Gladys: Good morning Ms. Annette. Thank you very much for this space and time. I wanted to ask: Mr. Gurdjieff brought this teaching, this tradition of spiritual search to the West, both for us —as individual seekers—and for humanity. This is what I understood from reading your message in reading Beelzebub’s tales and other books. I wanted to ask you: what is the meaning, the purpose of this Teaching for humanity? Also, what is the meaning of It to us as individual human beings? But, for humanity, I am very interested, we have stopped talking about it in the teaching groups.
Annette: Some people; my experience shows me, need the work. They are called by a feeling of a need for something they wish to work and live for. It is not egoistic, but for the life of one’s Being. A moment of work is a moment of bringing life to your Being. It brings an impression that we call sensation of oneself. And that is, as I understand it, really specific to Mr. Gurdjieff’s work. It is not just a feeling, not just a thought, it needs to include the sensation of the body. That’s what makes it different from a theory, or a teaching only for the mind or the feelings. Our work is practical; it needs to be practiced in what we are living with: nature, people, if we are exchanging ideas or feelings, or needs… I think the Work needs to be understood as a possibility of a relation. Relation with myself, with others and with something above me. All are important.
Gladys: And with reference to humanity?
Annette: I don’t work for me, for myself. When I need to work it’s through me but not for me. I wish for my work to serve something beyond me. Maybe starting with humanity, maybe above that. I don’t know, but I have this deep trust that when we work, we are feeding, helping something above us, that needs our help. I am helped but I also feel that it is like a call for help from above.
Gladys: Can the work of Consciousness and inner growth of our Being have any influence, any relation with the evolution of the Consciousness of humanity in order to improve it, to bring less wars, less violence, less racism, less classism in the world?
Annette: It is our hope but we don’t know … (pause) I think that what you ask relates to my feeling and understanding of what serving is, the feeling of service.
Gladys: How does service relate, as a fundamental skill in the search of the Fourth Way and any other spiritual teaching, with being able to contribute something good to the present world?
Annette: There are so many negative influences. Maybe we can be a positive one. When somebody is touched by the Work, one can feel that we have a positive influence, meaning that for one moment, that person relates to something for the Good. Not egoistically.
Gladys: And could we say that there is communication, a connection to a Consciousness in humanity to which our consciousness is related, being a part of it in some way?
Annette: Annette: It is not something we know. The work is at a higher level of Consciousness. In the work we say “I Wish to be able to work for the Good”. To really live that feeling, not just words, repeating “I Wish to be able To Be for the Good” changes your state of Being.
Gladys: The teachings of Mr. Gurdjieff appeared in the West close to the beginning of World War I, he himself lived in France during the occupation and WWII, and now we have a situation of war in different places, different regions, and a profound suffering caused by it. Do we, in the groups, as seeking people, have any Being duty in relation to this situation, trying to improve it, to be able to contribute for the Good?
¿Tenemos en los grupos de la búsqueda y las personas que buscamos, alguna responsabilidad, algún deber eseral en relación aportar a esa situación, a poderla mejorar, a poder aportar en un sentido del bien?
Annette: It’s a wish. It’s a wish.
Gladys: Of course
Annette: There’s that hope, but how can I…? In practice, it is sometimes possible but it easily stays in the domain of the wishful thinking.
Marisa: It stays only as a wish. A wish of the mind.
Gladys: And is there no way to have an influence? What can we do? I think about it more in terms of Conscience, a sort of invisible action. That when there is Conscience in the groups, when a greater relationship with the self grows, there are also things that change on the outside, just as my person, when my Being grows, my person takes its place, stops occupying everything. Doesn’t the same happen at the level of the world if groups work in Conscience? Doesn’t that put in a certain place this very ordinary reaction that leads to a lot of violent relationships and violence in the world?
Annette: We hope, but we don’t know.
Gladys: What is the meaning of our teaching? What does this mean for us? What is the essential meaning we have to Work for, to strive for?
Annette: What do we Work for? I can’t speak for other people. I can only speak for myself. I think I Work because I have been, and maybe I still am, touched by Conscience. This is how I understand that I am not working for me. I Work for a relation with Conscience.
Gladys: When you talk about Conscience, Annette, what is Conscience?
Annette: A feeling cannot be defined. You cannot define Love, can you? It’s an energy. It´s not mine. I receive it.
Gladys: We receive Conscience as an energy. Is this what transforms us?
Annette: (speaking in Spanish) Si. Es tu experiencia, ¿no? Si así es, sabes qué es. La experiencia de un momento de trabajo con el Ser no es una idea, es sentir su presencia en mí misma. Es un momento de relación con mi Consciencia.
Gladys: And what about the Being, Does the Being in each one of us have the Conscience with deposited energy, that has crystallised an energy by incarnating it in our body?
Annette: I think we can describe manifestations of life in the outer world. I don’t think we have real words to explain or describe inner manifestations of presence of Being. Even if I try, it gives me a feeling of disgust, not the feeling to wish to be.
