When I first came to this Work, I remember the sense of excitement I felt. I remember seeing a poster at John Abbott College advertising a conference about Mr Gurdjieff's teaching, and I just knew it was for me. Nobody had to convince me, and there was no indecision in my own mind. It was like one of those rare moments in your life, times of change, when things happen, with hardly a thought about it.

My college friends had warned me that I was going to be brainwashed when I joined the group, that I would become just a moutpiece for all kinds of religious dogma, and lose all sense of my individuality. But when I arrived at the Work, I realized very soon that this was not the case at all. Rather, it was the opposite. I also realized that something was missing - in me. I had already read quite a number of books on the Gurdjieff teaching, my head was full of ideas, yet in the actual meetings, the emphasis of our talks was not on ideas themselves but on our personal experiences.

Take the idea known as self-remembering. In this work, we are asked to study and understand "self-remembering". What does this mean? Well, there are lots of definitions that you could look up in any number of books.The books are wonderful....what keeps me from reading these books now? My own experiences, my personal experiences.

Rather than search for a definition, I would ask any of you to try this experiment, which is so simple yet difficult beyond belief. Try for just a few hours to remember yourselves, for example, everytime you pass through a doorway. Are you present? Try to be "there". See if you can extend this exercise into tomorrow. See if you remember about it in the morning. And if you don't, if you forget, what does this mean? Does it mean that you have a bad memory or are there deeper reasons why you can't seem to do it. There may be all kinds of reasons or ideas that present themselves but what is the feeling for you?

This is what I find most interesting about the Work. It is all about your experience, even if you don't know or understand some of the ideas, the whole point is to bring the real you to the forefront, to bring you into a state of self-remembering...

I was searching for another "way"; other than what I already knew or what I had been taught and perhaps more importantly I felt that there was much more to life, that there were many mysteries that no one seemed to talk about or try to understand. I had the feeling that there was much more to learn about myself and a universe that was not so visible and known. I was attracted to religious questions and philosophies that dealt with esoteric subject matter.

I remember wanting to find a teacher.

When I first joined the Work, I had a kind of inquisitive excitement and I really accepted all the conditions of the Work, feeling that I was being guided by those already there.

In some ways I cannot imagine what my life would have been without the Work. It has been a constant support to me like an old friend that is always there; a kind of unconditional something that if I take time to look at and be with, I can always trust. As I get older I feel more and more that it accompanies me and brings a real sense of meaning to my life.

What brought me to the Work was:

- A sense that something else existed beyond the usual world we know

- A disappointment about life, an emptiness that nothing around me could fill

- An inner feeling of "wrongness" about myself, the way I am, the way I am in relation to people around me

- A wish to be different, to be in touch with something that is rare and sincere

- A wish to learn but this time, coming from a source that has a different flavour from what I had come across so far

My interest in Gurdjieff's teaching was triggered by a combination of fate and will. I remembered the questions of "why am I here?" and "what's the purpose of all this?", as sharp knives cutting my throat. I had to take full responsibility for my destiny, I looked for options. Suddenly, I recalled the name Gurdjieff, from a film based on one of his books that I happened to see some years ago. I went to the library and took the same book. What I then read had a definitive impact, as if all this time I was so close to coming in contact with the tools to develop a better understanding of myself and the world around me, but never actually did it. Most of this was irrational, a feeling; there wasn't much to understand but rather to accept as something potentially positive, useful.