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In his early lectures, as documented by made the term and its use central to his own teaching of the Gurdjieff Ideas and even published a book with that name. Today Gurdjieff's teachings are also sometimes referred to as "The Work", "'''The Gurdjieff Work'''", "'''Work on oneself'''" or simply the "'''Work'''". Gurdjieff's teaching mainly addresses the question of people's place in the Universe and their possibilities for inner development. He also emphasized that people live their lives in a form of waking sleep, but that higher levels of consciousness, higher bodies, and various inner abilities are possible. Gurdjieff taught people how to increase and focus their attention and energy in various ways, and to minimize daydreaming and absentmindedness. According to his teaching, this inner development in oneself is the beginning of a possible further process of change, whose aim is to transform a man into what Gurdjieff believed he ought to be. OVERVIEW Some of those who had contact with Gurdjieff saw him as a spiritual MasterMeetings with Remarkable Men, Translator's Note – someone who possessed what Gurdjieff himself called Objective Consciousness - in other words a human being who is fully awake or enlightened. Others saw him as an Esotericist or Occult ist. Gurdjieff widely admitted his teaching was Esoteric but he claimed that none of it was veiled in secrecy. Rather, Gurdjieff claimed that many people either don't have an interest or the capability to understand certain ideas. When asked about the teaching he was setting forth, Gurdjieff said, "The teaching whose theory is here being set out is completely self supporting and independent of other lines and it has been completely unknown up to the present time." The exact origins of Gurdjieff's teachings are unknown, but various people have offered various sources. Gurdjieff taught that humans are not born with a Soul . Rather, a man must create a soul through the course of his life. Otherwise, Gurdjieff taught that a man will "die like a dog." He also taught that the ordinary waking consciousness of human beings was not consciousness at all but merely a form of sleep and that higher levels of consciousness were possible. To provide conditions in which attention could be exercised more intensively, Gurdjieff also taught his pupils "sacred dances" or "movements" which they performed together as a group, and he left a body of music inspired by what he heard in visits to remote monasteries and other places, which was written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas De Hartmann . THE WAYS Gurdjieff claimed that there were only three ordinary ways for real spiritual development. Gurdjieff referred to his methods as the "Fourth Way." The first three ways are:
:The ''fakir'' struggles with the Physical Body and self-mastery through difficult physical exercises and postures.
:The way of the ''monk'' (or nun) represents the way of faith, the cultivation of emotional feelings.
:The ''yogi'''s approach is through knowledge and the mind. The Fourth Way Gurdjieff said that his Fourth Way was a quicker means than the first three ways because it simultaneously combined work on all Three Centers rather than focusing on one as is done in the first three ways, and that it could be followed by ordinary people in everyday life, requiring no Retirement Into The Desert . The Fourth Way did involve whole-hearted acceptance of certain conditions imposed by a teacher. The Way required supreme effort to devote oneself continuously to inner work, even though one's outward worldly roles might not change that much. In spite of his insistence that work without a teacher was next to impossible, Gurdjieff stressed each individual's responsibility: :"The fourth way differs from the other ways in that the principal demand made upon a man is the demand for understanding. A man must do nothing that he does not understand, except as an experiment under the supervision and direction of his teacher. The more a man understands what he is doing, the greater will be the results of his efforts. This is a fundamental principle of the fourth way. The results of work are in proportion to the consciousness of the work. No "faith" is required on the fourth way; on the contrary, faith of any kind is opposed to the fourth way. On the fourth way a man must satisfy himself of the truth of what he is told. And until he is satisfied he must do nothing." By its very nature, the Fourth Way is not for everyone. Gurdjieff said that secret knowledge is not deliberately hidden, and in some cases not hidden at all) but most people simply are not interested. Gurdjieff referred to those capable of receiving the work as "five of twenty of twenty" - only twenty per cent of all people ever think seriously about higher realities. Of these, only twenty per cent ever decide to do anything about it. And