74 Facts About Gurdjieff

Gurdjieff taught that most humans do not possess a unified consciousness 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 achieve full human potential.

Gurdjieff described a method attempting to do so, calling the discipline "The Work" or "the System".

Gurdjieff was born to a Caucasus Greek father, Yiannis Georgiades, and an Armenian mother, Evdokia, in Alexandropol of the Russian Empire in the Transcaucasus.

The name Gurdjieff represents a Russified form of the Pontic Greek surname "Georgiades" .

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.

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Gurdjieff later acquired "a working facility with several European languages".

In early adulthood, according to his own account, Gurdjieff's curiosity led him to travel to Central Asia, Egypt, Iran, India, Tibet and Rome before he returned to Russia for a few years in 1912.

Gurdjieff was never forthcoming about the source of his teachings.

Gurdjieff asserts that he has encounters with dervishes, fakirs and descendants of the extinct Essenes, whose teaching had been, he said, conserved at a monastery in Sarmoung.

Gurdjieff wrote that he supported himself during his travels with odd jobs and trading schemes .

On New Year's Day in 1912, Gurdjieff arrived in Moscow and attracted his first students, including his cousin, the sculptor Sergey Merkurov, and the eccentric Rachmilievitch.

In 1914, Gurdjieff advertised his ballet, The Struggle of the Magicians, and he supervised his pupils' writing of the sketch Glimpses of Truth.

In 1915, Gurdjieff accepted P D Ouspensky as a pupil, and in 1916, he accepted the composer Thomas de Hartmann and his wife, Olga, as students.

In March 1918, Ouspensky separated from Gurdjieff, settling in England and teaching the Fourth Way in his own right.

In spring 1919, Gurdjieff met the artist Alexandre de Salzmann and his wife Jeanne and accepted them as pupils.

Gurdjieff concentrated on his still unstaged ballet, The Struggle of the Magicians.

In 1919, Gurdjieff established his first Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man.

Gurdjieff rented an apartment on Kumbaraci Street in Pera and later at 13 Abdullatif Yemeneci Sokak near the Galata Tower.

Gurdjieff's appearance was striking enough even in Turkey, where one saw many unusual types.

Gurdjieff's head was shaven, immense black moustache, eyes which at one moment seemed very pale and at another almost black.

The once-impressive but somewhat crumbling mansion set in extensive grounds housed an entourage of several dozen, including some of Gurdjieff's remaining relatives and some White Russian refugees.

The generally intellectual and middle-class types who were attracted to Gurdjieff's teaching often found the Prieure's spartan accommodation and emphasis on hard labour in the grounds disconcerting.

Gurdjieff was putting into practice his teaching that people need to develop physically, emotionally and intellectually, hence the mixture of lectures, music, dance, and manual work.

Gurdjieff was standing by his bed in a state of what seemed to me to becompletely uncontrolled fury.

Gurdjieff was raging at Orage, who stood impassively, and very pale, framed in one of the windows.

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Suddenly, in thespace of an instant, Gurdjieff's voice stopped, his whole personality changed, he gave me a broad smile—looking incredibly peaceful and inwardly quiet—motioned me to leave, and then resumed his tirade with undiminished force.

Gurdjieff composed it according to his own principles, writing in noisy cafes to force a greater effort of concentration.

Gurdjieff's mother died in 1925 and his wife developed cancer and died in June 1926.

Gurdjieff was to make six or seven trips to the US, where he alienated a number of people with his brash and impudent demands for money.

Chicago-based Gurdjieff group was founded by Jean Toomer in 1927 after he had trained in Prieure for a year.

Diana Huebert was a regular member of the Chicago group, and documented the several visits Gurdjieff made to the group in 1932 and 1934 in her memoirs on the man.

Gurdjieff became acquainted with Gertrude Stein through Rope members, but she was never a follower.

Gurdjieff had completed the first two parts of the planned trilogy but only started on the Third Series.

Gurdjieff's teaching was now far removed from the original "system", being based on proverbs, jokes and personal interaction, although pupils were required to read, three times if possible, copies of his magnum opus Beelzebub's Tales.

Gurdjieff suffered a second car accident in 1948 but again made an unexpected recovery.

Gurdjieff visited the famous prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux, giving his interpretation of their significance to his pupils.

Gurdjieff died of cancer at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France.

Gurdjieff's funeral took place at the St Alexandre Nevsky Russian Orthodox Cathedral at 12 Rue Daru, Paris.