Gladys: Is this work with attention, with sensation, with feeling, is it the pillar of our trying, of our inner effort, is it also the way we work with the forces of holy affirmation, holy negation, holy reconciling?
Annette: I must admit that I never put this question to myself in those words. Probably I should, but it has never been my way of thinking while working. You are right, theoretically, yes, but it is not my experience. I understand it theoretically, but I have never described it to myself as such. Each one of us has a way of describing or feeling about our work. It is not a theory.
Gladys: Quisiera preguntarle también por el símbolo de la Eneagrama.
Annette: Don’t ask me because I have nothing to say.
Gladys: Ok. Would you like to tell us how you got to work, how did you find the teaching?
Annette: Do you mean my story? It must have been my destiny, to meet somebody. When I was in Brazil, somebody who came from Paris and was a pupil of Mr. Gurdjieff came to Rio where I was. By the way he was and spoke, I had a feeling that he had something that I needed and wanted. So, I left Rio and went to Paris. This is how I came into the work, because of the influence of someone who was working. After that, he didn’t stay in Paris, I lost contact with him but I owe him to have my own relation with what he brought.
Gladys: Were you part of the early Madame de Salzmann or Mr. Gurdjieff’s groups?
Annette: Mr. Gurdjieff died three weeks after I came into the Work. I was going to go to a group with him but he was too ill, so I just missed him. I went to his funeral and saw him on his death bed and then I was very fortunate to have Mme. de Salzmann as my first teacher.
Gladys: Also, in Movements? Did you start immediately?
Annette: Yes, Movements. When I started in the group she put me in a class straight away. She told me: “Tonight seven o´clock Salle Playel”. I didn’t know anything about them, and it was a revelation. I was given responsibility for Movements´ classes. Movements were always very important for me.
Gladys: And also, in front of groups?
Annette: Much later.
Gladys: In Paris or in London?
Annette: I was in London, I didn´t live in Paris, I lived in London.
Gladys: And did you use to go to Paris with Mme. de Salzmann?
Annette: She came to London, and my husband and I also went to Paris to see her.
Gladys: And what about Madame Ouspensky?
Annette: No, I never met her. She didn’t live in London, she lived outside London. And she didn’t mix so much with the Gurdjieff ´s groups. She had Parkinson, she was not well. There were people who went and stayed with her and worked with her, it was a very separate happening from what happened in London in the Gurdjieff ´s groups. Before, she had had a big part to play.
Gladys: And how did you connect with the Peruvians? Did the Peruvians come to England? Did you go there?
Annette: Manongo Mujica was a big influence in asking Bernard to go to Peru …
Marisa: (in Spanish): in the Seventies…
Annette: In the Seventies?
Marisa: In the Seventies, yes.
Gladys: Was it a creative relationship?
Marisa: Yes.
Gladys a Marisa: ¿Do you have any questions?
Marisa: Annette, do you think that the work differs, in different parts of the world? Or do we share the same search?
Annette: Inner work is the same, but the conditions are different. People have different ages, different education.
I can hear the same questions, and I can answer in the same way, wherever I am, but it is true that… perhaps… my impression of the work in Italy and Switzerland is different from my impression of the work in Norway. It is not a criticism, it is just that people have a different education and way of understanding life. So, their manifestations are different. But the search for Truth is the same everywhere if it is a real search. Not the description of my inner mess. The work is not psychology and, if you are out of psychology, the work is the same everywhere, but if it becomes a psychological meeting, to me it is not the work anymore.
Gladys: Is the work still alive in the world?
Annette: I think it has grown, there are many more groups in more places, aren´t there? But, whether this brings real life… I hope, I wish. And I don’t think my thoughts or feelings about it matter.It is only one’s experience that matters and gives any meaning to one´s life. Don’t you feel that the value of your life corresponds to your experience of it?
Gladys: Yes, and the work has also given me a sense of purpose in life. A depth. And an understanding of an inner reality.
Annette: When I work… I don’t give any attention to anything else.
Gladys: But you were talking about that, weren’t you? How can we stay more in touch with our inner reality, with our real world?
Annette: We all know what needs doing, and nobody can do that for you. Nobody can do that for me. I need to bring my attention again and again to that contact, it tastes real. Where does attention come from?
Marisa: Annette, do you think that Gurdjieff’s teaching in a way is a mystical search?
Annette: Mystical. ¿What do you understand by mystical?
Marisa: Man’s need, or my need to get in touch with something higher.
Annette: Yes. Well, then I would say yes. But at the same time I think mysticism doesn’t imply action, and the Work has that relation between mysticism and practice. That’s really how I understand the relation.
Gladys: That’s why it is work in life. We are in practice and experience, day to day. Returning again and again.
Thank you very much, Annette.
Thank you, Marisa. Thank you, Galo.
Video interview
Watch the full conversation with Annette Courtenay Mayers:
Team participating in the interview: Galo Valencia Reyes – cinematography / Marisa Mujica – oral translation / Mariano Márquez – technical location / Leora Engelhard, transcription and preliminary translation.
Pachacamac – Peru, May 22, 2025
