This is one of the few records published by Gurdjieff in which he offers guidance to his 'community of seekers', the pupils from many countries who joined him in Paris and New York.

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'.