Gurdjieff had a niece, Luba Gurdjieff Everitt, who for about 40 years ran a small but rather famous restaurant, Luba's Bistro, in Knightsbridge, London.

Gurdjieff believed that people cannot perceive reality in their current condition because they do not possess a unified consciousness but rather live in a state of a hypnotic "waking sleep".

Gurdjieff asserted that people in their typical state function as unconscious automatons, but that a person can "wake up" and become a different sort of human being altogether.

Gurdjieff argued that many of the existing forms of religious and spiritual tradition on Earth had lost connection with their original meaning and vitality and so could no longer serve humanity in the way that had been intended at their inception.

Gurdjieff thus developed a "Fourth Way" which would be amenable to the requirements of modern people living modern lives in Europe and America.

In parallel with other spiritual traditions, Gurdjieff taught that a person must expend considerable effort to effect the transformation that leads to awakening.

Gurdjieff's teaching addressed the question of humanity's place in the universe and the importance of developing latent potentialities—regarded as our natural endowment as human beings but rarely brought to fruition.

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Gurdjieff taught that higher levels of consciousness, higher bodies, inner growth and development are real possibilities that nonetheless require conscious work to achieve.

Gurdjieff believed that such texts possess meanings very different from those commonly attributed to them.

Gurdjieff taught people how to increase and focus their attention and energy in various ways and to minimize daydreaming and absentmindedness.

Gurdjieff left a body of music, inspired by what he heard in visits to remote monasteries and other places, written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas de Hartmann.

Gurdjieff used various exercises, such as the "Stop" exercise, to prompt self-observation in his students.

Gurdjieff used a number of methods and materials, including meetings, music, movements, writings, lectures, and innovative forms of group and individual work.

Since each individual has different requirements, Gurdjieff did not have a one-size-fits-all approach, and he adapted and innovated as circumstance required.

Gurdjieff felt that the traditional methods of self-knowledge—those of the fakir, monk, and yogi —were inadequate on their own and often led to various forms of stagnation and one-sidedness.

Gurdjieff's methods were designed to augment the traditional paths with the purpose of hastening the developmental process.

Gurdjieff sometimes called these methods The Way of the Sly Man because they constituted a sort of short-cut through a process of development that might otherwise carry on for years without substantive results.

Gurdjieff sometimes referred to himself as a "teacher of dancing" and gained initial public notice for his attempts to put on a ballet in Moscow called Struggle of the Magicians.

Gurdjieff wrote a unique trilogy with the Series title All and Everything.

Gurdjieff gave new life and practical form to ancient teachings of both East and West.

Gurdjieff inspired the formation of many groups after his death, all of which still function today and follow his ideas.

Gurdjieff met Gurdjieff in 1915 and spent the next five years studying with him, then formed his own independent groups at London in 1921.

Gurdjieff's authenticated Gurdjieff's early talks in the book Views from the Real World .

Gurdjieff's established Triangle Editions in the US, which imprint claims copyright on all Gurdjieff's posthumous writings.

See Witness: the Autobiography of John Bennett, Gurdjieff: Making a New World, Idiots in Paris: diaries of J G Bennett and Elizabeth Bennett, 1949 .

Gurdjieff began attending Ouspensky's London talks in 1921 then met Gurdjieff when the latter first visited London early in 1922.

Gurdjieff is best known for the encyclopedic six-volume series of articles in Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky .

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Gurdjieff was a member of Ouspensky's London group for decades, and after the latter's death in 1947 visited Gurdjieff in Paris many times.

Gurdjieff established the Gurdjieff Foundation of California in the mid-1950s and remained President of the US Foundation branches until his death.

Gurdjieff said, even specifically at times, that a pious, good, and moral person was no more "spiritually developed" than any other person; they are all equally "asleep".

Critics note that Gurdjieff gives no value to most of the elements that compose the life of an average person.

Gurdjieff believed that the possession of a soul was a "luxury" that a disciple could attain only by the most painstaking work over a long period of time.

In Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, Gurdjieff expresses his reverence for the founders of the mainstream religions of East and West and his contempt for what successive generations of believers have made of those religious teachings.

Gurdjieff has been interpreted by some, Ouspensky among others, to have had a total disregard for the value of mainstream religion, philanthropic work and the value of doing right or wrong in general.

King wrote that Gurdjieff did not state it as clearly and specifically as this, but was quick to add that, to him, nothing Gurdjieff said was specific or clear.

Gurdjieff's views were initially promoted through the writings of his pupils.