This is one of the few series of talks and lectures as well as a personal account of the G. I. Gurdjieff's spiritual and philosophical development providing specific suggestions and practices for achieving inner knowledge. The first section is mainly autobiographical, relating material crucial to an understanding of the nature and intensity of personal effort required for an all-inclusive work on oneself. This is followed by a series of talks which Gurdjieff gave to his pupils in New York in 1930, and then by a long, but incomplete, essay on 'The Outer and Inner World of Man'.