Dogs Running Free
In Chapter I of The Tales, we encounter the story about Karapet of Tiflis and the dog catcher. This is clearly an allegory, but one that may be difficult for the reader to understand unless he is familiar with what the word “dog” symbolized to Gurdjieff. There is a wealth of material that explains this in the record of Gurdjieff’s Paris meetings. Here are a few extracts:
A: I want to take advantage of everything, selfishly, for myself.
GURDJIEFF: You must work. Kill some ‘dogs’ in you. You only play your role in theory. At first you play it well, but very soon you forget and return to your ordinary state, to your nothingness. Your task will be to stay longer.
And
GURDJIEFF: Everyone has a ‘dog’ inside him that plays the role of the devil. The secret for you is that whenever you do something, you expect a result, and you must not expect one. Perhaps you have an idea that has been crystallized in you. What you do now for the future is a guarantee for you. You should be pleased; the presence of this dog is a guarantee that you will have to work.
HT: I’ve tried to do these exercises sincerely as a service, but what arises in me when I persuade myself that I should not expect any result is this resignation I told you about, and which is another dog. I resign myself to doing the exercise without expecting results, but this is a bad attitude.
GURDJIEFF: Does this mean that you don’t want anything, that you are not interested in anything? So, you have no aim? You haven’t understood anything? If you’ve begun like this, you’ll never get anywhere. You came here by accident. See Mme de Salzmann – she will explain things to you.
And
GURDJIEFF: This is the symptom that there are a lot of dirty things inside you. You must clean all of that to become worthy of doing this exercise. Pay ten times more attention to cleaning your interior so that it becomes dignified. You are not.
There are too many dogs. Do you understand what I call dogs? The different things crystallized in you by life, by education. All of these results play the role of factors to create associations that always arise and drive you. These factors are numerous. We can’t kill them completely. But we must make them functions. Today sometimes one, sometimes the other of these factors becomes your ego and directs you. The place of “Me”—as long as a true “Me” has not arrived—it is the head which must hold it, and play the role of the “Me.”
And
MR. H. Mr. Gurdjieff, how to recognize these dogs, how to know which are the worst? And then, should we attack them? And how? Or do I just have to continue the general process?
MR. GURDJIEFF: In general, in everyone, these dogs are used to living around centers. This is their place. The factors are crystallized according to the preponderant centers. We have four centers, four localizations, four villages where these dogs live. In one village there are many, in another there are fewer, in yet another there are very few. Depending on the person, there are more or less dogs in each village. These villages are Thought, Feeling, Sensation, and Sex—Sex which is even a very important village.
One person has more dogs in one village, another in another. It depends on which village is the most populated. My advice, in general, to kill these dogs, so that they no longer disturb you and so that they no longer have the strength to take the “I” in their hands, here it is – this advice is valid for everyone – we must first of all liquidate the dogs in the sex village. After, the others. We must first liquidate this intimate animal.
Afterwards, you will turn your attention to other villages. Knowing this rule, you will find out which village to continue through. But how to bind them? First you make it your task to never give these dogs the opportunity to function as before. Immediately, a blow to the head! Once you recognize your enemy, your first task is to struggle against him. Perhaps he is your real enemy. One after another you take all these dogs. And then you move on to another village. This is how you can gradually overcome your enemies.
I repeat, this is not about killing them. What is crystallized is forever. It can even become an asset if it is used as material, as a function. But dogs should never gain the upper hand, never should they have the possibility of fixing and taking the “I”. This will be your task. And that goes for everyone here.