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Has anyone here studied Gurdjieff's teachings?
- Thread starter arcanum
- Start date
arcanum
Active Member
ah a very difficult book.the funny thing is your not going to get a concise overview of his system from Gurdjieff's own writings but rather from his pupils.arguably the best book of the complete system was written by his chief pupil Ouspensky and that book would be "In search of the miraculous".That is the book to read ,Where ouspensky chronicles his time spent studying and traveling with gurdjieff and outlines the system and teaching in complete form.
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Caladan
Agnostic Pantheist
You might be right. yet so much to read.. so little time. :sarcastic
Troublemane
Well-Known Member
Its always the followers who define the master isnt it? Those who come later, always have it all figured out, in a neat system. e.g., Paul, al-Wahhab, Ezra the scribe. :angel2:
ericoh2
******
I have read a lot about Gurdjieff and his teachings. For me he has been one of the most significant spiritual teachers that I've come across. He had a very unique approach and really gave tremendous insight into the nature of humanity. I'm kind of surprised he is not brought up more often in this forum.
Mr Cheese
Well-Known Member
I second that...beyond a wiki search I have only really heard the name...
G. I. Gurdjieff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
how accurate would this be, anyone?
I do like the fact he called Crowley dirty ha ha....
but sounds like he may not have been all that different
G. I. Gurdjieff - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
how accurate would this be, anyone?
I do like the fact he called Crowley dirty ha ha....
but sounds like he may not have been all that different
ericoh2
******
Sorry this is so late. For some reason I didn't check this question until now. One thing I really loved about Gurdjieff was his deep understanding of the human psyche. This for me is where religion must start, know thyself. He gave understanding and techniques for acquiring the much needed focus and integration of our being so that we may focus the needed energy into expanding our awareness. One example I read about was given from a fourth way student in which he was told the simple exercise of remembering to open doors with your left hand for a week and observing your ability to do so (ie. when you remembered, how often you forgot, etc.). This technique alone has been more beneficial for me than the majority of teachings given in a modern weekly church service. Gurdjieff also gave profound teachings on the nature of the conscious and subconscious mind which he apparently called man's personality and essence. I highly recommend reading In Search of the Miraculous by PD Ouspensky and Beelzebub's tales to his Grandson, Meetings with Remarkable Men and Life is Real Only then When I Am by Gurdjieff. Beelzebubs Tales is truly a spiritual masterpiece in the sense that it requires a certain "self remembering" (which is another primary concept in Gurdjieff's teaching that can be found, fairly thoroughly in "In Search of the Miraculous" ) in order to even really understand it. I hope this was helpful as I really think those in search of the higher meanings to life would truly benefit by studying Gurdjieff and his teachings.
blackout
Violet.
Funny, when I read "know thyself" in your post I thought of the LHP (left hand path)...
then you went on with the left hand door exercise just a line or two later.
then Beelzebub... and Self Remembering...
(you strike me as an 'ambidextrous')
ericoh2
******
I was surprised to see this thread come up again on today's posts, I didn't think anyone was still looking at it, lol. Well I will say that Gurdjieff was a very mysterious figure so many might include his teachings under a left handed path. I personally have only briefly studied the definition of what left handed means so I'm not really qualified to elaborate on this comparison. I can say, however, that I hold the Gurdjieff teaching and ideas in very high esteem as he has been a major influence on me the last couple of years. If you do decide to investigate him further I would recommend starting out reading "In Search of the Miraculous" by PD Ouspensky because he lays a good foundation for Gurdjieffs ideas.
