The child is both the mother and the father. Half of the child comes from the mother and half from the father. The child is a synthesis of the polarities of male and female. When the mother and father separate, and the child is not yet grown up, a rift happens in the child. It is not only a divorce of father and mother. It is a divorce within the child between male and female, and that becomes a wound.

If the child is grown up – and by grown up I mean if a girl is so grown up that she has fallen in love with some man – then there is no problem. In this man she has found a new synthesis of man and woman. So if the father and mother separate, there is not going to be such a deep wound. But a small child is helpless, and the wound is so deep. She goes on hiding and hiding and hiding it, until by and by she forgets all about it. One has to forget. To live you have to forget many wounds, but they are there inside. They go on continuously functioning from behind the stage, prompting your head.

You love a man, but your father left you when you were very small. Now you cannot believe in any man, cannot trust him, because the first man you trusted deceived you. So on the surface you think you love the man, but at the back a deep distrust is there. It goes on prompting you, telling you to be alert and not to be deceived again.

These are unconscious things that go on inside. You don’t know that they are there, but they influence you. You cannot trust totally, you cannot surrender totally. You cannot move totally – you are always half moving and half ready to move back, always fearful, divided.

These deep wounds have to be lived through, that is why you are so sad. Don’t try to repress it. Be sad, as sad as possible. Be consciously sad. Go behind the stage in fantasy, and then you know, and something can be done. When you know something, you can tackle it because it is no longer a problem really. The past is past and cannot be undone – but your wound can be undone.

Your father and mother cannot meet, but the male and the female within you can meet and the rift can be bridged. And once that happens, you will be able to forgive your father. You may even become capable of feeling a deep compassion for him. Because that poor man must have suffered, otherwise what man would leave the woman he loves?

Gurdjieff had written on his house – and it was to be read by all his disciples – that before you enter here, you must be capable of forgiving your father and mother. It looks foolish. How can it be meaningful? But it is, because to come to a master, you come to a man who is both father and mother. If you have not yet forgiven your father and mother, how can you forgive me? Impossible!

And the master is even more important because he is both father and mother. He is a union, a synthesis of male and female, yin and yang. When one becomes capable of being a disciple, only then can one come to terms with one’s own father and mother. Only then can one come back to a loving relationship.

But your knot can be undone, your complexities can disappear. They will disappear on their own. Don’t try to escape from them.