of these, only five per cent ever actually get anywhere. By bringing together the way of the Fakir ( Sufi tradition), the way of the Yogi ( Hindu and Sikh traditions) and the way of the Monk ( Christian and Buddhist traditions, amongst others) Gurdjieff clearly places the Fourth Way at a crossroads of differing beliefs. One of the notable factors in Gurdjieff's teachings is that all the different subjects that he thought fit together and relate to each other. Thus by studying one thing, Gurdjieff said that the person simultaneously studies many other subjects. Ouspenky documented Gurdjieff as saying that "two or three thousand years ago there were yet other ways which no longer exist and the ways now in existence were not so divided, they stood much closer to one another. The fourth way differs from the old and the new ways by the fact that it is never a permanent way. It has no definite forms and there are no institutions connected with it."In Search of the Miraculous" by P.D. Ouspensky p. 312 INSTITUTE FOR THE HARMONIOUS DEVELOPMENT OF MAN In 1922 Gurdjieff founded the Institute For The Harmonious Development Of Man . The institute was an esoteric school based on Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teaching. In 1924 Gurdjieff nearly died in a car crash. After he recovered, he closed down the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man and began writing All and Everything. From 1930, Gurdjieff made visits to North America where he resumed his teachings. AFTER GURDJIEFF After Gurdjieff's death in 1949 a variety of groups around the world have continued, or attempted to continue, The Work. The Gurdjieff Foundation, the largest organization directly linked to Mr. Gurdjieff, was organized by ran groups and also made contact with the Subud and Sufi schools to develop The Work in different directions. Maurice Nicoll , a Jung ian psychologist also ran his own groups based on Gurdjieff and Ouspensky's ideas. The French institute was headed for many years by Madam de Salzman - a direct pupil of Gurdjieff. Under her leadership, the Gurdjieff Societies of London and New York were founded and developed. There is much debate as to the ability of one to follow Gurdjieff's ideas after his death through groups, with some critics pointing to the fact that Gurdjieff (apparently) failed to raise any of his pupils to his level of understanding. Proponents of the continued viability of Gurdjieff's system, and its study through the use of groups, however, point to Gurdjieff's insistence on the training of initiates specifically in the task of interpreting and disseminating the ideas that he expressed cryptically in Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson . This, combined with Gurdjieff's almost fanatical dedication to the completion of this text, suggest that Gurdjieff himself intended his ideas to continue to be practiced and taught long after his death. TRANSMISSION In Search of the Miraculous it was noted that Gurdjieff taught that once the initial school with the real teacher is finished, all the other schools which try to continue the work presented by the initial school are no longer real. Ouspensky relates that in the early work with Gurdjieff in Moscow and St. Petersburg , it was strictly forbidden for students to write down, much less publish, anything at all connected with Gurdjieff and his ideas due to the fact that Gurdjieff said that students of his methods would find themselves unable to transmit correctly what is said in the groups. Somewhat later, Gurdjieff relaxed this rule, accepting as students many who subsequently published accounts of their experiences in the work. FAKE SCHOOLS Gurdjieff indicated that there are fake schools where the teacher either:
Ouspensky quotes Gurdjieff saying that these teachers lead nowhere, except making the students believe that they are going somewhere. He also added that "It is impossible to recognize a wrong way without knowing the right way. This means that it is no use troubling oneself how to recognize a wrong way. One must think of how to find the right way." In Search of The Miraculous (Chapter 10) Gurdjieff also noted that there are groups of people, who believe they follow his ideas, but they focus only on one aspect of his teaching (such as self-observation or self-remembering), and thus obtain negative and wrong results. Life is Real Only then When 'I am' (First Talk) ORIGINS OF THE FOURTH WAY It was noted in "In Search Of Miraculous" that Gurdjieff refused to reveal the origins of his teaching or the Fourth Way. Later on in his autobiography, Gurdjieff credited certain people in Asia for many of his ideas, while he nevertheless still refused to divulge the origins of his system. For the origins of his system, and his teachings (as many people didn't accept Gurdjieff's claims on this subject), various intellectual and spiritual debts have been suggested:
