A dramatic and literate introduction to one of the twentieth century's most influential and intriguing spiritual teachers. Born in the shifting border between Turkey and Russia in 1866, G. I. Gurdjieff is a man who would continually straddle borders-between East and West, between man and something higher than man, between the ancient teachings of esoteric schools and the modern application of those ideas in contemporary life. In many respects-from the concept of group meetings to the mysterious workings of the enneagram to his critique of humanity as existing in a state of sleep-Gurdjieff pioneered the culture of spiritual search that has taken root in the West today. While many of Gurdjieff's students-including Frank Lloyd Wright, Katharine Mansfield, and P. D. Ouspensky-are well known, few understand this figure possessed of complex writings and sometimes confounding methods. In Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas, the acclaimed novelist John Shirley-one of the founders of the cyberpunk genre-presents a lively, reliable explanation of how to approach the sage and his ideas. In accessible, dramatic prose Shirley retells that which we know of Gurdjieff's life; he surveys the teacher's methods and the lives of his key students; and he helps readers to enter the unparalleled originality of this remarkable teacher.
This book is an attempt to explore various aspects of the enneagram, the symbol that G. I. Gurdjieff introduced to the modern world, and which he stated represented a complete description of the laws governing the universe. Because of the importance he attached to it, it has long intrigued followers of his teaching, and others, yet the understanding of its meanings remains very incomplete. In particular, how it relates to modern mathematical and scientific descriptions of the laws governing the universe has largely been unexplored. This book tries to find connections between these two approaches to the truth, while also recognizing and exploring the differences between knowledge based on symbols and that based on scientific theories and mathematical formulae.
Over one hundred years ago in Russia, G. I. Gurdjieff introduced a spiritual teaching of conscious evolution—a way of gnosis or “knowledge of being” passed on from remote antiquity. Gurdjieff’s early talks in Europe were published in the form of chronological fragments preserved by his close followers P. D. Ouspensky and Jeanne de Salzmann. Now these teachings are presented as a comprehensive whole, covering a variety of subjects including states of consciousness, methods of self-study, spiritual work in groups, laws of the cosmos, and the universal symbol known as the Enneagram. Gurdjieff respected traditional religious practices, which he regarded as falling into three general categories or “ways”: the Way of the Fakir, related to mastery of the physical body; the Way of the Monk, based on faith and feeling; and the Way of the Yogi, which focuses on development of the mind. He presented his teaching as a “Fourth Way” that integrates these three aspects into a single path of self-knowledge. The principles are laid out as a way of knowing and experiencing an awakened level of being that must be verified for oneself.
The market square where various streets and alleys meet: around it, shops and stalls with every variety of merchandise - silks, earthenware, spices; open-fronted workshops of tailors and shoemakers. To the right, a row of fruit stalls; flat-roofed houses of two and three stories with many balconies, some hung with carpets and others strewn with washing. To the left, on a roof a tea shop further on, children are playing; two monkeys are climbing on the cornices. Behind the houses are seen winding streets leading to the mountain houses, mosques, minarets, gardens, palaces, Christian churches, Hindu temples, and pagodas. In the distance, on the mountain is seen the tower of an old fortress. Amongst the crowd moving about the alleys and the market square, types of almost every Asiatic people are to be met with, clad in their national costumes: a Persian with dyed beard; an Afghan all in white, with proud and bold expression; a Baluchistani in a white turban with a sharp peak to it and short white sleeveless coat with a broad belt, out of which stick several knives: a half-naked Hindu Tamil, the front of his head shaved and a white and red fork, the sign of Vishnu, painted on his forehead;. a native of Khiva wearing a huge black fur cap and a thickly wadded coat: a yellow-robed Buddhist monk, his head shaved and a prayer-wheel in his hand; an Armenian in a black ‘chooka’ with a silver belt and a black Russian forage cap; a Tibetan in a costume resembling the Chinese, bordered with valuable furs; also