G.I. Gurdjieff
by P.T. Mistlberger
He was a man whose virtue was not tame....all the neat and mended moral fences in the world could not restrain the reaches of his love, nor curb the reckless flowering of his mind.
-- M.M. Riordan
Sometime back around 1981, while living in Montreal, the janitor of my apartment had me up to his room for tea one evening. While falling into a rather intense conversation with him and his girlfriend about altered states of consciousness or something, he asked me whether Id heard of Peter Ouspenski, a Russian journalist who lived in the first half of this century. It seems that Ouspenski, an intellectual and philosopher well known in Moscow in the early 1900s, was also a great seeker of wisdom, and had traveled far and wide throughout Asia in a fruitless search for a teacher or teaching that could truly help him. He had discovered nothing substantial.
Disappointed, he returned to St. Petersburg, where shortly after he happened upon an ad for an upcoming ballet in a Moscow newspaper, cryptically entitled The Struggle of the Magicians. Ouspenski attended this performance, which consisted of finely choreographed dance sequences, and mysterious demonstrations of psychic abilities by a group of Russians garbed in the robes of Eastern mystics. The whole performance was overseen by a dark, enigmatic, shaven-headed man named Gurdjieff, who seemed to hold a remarkable spell over his dancers. Intrigued, Ouspenski later attended an introductory meeting with the master and his students. Though unimpressed with the students, who for the most part Ouspenski dismissed as young and gullible, he was unable to shake the fascination he felt for Gurdjieff, with his intense eyes, the magnetic self-assurance of his presence, and the depth of knowledge he seemed to possess. Though a formidable intelligence himself (Ouspenski had already authored some well-known material on mathematics, philosophy, and mysticism), he soon apprenticed himself to Gurdjieff.
All of this is detailed in Ouspenskis book In Search of the Miraculous, which my friend Peter the janitor recommended to me at the time. I read this work several times, and all these years later I still consider it one of the best pieces of writing on spiritual development around, remarkable considering it was published in 1949, and concerns events that for the most part occurred in the 1920s.
George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff was born in Alexandropol, in the Caucasus region of Russian Armenia, near the Turkish border, of a Greek father and an Armenian mother. The date of his birth has long been problematic, as he had different passports over the years that gave different birth dates. The most common years given for his birth are 1872 and 1877. James Moore, in his thorough biography (Gurdjieff: Anatomy of a Myth) argues for 1866, making the following points:
1. Gurdjieff claimed to be 78 years old in 1943, and 83 years old in 1949 (the year of his death).
2. The photos of him taken shortly before his death (in 1949) seem more like a man in his early 80s, rather than a man in his mid or early 70s.
3. Gurdjieff claimed that when he was a seven year old boy his fathers cattle were wiped out by a plague. There was in fact a disastrous outbreak of cattle disease in 1872-73 in Asia Minor.
4. Gurdjieff and his family arrived in the Turkish city of Kars not long after a Tsarist military victory in 1877, at a time when Gurdjieff already had four younger siblings.
5. This point is not mentioned by Moore, but it is worth listing: when Ouspensky first met Gurdjieff in 1915 in Moscow, he described Gurdjieff as a man appearing no longer young. If Gurdjieff was born in 1877, he would have been 38 at the time of meeting Ouspensky; if born in 1872, then 43; and if born in 1866, he would have been 49. I think it safe to assume that no longer young fits more closely with 43 or 49 rather than 38. Ouspensky himself was 37 at the time of this meeting; it is unlikely he would describe someone around his own age as no longer young.
Gurdjieff did have a passport that gave his birth year as 1877, but as mentioned he had several passports, some with different dates; one indicated as early as 1864. While Moores points are persuasive, they are not quite foolproof, and he does appear to make one blunder. The counter-views are as follows:
1. Moores first argument, that Gurdjieff claimed to be 78 in 1943, does not add up arithmetically78 in 1943 would mean he was born in either 1864 or 1865, not 1866. And this is apparently Moores blunder, because he states that one passport of Gurdjieffs listed his year of birth as the wildly discrepant 1864when Gurdjieff himself apparently stipulated this year (or 1865) when describing his age in 1943.
2. The photos of Gurdjieff supposedly looking 83 years old could easily be pictures of a 72 or 77 year old man who had lived a very rugged life (which was certainly true, in Gurdjieffs case).