TEACHINGS AND TEACHING METHODS Basis of Teachings Gurdjieff's teachings mainly focused on the acquiring of the ability to constantly perform conscious labors and intentional suffering. Conscious Labors - This is a labor where the person who is performing the act is not absentminded during his act, but rather is "remembering himself" the entire time and what he is doing; and at the same time he is striving to perform the act more efficiently. Intentional suffering - This is the act of struggling against the desires of the physical body such as daydreaming, pleasure, food (in terms of eating for reasons other than real hunger), etc... Gurdjieff claimed that these two acts were the basis of all evolution of man. Teachings Gurdjieff's teachings dealt with an enormous amount of subjects. His main explanations revolved around the following: Consciousness, Subconsciousness, Higher Consciousness, Conscience, Remorse of Conscience, The Physical Body's Functions, Higher Bodies, Centers , Self-Awareness, Knowledge vs. Understanding, Essence vs Personality, Universal Laws , Enneagram , Ray Of Creation , Human History, Language, Hypnotism, Sacred Dance, Sacred Music, Humans' Natural Weaknesses...some are expanded below: Self-Observation Striving to observe in one's self the certain behaviors and habits which are usually only observed in others. Division of Attention - ''(Preliminary exercise to Self-Remembering)'' Gurdjieff encouraged his students to cultivate the ability to divide their attention, that is, the ability to remain fully focussed on an external object or internal thought while being aware of oneself. One might, for instance, let part of one's attention dwell in one's little finger, while the other half is aware of our own presence. In the division of attention, it is not a matter of going back and forth between one thing and another, but experiencing them both fully and simultaneously. Self-Remembering Beyond the division of attention lies "remembering oneself" - a state, which is permanent in a "conscious" person, while fleeting and temporary in the average people. In this state a person sees what is seen without ever losing sight of himself seeing. Ordinarily, when concentrating on something, people lose their sense of "I," although they may as it were passively react to the stimulus they are concentrating on. In self-remembering the "I" is not lost. The Need for Efforts Gurdjieff emphasized that awakening results from consistent, prolonged efforts. These efforts are the ones that are made after a person is already exhausted and feels that he can't go anymore, but nevertheless he pushes himself. The Many 'I's Many I's is a term which indicates the different, conflicting at times, feelings of ‘I’ in a person: I think, I want, I know best, I prefer, I am happy, hungry, tired. These feelings of ‘I’ usually have nothing in common and are present for short periods of time. These feelings tie in with Gurdjieff's claim that a man has no unity in himself, that is, that he wants one thing now and another thing later. Relaxation. Gurdjieff claimed that people's bodies are over-tensed during their actions, and thus they unnecessarily waste a lot of energy. Gurdjieff focused on ways of relaxing the physical body and minimizing the tenseness of the human muscles. Centers :''Main article Centers (Fourth Way) Gurdjieff classified plants as having one center, animals two and humans three. Centers refer to apparatuses within a being that dictate specific organic functions. There are three main ones in a man: intellectual, '''emotional''' and '''physical''', and two higher ones: '''higher emotional''' and '''higher intellectual'''. Body, Essence and Personality Gurdjieff divided people into three independent parts, that is, into ''Body'', ''Essence'' and ''Personality''. Body is the physical functions of a body. '''Essence''' - is a so to say a "natural part of a person" or "what he is born with". '''Personality''' - is everything artificial that he has "learned" and "seen". It was taught that Essence is the part of a being which is able to evolve. Law of Accident Gurdjieff and his followers have written that one of the major aims of the Fourth Way system is to escape from the influence of the Law of Accident. Moon symbolism Gurdjieff was documented as teaching that people assimilate and transubstantiate certain matter which upon their death is released from their body and transferred to the Moon. The simplest way of explaining this theory is by comparing it to other Biogeochemical cycle such as the Carbon Cycle or the Nitrogen Cycle. In the nitrogen cycle, bacteria assimilate and transfer nitrogen from the soil into the atmosphere. Parallel to this, in Gurdjieff's moon theory, humans assimilate a certain type of matter in order that it is transferred from the Earth to the Moon. The use of symbols In his explanations Gurdjieff often used different symbols such as the Enneagram