George Gurdjieff: Difference between revisions

'''George Ivanovich Gurdjieff''' (c. 1867 – 29 October 1949)<ref>According to his own account Gurdjieff was born in 1867. He told a group meeting on Thursday 28/10/1943 that he was then 76 years old. He died six years later in 1949 when he was 82 years old - and certainly looked this age from photographs and videos taken at that time. His age also reflects what he said in his autobiography "Meetings with Remarkable Men" - that he was about 7 years old at the time of the great cattle plague which affected his father's livestock. This event occurred in the summer of 1873. In the same chapter he recalls his childhood in the "1870's". Various documents and other authors such as James Webb, ''The Harmonious Circle'', Thames and Hudson, 1980, pp. 25–26 provides a range of dates from 1872, 1873, 1874, 1877 to 1886.</ref> was a philosopher, [[Mysticism|mystic]], [[spiritual teacher]], composer, and dance teacher.<ref>http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/58952 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190918080033/http://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/58952 |date=2019-09-18 }} Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Edited by Michael Pittman. G. I. Gurdjieff: Armenian Roots, Global Branches. During the early period after Gurdjieff's arrival in Europe in 1921 he gained significant notoriety in Europe and the United States... In October 1922, Gurdjieff set up a school at the Prieuré des Basses Loges at Fontainebleau-Avon, outside of Paris. It was at the Prieuré that Gurdjieff met many notable figures, authors, and artists of the early twentieth century, many of whom went on to be close students and exponents of his teaching. Over the course of his life, those who visited and worked with him included the French author René Daumal; the renowned short story author from New Zealand, [[Katherine Mansfield]]; [[Kathryn Hulme]], later the author of ''[[The Nun's Story|A Nun's Life]]''; [[P. L. Travers]], the author of ''[[Mary Poppins (book series)|Mary Poppins]]''; and [[Jean Toomer]], the author of ''[[Cane (novel)|Cane]]'', whose work and influence would figure prominently in the [[Harlem Renaissance]]... Numerous study groups, organizations, formal foundations, and even land-based communities have been initiated in his name, primarily in North and South America and Europe, and to a lesser extent, in Japan, China, India, Australia, and South Africa. In 1979, Peter Brook, the British theater director and author, created a film based on ''[[Meetings with Remarkable Men (film)|Meetings with Remarkable Men]]''.</ref> Gurdjieff taught that people are not conscious of themselves and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and serve our purpose as human beings. The practice of his teaching has become known as "The Work"<ref>{{cite book |last=Ouspensky |first=P. D. |author-link=P. D. Ouspensky |title=In Search of the Miraculous |url=https://archive.org/details/insearchofmiracu00uspe/page/312 |year=1977 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/insearchofmiracu00uspe/page/312 312–313] |publisher=Harcourt, Brace |quote=Schools of the fourth way exist for the needs of the work... But no matter what the fundamental aim of the work is ... When the work is done the schools close. |isbn=0-15-644508-5}}</ref> (connoting work on oneself) and is additional to the ways of the [[fakir|Fakirs]] ([[Sufism|Sufis]]), [[monk|Monks]] and [[yogi|Yogis]], so that his student [[P. D. Ouspensky]] referred to it as the "[[Fourth Way]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gurdjieff.org/ |title=Gurdjieff International Review |publisher=Gurdjieff.org |access-date=2014-03-02}}</ref>

There are conflicting views regarding Gurdjieff's birth date, ranging from 1866 to 1877. The bulk of extant records weigh heavily toward 1877, but Gurdjieff in reported conversations with students gave the year of his birth as {{circa|1867}},<ref name="Churton2017-2">{{harvnb|Churton|2017|pp=3–4, 316–317}}</ref> which is corroborated by the account of his niece Luba Gurdjieff Everitt and accords with photographs and videos taken of him in 1949.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Everitt |first=Luba Gurdjieff |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J08PAAAACAAJ |title=Luba Gurdjieff: A Memoir with Recipes |publisher=SLG Books |isbn=978-0-943389-22-6 |publication-date=1997 |page=12 |language=en |orig-date=1993}}</ref>{{Request quotation|date=April 2024}} George Kiourtzidis, great-grandson of Gurdjieff's paternal uncle Vasilii (through Vasilii's son Alexander), recalled that his grandfather Alexander, born in 1875, said that Gurdjieff was about three years older than him, which would point to a birth date {{circa|1872}}.<ref name="Churton2017-2" /> Although official documents consistently record the day of his birth as 28 December, Gurdjieff himself celebrated his birthday either on the Old Orthodox [[Julian calendar]] date of 1 January, or according to the [[Gregorian calendar]] date for New Year of 13 January (up to 1899; 14 January after 1900).<ref name="Churton2017-2" /> The year of 1872 is inscribed in a plate on the gravemarkergrave-marker in the cemetery of [[Avon, Seine-et-Marne]], France, where his body was buried.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.landrucimetieres.fr/spip/spip.php?article1949|title=AVON (77) : cimetière - Cimetières de France et d'ailleurs|website=www.landrucimetieres.fr}}</ref>

