meetings of the All and Everything Conferences have served the “Gurdjieff
movement” in a multiple of ways. Since 1996, when Sy Ginsburg, Bert Sharp
and Nick Tereschenco announced the convention of the first such independent,
international gathering, to be held under the auspices of “no particular
group or umbrella organization”, these conventions have facilitated the
communication between the various “Gurdjieff lines” and have demonstrated
how strong, meaningful and virile can be the exchanges between people who have
studied the Gurdjieff ideas and worked with them.
Obviously, the need for uninhibited communication between these groups was already
there. It is to the credit of the successive organizing committees that they
have managed, all these years, to follow a path that has avoided any would be “take
over attempts” and has diffused mindless confrontations or inappropriate
actions that could have marred the underlying unity of purpose which, as has
been amply manifested, bonds the people who follow the “Work”, Gurdjieff’ s
spiritual path.
This year’s theme at the Conference was “Art”. It was the starting
point for all sorts of presentations and discussions on virtually every aspect
of the teaching, as all of Gurdjieff’ s ideas are interrelated. The tolerance
between participants, evident in all aspects of our short but very dense communal
life under the roof of the Royal Norfolk, the hosting hotel in Bognor Regis at
the Southern part of England, created a unique sense and feeling of brotherhood,
conducive to the opening of the mind and spirit. Excerpts of the presentations
can be found at the Conference’s web site, http://www.aandeconference.org
There is no way to overstress the importance of the free exchange on Gurdjieff’ s
ideas. The indubitable fact is that teachings can easily deteriorate when their
practice is encased in the understanding of a particular group or closed cult.
People tend to propagate the forms they convene under, and forms have a natural
tendency to overshadow true content. How to introduce the ideas into the flux
of our everyday life, how to be open to the constant changes of the world around
us while, at the same time, be true to the ideas that form the Gurdjieff legacy,
this is the marvelous task that faces all those who wish to be a part of this
tradition. The All and Everything Conferences are consciously addressing themselves
to this need. The independence of the groups participating seems to guaranty
a perpetual stream of “checks and balances” that prevails the petrification
of specific points of view.
The A&E gatherings are providing a forum for investigations of the Work ideas
that every year renews the belief of participants that we are dealing in something
precious, the purity of which has to be safeguarded and served in ways that transcend
any form of personal interests.
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