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If specificity means what is “unique” in Gurdjieff’s teaching, let us quickly set aside a possible preliminary misunderstanding: “specificity” is not inevitably, as one might fear, a doctrinaire claim to exclusivity.

September 16, 2012, in Paris at Gurdjieff’s apartment on Rue des Colonels Renard. Alexandre de Salzmann is a medical doctor, son of Michel de Salzmann and grandson of Jeanne de Salzmann. Before Gurdjieff died in 1949, he directed Jeanne de Salzmann to carry on the teaching of the Fourth Way and to regroup the students who were directly guided by Gurdjieff. Later, Michel de Salzmann was the leader of those groups

The following comments by Michel de Salzmann were made at a meeting in France in June, 2001 and were later recalled and edited by members of the Philadelphia Gurdjieff Foundation group who were in attendance.

– Hugh Ripman We are embarked together on an adventure. It is the same adventure which was once called the quest of the Golden Fleece, and which in other times was known as the search for the Philosophers' Stone, for the Elixir of Life, for the Secret of the Golden Flower, and for the Holy Grail.

– Bob Reinstein The starting point or essential elements of our inner work on becoming are these four foundation stones or cornerstones: Aim is a feeling or sensation in the body, which may also be expressed in words, that there is more to life than the ordinary things we usually see around us. This results in a calling or a pull to move in a certain direction inwardly, toward this higher possibility which can give our life a deeper meaning.

– Petri Laakso (2018) Notes on Becoming is a very succinct summary of the whole of the path Gurdjieff brought, or rather of the essence of his teaching presented from the point of view of how someone interested in inner development can approach a spiritual path.