Sensation—the First Building Block

Sensation is the first building block in the Gurdjieff Work. I know I am repeating myself, but I recently had a new insight. When I was introduced to the Work, a lot of emphasis was put on sensation and the ability to recognize and direct it. Why is this important? I never really thought much about it. But now I’m realizing sensation is our first intentional link with our physical body. A link that we can create any time, any place.

Before being introduced to the Work, if someone said, “Sense your hand,” I might have pictured my hand, or thought about my hand. Generally, I imagine most people understand sensation as a sensory impression caused externally. Like the wind blowing through your hair, or the heat from a fire warming your hands, or the shock of jumping into cold lake water.

But sensation is much more than that. Walking in the dark I can sense my feet and know if I’m straying off the path. When I feel disjointed, or jangled, I can come back to sensing my hand and ground myself. If I feel uncertainty or danger in a situation, like driving on a slippery road, I find I begin to sense. The presence that brings keeps me alert and feeling ready to deal with whatever.

Once I recognized what sensation was, in Gurdjieff’s vocabulary, my relationship to it changed. My experience shifted from receiving sensory impressions externally to fine-tuning my sensory awareness from the inside. So what’s so important about that?

Sensation as Building Block

What’s important is that it’s how I develop a relationship—a connection between my intention (mind) and my body. Without communication back and forth, there is no relationship. Sensation is the language of the body. It’s the mind that needs to learn this language and how to communicate with the body by using it. The ability to call upon and direct sensation creates a pathway between mental awareness and physical experience. Sensation is the first step in making this conscious connection between our mind and our physical self. The first building block towards being truly human.