Bokharis, Arabs, Caucasians and Turkomans. The merchants cry their wares, inviting customers; beggars with whining voices beg for alms; a sherbet-vendor amuses the crowd with a witty song. A street barber, shaving the head of a venerable old ‘hadji’ recounts the news and the gossip of the town to a tailor who dines in the adjoining eating house. A funeral procession passes through one of the alleys; in front is a ‘mullah’ and behind him the corpse is borne on a bier covered with a pall, followed by the women mourners. In another alley a fight is in progress and all the boys run there to watch. On the right, a fakir with outstretched arms, his eyes fixed on one point sits on an antelope skin. A rich and important merchant passes along ignoring the crowd, his servants follow him, carrying baskets laden with purchases. Then appear some exhausted beggars, half-naked and covered with dust, evidently just arrived from some famine area. At one shop Kashmir and other shawls and materials are brought out and shown to customers. Opposite the tea shop, a snake-charmer seats himself and is at once surrounded by a curious crowd. Donkeys pass by, laden with baskets. Women walk along, some wearing the ‘chuddar’ and others with unveiled faces. A humpbacked old woman stops near the fakir and with a devout air, puts money into the coconut almsbowl standing near him. She touches the skin on which he is seated and goes away: pressing her hands to her forehead and eyes. A wedding procession moves by: in front are gaily dressed children, behind them buffoons, musicians and drumbeaters. The towncrier passes, shouting at the top of his voice. From an alley is heard the din of the copper-smith’s hammers. Everywhere there is noise, sound, movement, laughter, scolding, prayers, bargaining - life bubbling over.
From a master biographer and longtime Gurdjieff practitioner, a brilliant new exploration of the quintessential Western esoteric teacher of the twentieth-century. The Greek-Armenian teacher G.I. Gurdjieff was one of the most original and provocative spiritual teachers in the twentieth-century West. Whereas much work on Gurdjieff has been either fawning or blindly critical, acclaimed scholar and writer Roger Lipsey balances sympathic interest in Gurdjieff and his "Fourth Way" teachings with a historian's sense of context and a biographer's feel for personality and relationships. Using a wide-range of published and unpublished sources, Lipsey explores Gurdjieff's formative travels in Central Asia, his famed teaching institution in France, the development of the Gurdjieff Movements and music, and, above all, Gurdjieff's fascinating continuous evolution as a teacher. Published on the 70th anniversary of Gurdjieff's death, Gurdjieff Reconsidered delves deeply into Gurdjieff's writings and those of his most important students, including P. D. Ouspensky and Jeanne de Salzmann. Lipsey's comprehensive approach and unerring sense of the subject make this a must-read for anyone with a serious intention to explore Gurdjieff's life, teachings, and reputation.
"This is the first analysis of all of Gurdjieff's published internal exercises, together with those taught by his students, George and Helen Adie. It includes a fresh biographical study of Gurdjieff, with ground-breaking observations on his relationships with P.D. Ouspensky and A.R. Orage (especially, why he wanted to collaborate with them, and why that broke down). It shows that Gurdjieff was, fundamentally, a mystic, and that his contemplation-like methods were probably drawn from Mt Athos and its hesychast tradition. It shows the continuity in Gurdjieff's teaching, but also development and change. His original contribution to Western Esotericism lay in his use of tasks, disciplines, and contemplation-like exercises to bring his pupils to a sense of their own presence which could, to some extent, be maintained in daily life in the social domain, and not only in the secluded conditions typical of meditation. It contends that he had initially intended not to use contemplation-like exercises, as he perceived dangers to be associated with these monastic methods, and the religious tradition to be in tension with the secular guise in which he first couched his teaching. As Gurdjieff adapted the teaching he had found in Eastern monasteries to Western urban and post-religious culture, he found it necessary to introduce contemplation. His development of the methods is demonstrated, and the importance of the three exercises in the Third Series, Life Is Real only then, when 'I Am', is shown, together with their almost certain borrowing from the exercises of the Philokalia. G.I. Gurdjieff P.D. Ouspensky A.R. Orage George Adie Mysticism Meditation Contemplation Fourth Way Hesychasm Western Esotericism"--