3. Some video of Gurdjieff surfaced in the early 2000s on the Internetmostly short silent clips of him interacting with students in public places during the last years of his life (1947-49). Examining those videos it is surprising to think that the short, portly man is in his early 80s. Very few overweight people live into their 80s. He moves around in a fairly nimble fashion that seems a bit quick for an 82 or 83 year old. (But he was, after all, a teacher of dance as he liked to describe himself, and was clearly a very rugged man, so it is not impossible).
J.G. Bennett, a student of Gurdjieff and Ouspenskys who eventually became a significant teacher and writer in his own right, favored 1872. In his book Gurdjieff: A Very Great Enigma, he wrote:
So far as I myself can make out from various sources, from what he himself and his family have told us, it does seem probable that he was born in 1872, in Alexandropol, and that his father moved to Kars soon after it was taken by the Russians, that is to say, somewhere about 1878, when he was six or so years old. (Bennett, 1963).
About ten years after that Bennett published his loose biography of Gurdjieff (Gurdjieff: Making a New World) and had this to say:
The date of Gurdjieffs birth, as shown on his passport, was December 28th, 1877. He himself said he was much older and also claimed that he was born on January 1st old style. I have found it hard to reconcile the chronology of his life with the date of 1877, but his family asserts that this is correct. If this is so, he began his search at the early age of eleven, because he refers to the year 1888 as a time when new vistas opened up to him. He first went to Constantinople in 1891. He says he was a lad at the time of this journey, so the dating is not obviously inconsistent. Nevertheless it does seem strange that, if he was born in 1877, he should not have mentioned that this occurred during the Russo-Turkish war. (Bennett, 1973).
Despite these misgivings, Bennett goes on to state:
In October of 1877, the city [of Kars] was in its last throes, and the tsar sent his brother, Grand Duke Nicholas, to lead the final assault. With an overwhelming superiority in numbers and armaments, the defenses were overrun on the night of November 17-18. Six weeks later, Gurdjieff was born in Gumru, already renamed Alexandropol in honor of the tsars father. (Bennett, 1973).
So apparently Bennett either forgot that a decade before hed declared Gurdjieffs probable year of birth as 1872, or he changed his view. Jeanne de Salzmann, Gurdjieffs chief administrator and designated leader of the world-wide Gurdjieff community at his death in 1949, held to 1877.
The most logical date seems to be 1872, particularly judging from the video clips taken of Gurdjieffs last years. But Bennett, though originally promoting this year, gives no real arguments for it. Moore is the only researcher who provides solid arguments for his date (1866).
It might be wondered, why all this bother about his age? In a sense, it is an excellent metaphor for the deeply enigmatic nature of the man himself. The main problem with the history of Gurdjieffs early yearsreflected in the mystery of his ageis that essentially there is none. The sole source of information for his life up till around 1912 are his own writings, most notably one book, Meetings With Remarkable Men. The book is putatively about factual events, but could easily be partial fabrication or even outright allegory. Carlos Castaneda, the controversial author of a number of influential books based on his (probably fabricated) apprenticeship to an old Mexican Indian shaman, used to talk about the idea of erasing personal history, as a means of preventing oneself from being trapped by the views and judgments of others. I know of no other important recent figure in world spiritual tradition to have more effectively erasedor perhaps more accurately blurredhis personal history than Gurdjieff. (Interestingly, Castanedas date of birth was long controversial as well).
One argument presented as to the reasons behind all these discrepantly dated passports is that Gurdjieff may have been, at certain times, working in espionage. What we do know is that he in all likelihood grew up in Kars, in northeast Turkey, a town situated in the cultural melting pool region between the Black and Caspian Seas. This area was awash with a rich mixture of different races and traditions, being a migratory meeting ground for Asian and European peoples. Exposure to such variety was ideal to stimulate and fire the imagination of a bright young boy destined to become one of the greatest spiritual forces of the 20th century.
According to his account of his early years, Gurdjieff made contact with many hermetic organizations, of political, occult, philosophical, religious, and mystical natures. Though he experienced much that fascinated him, including all manner of occult powers and altered states of consciousness, he was fundamentally dissatisfied, owing to a failure to make contact with an authentic school of spiritual growth. At that point he resolved to find such a school, as well as to search for ancient, lost knowledge.
