G.I. Gurdjieff
(1866- 1949)
George Gurdjieff was born in the Cappadoccian Greek quarter of Alexandropol. His father, who owned a small carpentry shop, entrusted Father Dean Borsh of the Russian military cathedral with the responsibility of Gurdjieff's private education. Gurdjieff was an intensive reader and avid student. When he was 15, his favorite sister died. During this same period, Gurdjieff had a brush with death himself in a shooting accident on Lake Alaguez. He became fascinated at this time with paranormal phenomena. Again at the age of 16, he narrowly escaped death in an adolescent duel with another boy. Although he was raised in a Christian home, he explored other religious practices through observance of the local people. He had an insatiable curiosity, and began to yearn for an understanding of the “truth.”
According to his autobiography, Meetings With Remarkable Men (1963), he traveled with other friends who were “truth seekers,” to Constantinople, Alexandria, Abbyssinia, Sudan, Mecca, Medina, the remains of Babylon, Switzerland, Rome, Crete, Tabriz, Baghdad, Siberia, and Tibet. He was seeking to find the roots of the great mystery schools of antiquity, such as the Sarmoung Brotherhood, a wisdom school founded in Babylon, 2500 B.C., and the ancient Imastun Brotherhood in Crete. He studied Sufism with masters, and gained access to a secret Sarmoung monastery, in which he spent time studying the ancient mysteries.
The life of G I Gurdjieff, in compiling a biography, is very complex. His seeking spanned several decades and multiple philosophies. In 1922 he established The Institute For The Harmonious Development Of Man in Fountainbleau, France. One of his main methods of teaching was through his original choreographed dances, called “Sacred Gymnastics,” and later “Movements.”
His most famous student was P.D. Ouspensky, who recorded his teachings of The Fourth Way, an approach to enlightenment that involves observing one's life, not trying to change it, but observing it so closely that one becomes aware of what is underneath it. Instrumental to his teachings was that the individual need not follow anyone else's path but his own, and in seeking enlightenment, one must look within, question one's motives, and go through a process of what Gurdjieff called “self- remembering.” P.D. Ouspensky wrote In Search Of The Miraculous (1940), in which he describes the years of Gurdjieff’s seeking. Ouspensky is well able to express Gurdjieff's ideas, and his unique way of working with people in order to awaken them to the true self.
G I Gurdjieff died on October 29, 1949, after, under intense pressures, his health failed. After his death, his teachings were carried on by several of his students in France and the United States.
Quotes from G I Gurdjieff~
“Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity of self-change. In observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening. It is the greatest mistake to think that man is always one and the same. A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same even for half an hour.”
“A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering.”
“Without self-knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself, and he'll always remain a slave.”
“If you help others, you will be helped, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in 100 years, but you will be helped. Nature must pay off the debt… it is a mathematical law and all life is mathematics.”
G I Gurdjieff spent much of his life seeking truth through psychological research of theory and listening to his spiritual voice within. His main teaching method involved dance, but he also taught that the power of spiritual enlightenment is found within. George Gurdjieff is known much more for being a teacher of dance than for his psychological teaching. He taught that if you seek enlightenment the warrior within is where to look, though not necessarily the warrior, for some the quiet voice within. His understanding that all of life is mathematics is the idea he left history to ponder and grow to understand. Many authors today offer psychological commentaries on both Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.