and the Ray Of Creation . Gurdjieff said that "the enneagram is a universal symbol. All knowledge can be included in the enneagram and with the help of the enneagram it can be interpreted ... A man may be quite alone in the desert and he can trace the enneagram in the sand and in it read the Eternal Laws Of The Universe . And every time he can learn something new, something he did not know before." While the ray of creation is a diagram which better represents the place which Earth occupies in the Universe. The diagram has eight levels, each corresponding to Gurdjieff's laws of octaves. Through the elaboration of the law of octaves and the meaning of the enneagram, Gurdjieff offered his students alternative means of conceptualizing the world and their place in it. Working Conditions and Sacred Dances To provide conditions in which attention could be exercised more intensively, Gurdjieff also taught his pupils " Sacred Dances " or "movements" which they performed together as a group, and he left a body of music inspired by what he heard in visits to remote monasteries and other places, which was written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas De Hartmann . Gurdjieff laid emphasis on the idea that the seeker must conduct his or her own search. The teacher cannot do the student's work for the student, but is more of a guide on the path to self-discovery. As a teacher, Gurdjieff specialized in creating conditions for students - conditions in which growth was possible, in which efficient progress could be made by the willing. To find oneself in a set of conditions a gifted teacher has arranged has another benefit. As Gurdjieff put it, "You must realize that each man has a definite repertoire of roles which he plays in ordinary circumstances ... but put him into even only slightly different circumstances and he is unable to find a suitable role and for a short time he becomes himself." SIMILARITIES WITH OTHER TEACHINGS There are some similarities between the Fourth Way teaching and other spiritual teachings
GURDJIEFF'S PUPILS Jeanne de Salzmann Jeanne De Salzmann (1889 – 1990) was a close pupil of G. I. Gurdjieff, recognized as his deputy by many of Gurdjieff's other pupils. She was responsible for transmitting the movements and teachings of Gurdjieff through the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York, the Gurdjieff Institute of Paris and other formal and informal groups throughout the world. She began her career at the Conservatory of Geneva, studying piano, orchestral conduction and musical composition. Later a student of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze in Germany from 1912, she taught dance and rhythmic movements. The Russian revolution triggered a move for Jeanne and her husband Alexandre to Tiflis, Georgia where she continued to teach. The Gurdjieff Foundation, the largest organization directly linked to Mr. Gurdjieff, was organized by Jeanne de Salzmann during the early 1950s and led by her, in cooperation with other direct pupils, until her death in 1990. From that year until his passing in August 2001, Dr. Michel de Salzmann directed the network of Gurdjieff foundations, societies, and institutes. The work of the Foundation continues today with the guidance of direct pupils and the next generation. The Foundation is registered under the name “The Gurdjieff Foundation” in the USA, by the name “The Gurdjieff Society” in the UK, and in France under the name “Institut Gurdjieff.” Wim Nyland Wim Nyland was, after Jeanne de Salzmann, Gurdjieff's closest pupil; he was appointed for an undisclosed special task by Gurdjieff in the USA . Lord Pentland Lord Pentland (Henry John Sinclair) was a pupil of Ouspensky for many years during the 1930s and 1940s. He began to study intensely with Gurdjieff in 1948. He was appointed by Gurdjieff as his representative to publish Beelzebub's Tales , and then Gurdjieff appointed him to lead the Work in North America. He became president of the Gurdjieff Foundation when it was established in New York in 1953 and remained in that position until his death. Jane Heap Jane Heap ( 1883 - 1964 ) was an American publisher and a significant figure in the development and promotion of literary Modernism . Heap herself has been called “one of the most neglected contributors to the transmission of modernism between America and Europe during the early twentieth century.” Baggett, Holly. Dear Tiny Heart : The Letters of Jane Heap & Florence Reynolds. New York, NY, USA: New York University Press, 1999. p 2. Heap met G. I. Gurdjieff during his 1924 visit to New York, and was so impressed with his philosophy that she set up a Gurdjieff study group at her apartment in Greenwich Village. In 1925, she moved to Paris, to study at Gurdjieff’s Institute. Heap established a Paris Gurdjieff study group in 1927, which continued to grow in popularity through the early 1930s. This developed into