Studying his teachings is one thing.. practicing it requires a life time of work... or well so I've heard (I'm still very young and inexperienced). Describing mr. Gurdjieff's work over the internet so one could fully understand it is.. almost impossible. I also think that I am not the best person to explain, but I want to try anyway. To put it short and simple: G. traveled the world to collect knowledge and he visited sacred places. he took all different kinds of spiritual knowledge from the east and I assume he practiced it himself at the time. Then he made it his own and began spreading his teachings here (?) in the west. The main ''objective'' is to achieve true happiness and help yourself. If you help yourself you will be able to help the world. I havent read the whole wikipedia link about G but I guess its good enough. The main idea is that there are 3 ways. Each of these ways is a training for one aspect from us as human being.he combined it together and called it ''The Fourth Way''. According to Gurdjieff ''most people'' are ''sleeping'' and we have but a few moments when we're not sleeping. To get out of this ''sleep'' it is necessary to practice something which is called ''self observation'' and ''self remembering'' and other stuff. I'm not good with terms but I will put it in my own simple words: Feel your body, relax and empty your mind, try to be aware of your feelings/actions/thoughts, embrace yourself. It seems that in order to get it right you must do this every day all day long. you will make yourself more and more sensitive in life. It is wise to began with one of the first steps which is: FEEL YOUR FEET and pay attention to it. try to experience with it but be carefull. things can go wrong. If you want to really do this: search for his books and take a look at some youtube movies (search for: Gurdjieff: Teacher of Radical Transformation) and find other people. there are several gurdjieff foundations throughout europe and america.
arcanum
Active Member
Yes there is so much to his teaching and it's unfortunate that it so often overlooked and unknown. It is a path for the few, you have to really look for it to find it.... not for mass consumption.
zenzero
Its only a Label
Friends,
Personal understanding is that Gurdjieff was an enlightened individual.
What he practiced is *zen or meditation or dyana* like every enlightened master.
It was a great opportunity for huamns living in the west to be able to be upclose and personal with the practice through him but unfortunately his method did not find much takers and so mostly remains within a close group of followers.
However it makes no difference wether on follows a path by any master as finally one has to be in zen or meditation or dhaya* to be in oneness to realise the 'self" as Gurdjieff points at.
Love & rgds
Personal understanding is that Gurdjieff was an enlightened individual.
What he practiced is *zen or meditation or dyana* like every enlightened master.
It was a great opportunity for huamns living in the west to be able to be upclose and personal with the practice through him but unfortunately his method did not find much takers and so mostly remains within a close group of followers.
However it makes no difference wether on follows a path by any master as finally one has to be in zen or meditation or dhaya* to be in oneness to realise the 'self" as Gurdjieff points at.
Love & rgds
no-body
Well-Known Member
Sounds like mindfulness or the hindu concept of being the "watcher"
Gurdjieff is a little too esoteric for my taste, I prefer a direct blunt teaching but he clearly had something just from what I've skimmed.
zenzero
Its only a Label
Friend no-body,
His esoterism was such that few could be around him and so we have very small group of practitioners of his method.
Whatever you may follow without regular practice or as the term amongst zen prctitioners *polishing the brick*, one never grows/evolves/moves.
Love & rgds
You skimmed right.
His esoterism was such that few could be around him and so we have very small group of practitioners of his method.
Whatever you may follow without regular practice or as the term amongst zen prctitioners *polishing the brick*, one never grows/evolves/moves.
Love & rgds
apophenia
Well-Known Member
The Science Of Idiotism
Saturday evenings [at the Prieuré] there would be communal Turkish baths first for men and then the women, followed by a feast and ritual toasting of the Idiots.
Referred to as ′The Science of Idiotism′, Gurdjieff maintained that this was an initiate ritual that had been practiced for 4,500 years and expressed the secrets of the inner life of Man. It was never to be practiced apart from the sacramental meal and always with alcohol, never wine.
There are 21 different Idiots with Gurdjieff being number 18; 19 and 20 are Sacred Individuals performing functions in the whole Megalocosmos; and 21 is the Unique Idiot, our God.
After hearing the toasts to the various Idiots at one meal, at the next Gurdjieff asked students to pick their Idiot, as everyone was one. (The Greek root meaning of the word is ′I make my own.′ They were to choose from the first twelve Idiots.
These were:
Interestingly, the limitation of a wrong crystallization is not realized until the results that such a crystallization produces have been observed. Only through work on oneself - the correct remembering and observing of oneself - does one automatically descend to Ordinary Idiot. Once the level of Ordinary Idiot has been recognized and reached, the ascension is also automatic. Every two or three years a new Idiot is reached - Super becomes Arch, Arch becomes Hopeless, Hopeless becomes Compassionate, and so on.