Gurdjieff spent his childhood in [[Kars]], which, from 1878 to 1918, was the administrative capital of the Russian-ruled Transcaucasus province of Kars Oblast, a border region recently captured from the Ottoman Empire. It contained extensive grassy plateau-steppe and high mountains, and was inhabited by a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional population that had a history of respect for travelling mystics and holy men, and for religious [[syncretism]] and [[religious conversion|conversion]]. Both the city of Kars and the surrounding territory were home to an extremely diverse population: although part of the [[Armenian Highlands|Armenian Plateau]], Kars Oblast was home to Armenians, Russians, Caucasus Greeks, Georgians, Turks, Kurds and smaller numbers of Christian communities from eastern and central Europe such as [[Caucasus Germans]], [[Estonians]] and Russian sectarian communities like the [[Molokans]], [[Doukhobors]], ''[[Prygun|Pryguny'']], and [[Subbotniks]].<ref name="John G. Bennett p. 55">John G. Bennett, ''Witness'', Omen press, Arizona 1974 p. 55.</ref>

Gurdjieff makes particular mention of the [[Yazidi]] community. Growing up in a multi-ethnic society, Gurdjieff became fluent in Armenian, Pontic Greek, Russian and Turkish, speaking the last in a mixture of elegant [[Ottoman Turkish language|OsmanlıOttoman Turkish]] andwith some dialect.<ref name="John G. Bennett p. 55"/> He later acquired "a working facility with several European languages".<ref>{{cite book |last=Challenger |first=Anna T. |title=Philosophy and Art in Gurdjieff's Beelzebub: A Modern Sufi Odyssey |publisher=Rodopi |location=Amsterdam |year=2002 |page=1 |isbn=9789042014893}}</ref>

In late May 1920, when political and social conditions in Georgia deteriorated, his party travelled to Batumi on the Black Sea coast and then by ship to Istanbul.<ref>[[Thomas de Hartmann]], ''Our Life With Mr. Gurdjieff'' (1962), Penguin 1974 pp.94–5.</ref> Gurdjieff rented an apartment on Kumbaracı Street in Péra and later at 13 Abdullatif Yemeneci Sokak near the [[Galata Tower]].<ref>[http://www.gurdjieff-movements.net/newsletter/2003-03/06_gurdjieff_istanbul.htm "In Gurdjieff's wake in Istanbul"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061031072357/http://www.gurdjieff-movements.net/newsletter/2003-03/06_gurdjieff_istanbul.htm |date=2006-10-31 }}, Gurdjieff Movements, March 2003.</ref> The apartment is near the [[Khanqah|kha'neqa'h]] (dervish lodge) of the [[Mevlevi Order]] (a [[tariqa|Sufi order]] following the teachings of [[Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi]]), where Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and [[Thomas de Hartmann]] witnessed the ''[[sema|Sama]]'' ceremony of [[the Whirling Dervishes]]. In Istanbul, Gurdjieff also met his future pupil Capt. [[John G. Bennett]], then head of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence in [[Constantinople]], who describes his impression of Gurdjieff as follows:

Gurdjieff's mother died in 1925 and his wife developed cancer and died in June 1926. Ouspensky attended her funeral. According to [[Fritz Peters (writer)|Fritz Peters]], Gurdjieff was in New York from November 1925 to the spring of 1926, when he succeeded in raising over $100,000.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Taylor |first=Paul Beekman |title=Gurdjieff's America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=50w1tPTV0EEC&pg=PA103 |page=103 |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-904998-00-6 |quote=What Gurdjieff was doing during the winter of 1925–1926...|publisher=Lighthouse Editions Ltd }}</ref> He was to make six or seven trips to the US, but alienated a number of people with his brash and impudent demands for money. Some have interpreted that in terms of his following the ''[[Malamatiyya]]'' technique of the Sufis, he was deliberately attracting disapproval.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Deception and Role-Playing |url=http://gurdjiefffourthway.org/pdf/roles.pdf |access-date=3 November 2023 |website=gurdjiefffourthway.org}}</ref>

According to Gurdjieff, only one of the three dimensions of a person—namely, either the emotions, or the physical body or the mind—tends to develop in such schools and sects, and generally at the expense of the other faculties or ''[[Centers (Fourth Way)|centers]],'' as Gurdjieff called them. As a result, these ways fail to produce a properly balanced human being. Furthermore, anyone wishing to undertake any of the traditional paths to spiritual knowledge (which Gurdjieff reduced to three—namely the way of the [[fakirFakir]], the way of the [[monkMonk]], and the way of the [[yogiYogi]]) were required to renounce life in the world. But Gurdjieff also described a "Fourth Way"<ref>[[P. D. Ouspensky]] (1949), ''[[In Search of the Miraculous]],'' Chapter 2</ref> which would be amenable to the requirements of contemporary people living in Europe and America. Instead of training the mind, body and emotions separately, Gurdjieff's discipline worked on all three to promote an organic connection between them and a balanced development.

Gurdjieff felt that the traditional methods to acquire self-knowledge—those of the [[fakirFakir]], [[monkMonk]], and [[yogiYogi]] (acquired, respectively, through pain, devotion, and study)—were inadequate on their own to achieve any real understanding. He instead advocated "the way of the sly man"<ref>See ''In Search of the Miraculous''</ref> as a short-cut to encouraging inner development that might otherwise take years of effort and without any real outcome. Instructive historical parallels can be found in the annals of [[Zen]] Buddhism, where teachers employed a variety of methods (sometimes highly unorthodox) to bring about the arising of [[Satori|insight]] in the student.

== References ==