To facilitate this quest he formed a loose organization of approximately 20 people called the Seekers of Truth. (The movie Meetings with Remarkable Men, filmed in 1979, highlights this phase of Gurdjieffs life). All the individuals of this group had in common a deep desire to make contact with bona fide spiritual sources, and as such the purity of their combined intention enabled them to accomplish much. They traveled far and wide, from the Holy Lands and Egypt through Central Asia, up into Tibet, Mongolia, and Siberia. They combed archaeological ruins, and made contact with the Naqshbandi Dervishes, a lineage of great Sufi mystics.
The Sufi tradition (the mystical undercurrent of Islam) probably had the most profound impact on the consciousness of the young Gurdjieff, and from it he derived many of the ritual dances, meditation techniques (in particular, self-remembering), and sacred symbols (such as the Enneagram) that he would employ in his later teaching years. In Afghanistan, he succeeded in locating, and being admitted to, a mystery school that was directly connected to the Sarmoun Brotherhood. Some of his main teachers resided in this school that was located in an obscure area, and that would apparently change locations without notice.
Gurdjieff also penetrated into Tibet, where he evidently stayed for some time, absorbing some of the Tibetan Tantric teachings. He was not, however, the famous Buryat Mongol Aghwan Dorjieff, a prominent Tibetan official, as some writers have mistakenly assumed, though Gurdjieff did have an association with him.
The problem of mistaken identity, and other enigmas, seemed to follow Gurdjieff around. From an early age he acquired a reputation for being something of a rascal, and at times even an outright opportunist. This was usually connected to money, and his lifelong struggle to generate funds to keep his research and later work going. In his twenties, he was a true jack of all trades, doing whatever he could -- carpet mender, tour guide, hypnotist, etc. -- to finance his travels. He once captured some small birds, painted them, and then sold them (for a costly fee) as exotic American canaries. The next day it rained, and Gurdjieff hastily fled town before his creativity was unmasked.
There is strong evidence that in his thirties Gurdjieff functioned as a covert political agent and spy for the Russian government, though his motivation for doing so was most likely to attain the funds and travel capacity to continue his search for knowledge. He lived in a time of great political upheaval and religious foment. Much of his teaching work took place in times (the Russian revolution, the two World Wars) and places that made travel and even survival difficult, let alone having the leisure time to do spiritual practices. However, Gurdjieff was a master of situations, and could use even the most arduous conditions as a vehicle for intensifying ones work upon self. This is consistent with what all the masters have taught, that growth happens more effectively in the soil of insecurity. When things are too stable and safe, we tend to go to sleep, as when it is dark and quiet at night.
By approximately 1900 the Seekers of Truth had disbanded. Shortly after this Gurdjieff met the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, and in later years ended up marrying a countess of his court, Julia Ostrowska. On three occasions, during his thirties, Gurdjieff was accidentally shot by warring soldiers, narrowly escaping death. This life on the edge quality was an example of where it was difficult to separate the man from his teachings. He was that rare example of a teacher who is actually courageous enough to live what he propounds, not avoiding the hazards of a life dedicated to staying awake at all costs.
In his mid-thirties Gurdjieff spent two years in an unknown Sufi community, where he began to mature as a seeker and develop his teaching qualities. At that point he had already lived an extraordinary life, full of adventure and character-building hardships. After completing his time in this monastery he was, in a sense, a fully qualified master in his own right. He had the ability to hold and direct the attention of others, as well as possessing a great depth of esoteric knowledge and teaching methods, acquired from his many years of travels and contacts with extraordinary people. But more crucially, he had embodied what he had been taught, attaining, through his own fierce efforts, an internal unity that clearly marked him apart from the sleeping, mechanical man.
At this point Gudjieff settled in Tashkent, in Russian Turkestan. Here he set himself up as a kind of teacher-magician, often slipping into deliberate roguery, so as to further his study of human mechanical behavior and reactivity. He was also successful in business, trading in several commodities.
By age 40 Gurdjieff began to develop and formulate the teaching system that would eventually be his legacy to the world. At this time he renounced his hypnotic powers (siddhis), presumably for the purpose of further self-purification.