The ritual itself was simple. At the beginning of the meal, the Director proposed a toast, "To the health of all Ordinary Idiots." If a person was present who had chosen or been designated as an Ordinary Idiot, the Director added, "And to your health also," saying the name of the person. Letting a few minutes go by, the Director then proposed a second toast, "To the health of all Super Idiots," and so on.
(William P. Patterson - Ladies of the Rope) Marcia Paul contributes:
"Gurdjieff introduced his toast to the Idiots in 1922, and from 1940 gave it increasing emphasis. Although not divesting ′Idiot′ of its pejorative sense, he re-invested it with the meaning of individuality (from a Greek root meaning 'I make my own').
Though idiocy was universal - God himself being the Unique Idiot (No.21) - a subsidiary differentiation afforded a human typology at once ′poetic′ and profound.
Each pupil, relying simply on intuition, was initially required to choose his own Idiot from among the first twelve...
Although Idiots 1-16 might seem to occupy a plateau of being, only differentiate behaviourally, there are hints of a desirable evolution to the proximate type...
Idiots 17-21 constituted a spiritual hierarchy, reflecting progressive gradations of objective reason. Idiot 18 presented the highest development which a human being could reach, but in order to attain it, he had first voluntarily to decent again from 17 to 1, the ordinary idiot. Idiots 19 and 21 were reserved for the sons of God...
The Toast to the Idiots was discontinued immediately on Gurdjieff's death in 1949, it being felt that, without his decisive presence, it stood in danger of becoming a mere form without content."
"Herewith the most complete list possible of Gurdjieff′s Order of Idiots:
Idiot 18 presented the highest development which a human being could reach, but in order to attain it, he had first voluntarily to descend again from 17 to 1, the ordinary idiot.
Idiots 19 and 21 were reserved for the sons of God.
21 - Unique Idiot (God himself)"
(J.B.Moore - Gurdjieff: a Biography) Dushka Howarth studied with Gurdjieff and he chose that category for her when she vacillated too long [Squirming Idiot].
"Soon you must change. Squirming only is passing state for man. Is state like fish out of sea. Man must not stay long - or man die - or obliged be born again."
Gurdjieff told another person: "Squirming Idiot... not yet ready for help."
(Bob Hunter - The Tyrant Within) Everyone who has undertaken to work on himself is considered to participate in idiotism... The final hurdle before attaining the level of Idiot 18 is, Gurdjieff said, that a person reaching a higher threshold must ′consciencely′ descend to No.1 - and, it would appear, retrace his or her steps. ′Consciencely′ tells us that it requires both consciousness and conscience. This enhanced, revitalised reliving of steps, states and/or characteristics becomes necessary for No. 10, Enlightened Idiot, according to Bennett, or No. 17 Idiot (whose name, if given, eludes modern searches) in view of most other Work writers. There′s perhaps a connection between Idiot 17 and Mme de Salzmann's ′going out of Idiocy′.
(ibidem) According to Gurdjieff′s secretary Louise March, in Beth McCorkle′s The Gurdjieff Years 1929-1949, Madame de Salzmann was the only person "going out of idiocy." This is odd in that Gurdjieff said that everyone has an Idiot. He may have meant that at the higher levels of Idiocy one becomes a Unique Idiot, such as Gurdjieff.
(ibidem) Gurdjieff told Kathryn Hulme and others that he had studied seven years to create science d′idiotisme, ′putting into it all his knowledge of human typicality, polarity and so forth′...
Gurdjieff once explained, "Everyone is Idiot, even God. But when these Idiots see another who is another kind of Idiot from themselves, they become angry and curse him. This is very characteristic of these Idiots. Now compassionate means that among this company can sometimes exist Idiots who know that all are Idiots together so they pity all and not become angry. These are Compassionate. I am Unique Idiot so I am no more this Idiot Compassionate."
