Class 6: Self Remembering

The Master: Gurdjieff

If you go on the web you'll find over 14,000 entries related to this mysterious man, his life and his teachings. Some of the entries are downright worshipful to the point of overdone in his favor; many of them are mostly unbiased and shed considerable light on who he was and how he continues to influence interested seekers; and some of them are openly hostile to this man and his teachings.

• Gurdjieff was deeply loved by a great many people; however, he seems to have purposefully created for the media. a whirlwind of confusion and mystery, and also irrate emotions, surrounding his life and his teachings.

Gurdjieff openly disdained all the spiritual groupies and celebrities and media hounds who pursued him during his extremely active and colorful lifetime, and he often chased people away from his circle by appearing bizarre and even threatening. He regularly "violated all our preconceptions of a spiritual leader and sometimes repelled the more frivolous religious seekers," as one member of his group commented at the time.

Gurdjieff smoked and drank and cursed and partied and at times displayed the full range of human emotions. He loved to cook great feasts and was known for his continual celebrations and musical evenings which went often until three or four in the morning.

Numerous reports indicate that Gurdjieff usually slept only 2 hours each night, and possessed a seemingly-infinite amount of energy. He is quoted as saying that "We never reach the limits of our strength" and indeed, he seldom seemed to.

He would finally go to sleep around four in the morning, then around six he'd come down from his hotel room in Paris, London, New York or elsewhere and welcome conversations in his 'office' at a nearby café. He was also a great dancer and musician, scored a number of operas and created many ritual dances.

In spite of his growing media reputation as someone who went out of his way to outrage interviewers and hangers-on, Gurdjieff had a great free and easy laugh and sense of humor, and also a very tender quality. He regularly found time to play and instruct the children in his large group of followers; and even in moments of extreme danger, seemed utterly fearless.

Judging from the many accounts of people who were close to him, Gurdjieff emerges as a constantly-mysterious yet always-marvelous phenomenon. We know historically that he was born to Christian Armenian parents in the obscure town of Kars on the Russo-Turkish border near Alexandropol. The year of his birth was probably 1866 or thereabouts.

Based on his youthful autobiography Meetings With Remarkable Men he seems to have come from a scholarly family with a strong mystic bent. From an early age he aggressively sought out spiritual teachers of all kinds to whet his insatiable appetite for new information and insights related to anything of interest. He could talk deeply about the theory of relativity and in the same conversation discuss yak raising in Nepal; he was equally comfortable with movie stars or with illiterate peasants; his intellect gobbled and integrated everything he found of interest.

Although Gurdjieff refused to write down, beyond his one early book, any concrete facts about his early life, it’' fairly certain that he did spend considerable time in India and Tibet and thereabouts, seeking training and insights into the ancient wisdom. In 1904 he was spotted in Tibet by Achmed Abdullah, a spy for the British the year they invaded that country. Gurdjieff was serving at the time as a crafty chief political officer to the Dalai Lama under the name Dordjieff. Some years later that same spy, by then a well-known author, saw Gurdjieff in New York and exclaimed - "That's him, that's Dordjieff!"

From 1910 through 1917, Gurdjieff was in Moscow and Petrograd where he first appears as a public figure, working diligently as both a controversial teacher with numerous students, and also as a musical composer. Then, just before violence broke out, he left Russia and crossed the Caucasus mountains to Tiflis, moving from town to town westward, working at various jobs, and always teaching and exploring.

In 1922 Gurdjieff moved from Berlin to France, where he set up his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Chateau du Prieure. Achieving more and more recognition for his pioneering spiritual work, in 1924 he first visited America, giving public demonstrations with his students of his sacred dances, holding court at hotels in New York and Chicago, and continuing his non-stop teaching and all-night celebrations.

When he returned to France he plunged back into his teaching of up to a hundred students at his Institute - only to suffer a terrible auto accident that at least temporarily put an end to his teaching routine. Instead he settled in to write several books, such as Meetings With Remarkable Men, Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson; Views from the Real World; The Herald of Coming Good and Life Is Real Only Then.

• Take my word for it - this man's writings are a challenge to delve into, and luckily we have other books by his followers, most notably from P.D. Ouspensky (sometimes spelled Uspenskii), G. I Bennett, Maurice Nicolle and Robert Earl Burton.

Gurdjieff weathered the Second World War in Paris where he managed somehow to continue undisturbed with his teachings and general celebratory lifestyle without getting involved in the war scene whatsoever.

One account remembers him deciding he wanted to go to Germany to a monastery to read through an ancient manuscript. With several dozen followers he simply walked through the German lines one night. First-hand reports say the soldiers temporarily laid down their arms and watched, and none of Gurdjieff's group was in any way accosted or harmed during their crossing, and their return some days later.

Many other reports (fabled or otherwise) tell of a life spent without inhibition or fear, and without any bowing down to societal rules and regulations. He spent loads of money, yet almost always seemed to have plenty of money flowing through his hands. He was continually covering the hotel and restaurant bills for dozens of his followers. He often cooked for them, he tipped on a fabulous scale, yet himself didn't bother to live a luxurious life - he was just that kind of guy.

Gurdjieff's primary disciple (and friend) P.D. Ouspensky was a philosopher who translated Gurdjieff's esoteric teachings and methods into a workable formula called The Fourth Way. Groups all over the world still practice this set of methods and explore the ideas and spiritual truths imbedded in it. For me though, this schol is a bit head-trippy, to put it mildly - many hoops to hop through, and giant concepts about spiritual experience.

A current primary teacher of The Fourth Way is a man named Robert Earl Burton, whose Fellowship of Friends school and primary book Self-Remembering have provided great insight for many people. And around the world there are many other teachers today who continue the evolution of Gurdjieff's meditative thrust. For me, this path has become rather negative and loaded with giant concepts - but for some people, it works.

• The core teaching of Gurdjieff was direct and swift and immense - from my teacher at least, I learned this 'cut to the bone' process. And it's the exact same process that Jesus taught - Wake Up!

We all lie inside our ego identities. Gurdjieff did his best to help his disciples suddenly realize that they are more than their ego identities - they are infinite spiritual beings in direct communion with God.

Deep-down we know who we really are. When we quiet all our thoughts and ego ideas, we wake up and remember who we really are. This is what self-remembering is all about.

• As I mentioned initially in the Introduction to class six and will continue to explore in the Discussion coming up, Gurdjieff taught that we are mostly asleep to our true nature, because we never open the inner eyes that look inward to our source.

He taught with great gusto (and often great frustration that no one seemed to get his teaching) that we must take control of our own attention, turn and look directly inward - and see again who we truly are!

Each time you move through the Seven Masters meditation, you strengthen your inner power to hold more and more of your attention focused inward to your source.

• The aim is of course to always have part of your attention focused on who you really are - so that God can act through you. You attain this expanded spiritual state by reglarly performing a conscious act designed to help you wake up, and stay awake!

As Gurdjieff so often said, our human habit is to keep falling asleep - and so I've designed this short-form meditation so that over and over each day, you can move through the focus phrases to this sixth expansion, say "I feel connected with my source," experience this connection - say "I know who I am," and wake up again ...

This primary spiritual act is just that - an action that you actively take, over and over. You yourself are the only one who can remember many times each day to say a few focus phrases to yourself, and allow those focus phrases to turn your attention toward your core of being.