an all-women Gurdjieff study group known as “the Rope”, taught jointly by Heap and by Gurdjieff himself. In 1935, Gurdjieff sent Heap to London in 1935 to set up a new study group. She would remain in London for the rest of her life, including throughout the Blitz. Her study group became very popular with certain sections of the London avant-garde, and after the war its students included the future theatre producer and director, Peter Brook. P.D. Ouspensky Peter D. Ouspensky was a Russian philosopher with an analytic and mystical bent who combined geometry and psychology in his discussion of higher dimensions of existence. He traveled throughout Europe and the East, looking for centers of esoteric knowledge, were unproductive. Upon his return to Russia in 1916, he was introduced to Gurdjieff and spent the next few years studying with him. After the Bolshevik Revolution he broke off from Gurdjieff and formed his own independent groups which also focused on the Fourth Way. Today, Ouspensky is one of the best known Gurdjieff's pupils. His book, In Search Of The Miraculous , provides what is probably the most concise explanation of the material that was included. On the subject of Fourth Way, Ouspensky was asked "You said that one can learn how to escape only from those who have escaped before?" He replied, ''Quite right — in the allegory of "prison". And this means a school can only start from another school. This system can have value only if it comes from higher mind. If we have reason to believe that it only comes from an ordinary mind, like ours, it can have no value and we cannot expect anything from it. Then better sit down and write your own system.'' Thomas de Hartmann Thomas Alexandriovich De Hartmann (1885, 28 March 1956) was a Russian composer and prominent student and collaborator of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff. Thomas de Hartmann was already an acclaimed composer in Russia when he first met Gurdjieff in 1916 in St. Petersburg. From 1917 to 1929 he was a pupil and confidant of Gurdjieff. During that time, at Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man near Paris, de Hartmann transcribed and co-wrote much of the music that Gurdjieff collected and used for his movements exercises. Olga de Hartmann Olga De Hartmann was Gurdjieff's personal secretary for many years. After her husband's death on 28 March 1956 in New York, USA , Olga collected many of Gurdjieff's early talks in the book ''Views from the Real World (1973)''. Alfred Richard Orage Alfred Richard Orage was a British intellectual, now best known for editing the magazine The New Age. In 1914 Orage met with P. D. Ouspensky, whose ideas left a prominent impression. When Ouspensky moved to London in 1921, Orage began attending his lectures on a "fragmentary" teaching. From this point on Orage became less and less interested in literature and art, instead focusing his attention in the 1910s on mysticism. In February 1922, Ouspensky introduced Orage to G. I. Gurdjieff. Selling the New Age, he moved to Paris to study at the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. In 1924 Orage was appointed by Gurdjieff to lead study groups in America. Maurice Nicoll Maurice Nicoll became a pupil of Gurdjieff in 1922. A year later when Gurdjieff closed his institute, he joined Ouspensky's group. In 1931 he followed Ouspensky's advice and started his own groups in England. He is perhaps best known as the author of the five volume series of texts on the teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky: Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Boston: Shambhala, 1996 and Samuel Weiser Inc., 1996). J. G. Bennett John Godolphin Bennett , (8 June 1897 - 13 December 1974) was a British mathematician, scientist, technologist, industrial research director, and author. He is perhaps best known for his many books on psychology and spirituality, and particularly the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff. Bennett met Gurdjieff in Istanbul in 1921, but he later joined Ouspensky's groups, and continued to study Gurdjieff's system with them for fifteen years. In 1941, Ouspensky left England to live in the United States. By then, Bennett was running his own study groups and giving talks on the subject of Gurdjieff's system. Bennett began writing and developing his own ideas in addition to Gurdjieff's, and Ouspensky repudiated him in 1945 - at the time when Bennett had also lost touch with Gurdjieff, and believed him to be dead. He reunited with Gurdjieff in 1947 and 1948 and visited him nearly every weekend for 18 months. He stayed in Paris for 1 month, helping to co-ordinate the work of Gurdjieff in England after Gurdjieff's arrival in Paris. He founded schools based on the Fourth Way in Sherborne, UK, and Claymont, W.Virginia, USA. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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