(ibidem) There were two categories of Compassionate Idiot - Sympathetic and Antipathic. The one sees a man lying in the gutter in rags, starving and helpless. He goes to him immediately and helps him in every way, even giving him his own shirt, and the other does exactly the same, but only because his fiancée′s father is looking out of the window.
(Rina Hands - Madame Egout Pour Sweet) Mr.Gurdjieff, drawing a square in the air, paused at the corners, saying, "Sometimes he stop." I wondered how anyone dared choose this, as I thought it meant sometimes he stops being an Idiot, but by asking someone who had chosen it [Square Idiot], I learnt that the accepted interpretation is that such people keep on stopping and changing direction all the time.
(ibidem) There are twenty-one graduations of reason from that of the ordinary man to that of our Endlessness, that is, God. No one can reach the Absolute Reason of God, and only the sons of God like Jesus Christ can have the two graduations of reason that are nineteenth and twentieth. Therefore the aim of every being who aspires to perfection must be able to reach the eighteenth graduation.
(J.G.Bennett - Gurdjieff: Making a New World)
This material is from -
( http://www.satrak****a.be/the_science_of_idiotism.htm )
Saturday evenings [at the Prieuré] there would be communal Turkish baths first for men and then the women, followed by a feast and ritual toasting of the Idiots.
Referred to as ′The Science of Idiotism′, Gurdjieff maintained that this was an initiate ritual that had been practiced for 4,500 years and expressed the secrets of the inner life of Man. It was never to be practiced apart from the sacramental meal and always with alcohol, never wine.
There are 21 different Idiots with Gurdjieff being number 18; 19 and 20 are Sacred Individuals performing functions in the whole Megalocosmos; and 21 is the Unique Idiot, our God.
After hearing the toasts to the various Idiots at one meal, at the next Gurdjieff asked students to pick their Idiot, as everyone was one. (The Greek root meaning of the word is ′I make my own.′
They were to choose from the first twelve Idiots.These were:
- Ordinary Idiot
- Super Idiot
- Arch Idiot
- Hopeless Idiot
- Compassionate Idiot
- Squirming Idiot
- Square Idiot
- Round Idiot
- Zigzag Idiot
- Enlightened Idiot
- Doubting Idiot
- Swaggering Idiot
Interestingly, the limitation of a wrong crystallization is not realized until the results that such a crystallization produces have been observed. Only through work on oneself - the correct remembering and observing of oneself - does one automatically descend to Ordinary Idiot. Once the level of Ordinary Idiot has been recognized and reached, the ascension is also automatic. Every two or three years a new Idiot is reached - Super becomes Arch, Arch becomes Hopeless, Hopeless becomes Compassionate, and so on.
The ritual itself was simple. At the beginning of the meal, the Director proposed a toast, "To the health of all Ordinary Idiots." If a person was present who had chosen or been designated as an Ordinary Idiot, the Director added, "And to your health also," saying the name of the person. Letting a few minutes go by, the Director then proposed a second toast, "To the health of all Super Idiots," and so on.
(William P. Patterson - Ladies of the Rope) Marcia Paul contributes:
"Gurdjieff introduced his toast to the Idiots in 1922, and from 1940 gave it increasing emphasis. Although not divesting ′Idiot′ of its pejorative sense, he re-invested it with the meaning of individuality (from a Greek root meaning 'I make my own').
Though idiocy was universal - God himself being the Unique Idiot (No.21) - a subsidiary differentiation afforded a human typology at once ′poetic′ and profound.
Each pupil, relying simply on intuition, was initially required to choose his own Idiot from among the first twelve...
Although Idiots 1-16 might seem to occupy a plateau of being, only differentiate behaviourally, there are hints of a desirable evolution to the proximate type...
Idiots 17-21 constituted a spiritual hierarchy, reflecting progressive gradations of objective reason. Idiot 18 presented the highest development which a human being could reach, but in order to attain it, he had first voluntarily to decent again from 17 to 1, the ordinary idiot. Idiots 19 and 21 were reserved for the sons of God...