In 1912 Gurdjieff arrived in Moscow, married Julia Ostrowska, and attracted his first students. In 1914 he staged his famous ballet, The Struggle of the Magicians, which was attended by Peter Ouspenski. This meeting was pivotal for both men. As mentioned, Ouspenski was not the typical seeker, as he had already traveled extensively, experimented with consciousness, and was the author of Tertium Organum, a philosophical work that came to achieve world-wide acclaim. On Ouspenskis return from his travels, he lectured in Moscow to audiences of over a thousand people, and yet such attention did not unduly swell his head. He was man of true intelligence, and thus was able to recognize his own ignorance when confronted with it. Thus, he submitted himself to a teacher-student relationship with Gurdjieff.
The importance of the relationship between these two men cannot be stressed enough. Ouspenski was to Gurdjieff much like Plato was to Socrates: the former a razor sharp intellect and consummate communicator; the latter a man of exceptional being, whose mere force of presence was testament to the efforts he had made upon himself.
A large part of Gurdjieffs task was the transmitting of Eastern and Middle Eastern esoteric knowledge to the West, namely Europe and North America. In succeeding in this (though his success became apparent only after his death) he was one of the architects of the human potential movement and one of its offshoots, the new age. Ouspenski was an essential component of this accomplishment. More than any other, he brought Gurdjieffs ideas to large numbers of people in the West. In fact, his work In Search of the Miraculous, the account of his years with Gurdjieff, has been far more widely read than any of Gurdjieffs own published writings.
Though Ouspenski has typically been regarded as Gurdjieffs chief disciple, this is somewhat misleading. In fact, Ouspenski was only associated with his teacher for a few years (1915-18), after which he began his gradual break from Gurdjieff for reasons which are still not fully known. However, it is clear from the records that there was something in Gurdjieffs intensity that was ultimately too much for Ouspenski. He became convinced that Gurdjieff and the System (his body of ideas) must be clearly distinguished from each other. Gurdjieffs volatility and sudden changes in behavior eventually alienated Ouspenski, who in the end believed it was risky to be associated with Gurdjieff. He actually went so far as to forbid his own students, in later years, from ever mentioning Gurdjieff by name.
Ouspenskis perception of his teacher was interesting. He once said, Virtually everyone has many selves, many Is. Owing to Gurdjieffs development, he has reduced his inner crowd to only two. But these two selves within him are very different. One is very good, the other very bad. Despite this, it is generally accepted by senior students of the Gurdjieff Work that Ouspenski was caught in an ego-trap from which he could not free himself. He was too attached to his own sense of right, and did not embrace the physical-emotional aspect of the Work. This created an imbalance in his development that made him unable to see his deeper personality defects, thus necessitating him to project these onto his teacher, whereupon Gurdjieff was perceived as a danger.
By 1922 Gurdjieff had drawn to him many of the seekers who would become major players in the unfolding drama of constant change that was his life. Some of the more well known ones were the composer Tomas de Hartmann (who performed many of Gurdjieffs haunting musical scores) and his wife Olga, Dr. and Mme. Stjoernval, Alexandre and Jeanne de Salzmann, Frank Pinder, Prince Mehment Sabaheddin, J.G. Bennett, and A.R. Orage. All of these were distinguished individuals with a success consciousness, and most were instrumental in the further dissemination of Gurdjieffs System. Some, such as Orage and especially Bennett, went on to become significant teachers in their own right, with large followings.
In October of 1922 Gurdjieff and a group of 30-40 students acquired the large estate known as the Prieure at Fontainebleau-Avon, in France. After years of constant move, throughout Russia and Asia Minor, dodging revolutions and wars, he and his community of students finally were able to settle in surroundings that enabled them to deepen their practice of the Work. The Prieure was now the headquarters for the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, the name Gurdjieffs movement had loosely gone by since 1919.
The Work at the Prieure consisted of the essentials of Gurdjieffs System: hard physical labour accompanied by active meditations, chief of which were self-observation and self-remembering. Individual assignments were given to students fitting their unique requirements for growth. A special Study House was built for the practice and performance of the Sacred Dances and Movements, ancient rituals that Gurdjieff learnt during his years in Sufi monasteries.
It was not an easy place to be. This Work was unlike the sweet-coated dross and tepid sentimentality that passes for most new age or personal growth work nowadays. Gurdjieff was a fierce, unrelenting taskmaster, but capable of extraordinary compassion at unexpected moments. However, the basis of his system was effort, and more effort. No growth is possible, he would say, without conscious labour and voluntary suffering. By this he meant that we cannot attain something without payment, or sacrifice. Or, as a wise man once said, As you give, so shall you receive. This echoes a universal law of energy. The more involved we are with life, the more energy we have. Involvement always has to do with some form of giving, and hence the importance of service in all spiritual traditions.
