M.H. Mr Gurdjieff, sometimes self-remembering bores me. I wait with impatience for the time that I have allocated for the exercise to finish. There is something awful, but I can do nothing about it. Sometimes I feel in myself a wonderful fullness, but at other times, absolutely nothing. I can do nothing, and when I have this state, I do not know to what it is due.

Gurdjieff: This proves that the automatism in you is very strong, that in you are many weaknesses, many dogs, many results of “desalting.” It is necessary to kill them. How is it possible to be bored with something divine?

M.H.   Something is lacking in my self-remembering.

Gurdjieff: It is the symptom of the many dirty things in you. It is necessary to clean all that in order to become worthy of this exercise. Put ten times more attention on cleansing yourself inside so that you may become worthy. You are not (worthy now). There are too many dogs. You understand what I call dogs? Different things crystallised in you by life, and by education. All the results play the role of factors to create associations which always rise and take you away. These factors are many. One cannot kill them completely, but it is necessary to make them functions. Today sometimes one and sometimes the other of these factors becomes you me and directs you. The place of Me – so far as a true Me has not yet appeared – it is the head which must hold it, and play the role of Me.

Mlle D.   Mt Gurdjieff, when I try and remember myself, I never have a complete feeling of satisfaction. The more I concentrate, the more I have the impression that I almost succeed. But something separates me. Afterwards, I have instead an impulse of discomfort and disgust.

Gurdjieff: Disgust at what?

(Silence)

Gurdjieff: Can you stay for a moment after the meeting? I would like to tell you what discomforts you.

M.H.   Mr Gurdjieff, how can I recognise the dogs, and know which are the worst? And then attack them? And how? Or must I simply continue with the process in general?

Gurdjieff: In general, for each one, the dogs have the habit of living around the centres. It is their place. Factors are crystallised according to the preponderant centres. We have four centres, four localisations, four villages where these dogs live. In one village there are many (dogs), in another there are fewer, and in yet another there are very few. With each person there are more or fewer dogs in each village. These villages are Thought, Feeling, Sensation, and Sex.

Sex is a most important village. One person has more dogs in one village, while another person has more (dogs) in another (village). It depends on the village which is the most peopled.

[The English transcription is here different.]

My advice in general, to kill these dogs, so that they do not disturb you any longer, and have no more power (force) to take your “Me” into their hands, is this – and it is of value for everyone – it is necessary first to liquidate the dogs in the sex village. Afterwards, the others. It is necessary first to liquidate this intimate animal. Afterwards, direct your attention to the other villages.

Knowing this rule, you will search out at which village to continue. But how to tie them up? First you take the task of not allowing these dogs to function as before. At once, hit them on the head! Once you have recognised your enemy, take as your first task to struggle against it. Perhaps it is your true enemy. One after the other you take all these dogs. And then you pass to another village. In this way you will be able little by little to make an end of all your enemies. I repeat, it is not a matter of killing them. What has been crystallised will always be. It can even become a wealth if one uses it as material, as a function. But the dogs must never take the upper hand, they must never have the possibility of taking and fixing your “Me.” Your task will consist in this. And that it true for everyone.

Dr H.   Mr Gurdjieff, this sexual function, is it a function and not something that one should reduce and lay low as much as possible?

Gurdjieff: We are not speaking of functions, which are parts of us, but rather of dogs, that is to say, weaknesses around our functions. The functions are the villages. One cannot change them. They are the villages. But the dogs, yes, they can change their breed.