The Toast to the Idiots was discontinued immediately on Gurdjieff's death in 1949, it being felt that, without his decisive presence, it stood in danger of becoming a mere form without content."
"Herewith the most complete list possible of Gurdjieff′s Order of Idiots:
- Ordinary Idiot
- Super Idiot
- Arch Idiot
- Hopeless Idiot
- Compassionate Idiot
- Squirming Idiot
- Square Idiot
- Round Idiot
- Zigzag Idiot
- Enlightened Idiot
- Doubting Idiot
- Swaggering Idiot
- Born Idiot
- Patented Idiot
- Psychopathic Idiot
- Polyhedral Idiot
Idiot 18 presented the highest development which a human being could reach, but in order to attain it, he had first voluntarily to descend again from 17 to 1, the ordinary idiot.
Idiots 19 and 21 were reserved for the sons of God.
21 - Unique Idiot (God himself)"
(J.B.Moore - Gurdjieff: a Biography) Dushka Howarth studied with Gurdjieff and he chose that category for her when she vacillated too long [Squirming Idiot].
"Soon you must change. Squirming only is passing state for man. Is state like fish out of sea. Man must not stay long - or man die - or obliged be born again."
Gurdjieff told another person: "Squirming Idiot... not yet ready for help."
(Bob Hunter - The Tyrant Within) Everyone who has undertaken to work on himself is considered to participate in idiotism... The final hurdle before attaining the level of Idiot 18 is, Gurdjieff said, that a person reaching a higher threshold must ′consciencely′ descend to No.1 - and, it would appear, retrace his or her steps. ′Consciencely′ tells us that it requires both consciousness and conscience. This enhanced, revitalised reliving of steps, states and/or characteristics becomes necessary for No. 10, Enlightened Idiot, according to Bennett, or No. 17 Idiot (whose name, if given, eludes modern searches) in view of most other Work writers. There′s perhaps a connection between Idiot 17 and Mme de Salzmann's ′going out of Idiocy′.
(ibidem) According to Gurdjieff′s secretary Louise March, in Beth McCorkle′s The Gurdjieff Years 1929-1949, Madame de Salzmann was the only person "going out of idiocy." This is odd in that Gurdjieff said that everyone has an Idiot. He may have meant that at the higher levels of Idiocy one becomes a Unique Idiot, such as Gurdjieff.
(ibidem) Gurdjieff told Kathryn Hulme and others that he had studied seven years to create science d′idiotisme, ′putting into it all his knowledge of human typicality, polarity and so forth′...
Gurdjieff once explained, "Everyone is Idiot, even God. But when these Idiots see another who is another kind of Idiot from themselves, they become angry and curse him. This is very characteristic of these Idiots. Now compassionate means that among this company can sometimes exist Idiots who know that all are Idiots together so they pity all and not become angry. These are Compassionate. I am Unique Idiot so I am no more this Idiot Compassionate."
(ibidem) There were two categories of Compassionate Idiot - Sympathetic and Antipathic. The one sees a man lying in the gutter in rags, starving and helpless. He goes to him immediately and helps him in every way, even giving him his own shirt, and the other does exactly the same, but only because his fiancée′s father is looking out of the window.
(Rina Hands - Madame Egout Pour Sweet) Mr.Gurdjieff, drawing a square in the air, paused at the corners, saying, "Sometimes he stop." I wondered how anyone dared choose this, as I thought it meant sometimes he stops being an Idiot, but by asking someone who had chosen it [Square Idiot], I learnt that the accepted interpretation is that such people keep on stopping and changing direction all the time.
(ibidem) There are twenty-one graduations of reason from that of the ordinary man to that of our Endlessness, that is, God. No one can reach the Absolute Reason of God, and only the sons of God like Jesus Christ can have the two graduations of reason that are nineteenth and twentieth. Therefore the aim of every being who aspires to perfection must be able to reach the eighteenth graduation.
(J.G.Bennett - Gurdjieff: Making a New World)
This material is from -
( http://www.satrak****a.be/the_science_of_idiotism.htm )
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