In 1924 Gurdjieff and 35 members of his community sailed to the U.S., where they staged demonstrations of the Sacred Dances in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia. While there, he attracted several key people who would further his cause in America, such as Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, Jean Toomer, and C.S. Nott.
Later that same year, while back in France, Gurdjieff, a notoriously aggressive driver, had a serious auto crash, and was not expected to live. However, he recovered, no doubt aided by his powerfully crystallized will. Shortly after this, to the shock of everyone, he disbanded the community and Institute. This was revealed, though, in short time, to be a ploy to rid himself of his less dedicated students. He continued to work with a smaller nucleus that remained with him.
Gurdjieffs mother and wife passed away in 1925 and 1926 respectively. After this he began a phase of more introspective work, beginning his magnum opus Beelzebubs Tales to His Grandson, and working on numerous musical compositions with Tomas de Hartmann. This music was designed to evoke an opening of the higher emotional centre, and when experienced in combination with the Sacred Dances, elicited an obvious sense of the transcendent and ineffable. The same was true of Gurdjieffs writings, though operating through the intellectual centre. These were examples of what he called Objective Art, which had the capacity to catalyze the observer into an awakened state of consciousness. Such art was based on a form of higher mathematics that nowadays goes by the term Sacred Geometry. Other examples of Objective Art are the Egyptian pyramids, Tibetan tangka paintings, the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge, etc. Gurdjieff distinguished these from subjective art, which included almost all conventionally known forms of art. (I myself can attest to the power of Objective Art, remembering my visit to the Taj Mahal in India in 1985. The sheer perfection of its form elicited a powerful emotional awakening in me that seemed to briefly connect me with a higher order of reality).
Gurdjieff was also the one who introduced the symbol of the Enneagram to the West. Where exactly he got it from is unclear; some have suspected Sufi sources. Be that as it may, he utilized it as a map for specific esoteric teachings connected to the transformation of energy. He did not, however, use it as a map for "personality types". The nine personality types commonly associated in modern times with the Enneagram was actually the work of Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo, who in the 1960s-70s adapted Gurdjieff's symbol to a personality typology.
Gurdjieffs Work at the Prieure lasted for ten stormy years, until its enforced closure in 1932. By that time he had effectively assigned many of his students to leave him, and even had to intentionally alienate some of them to do this. In this sense, Gurdjieff was authentic, in that he understood the delicate task a true teacher has, i.e. having to know when it is right for a student to leave, in order to avoid the dangerous consequences of attachment and dependency. Such a leave-taking is rarely easy and often traumatic, for the student has opened themselves completely to the teacher, much as a child to a parent, and thus is highly susceptible to being hurt. Depending on the consciousness and compassion of the teacher the separation can be engineered with grace, but often it seems to require the intervention of higher forces to assist it along.
At any rate, Gurdjieff was unbending in his refusal to allow himself to be deified, or his community to be cultified. Personalities with cultic tendencies who gathered around him tended to find it difficult to stay long, if they did not empower themselves in his presence and cease their psychic dependency on him. This trait, though sometimes causing pain for those attached to him, nevertheless marked him apart from the usual run of leaders in typical organizations, be they religious or secular, who are primarily interested in simply acquiring more and more subordinates.
In 1934 Gurdjieff met Frank Lloyd Wright, the famous architect, and the two connected very well, though it is debatable to what degree Wright became a student, as is commonly believed. By then Gurdjieff had money problems, and relied mostly on American disciples to fund his continued efforts to promote the Work.
By 1938 Jeanne de Salzmann had emerged as Gurdjieffs chief deputy, running a successful group in Paris dedicated to the Work. (She would eventually head up the international Gurdjieff Foundation and competently lead it for years after the masters death, outliving all the original students in the process until passing away in 1990 at the age of 101.)
Throughout W.W.II Gurdjieff resided in Paris, leading a large group of French students. Now in old age, he remained mostly in his famous flat on Rue des Colonels Renard, entertaining students and seekers with his outrageous humour and lavishly prepared meals. During this time he developed the ritual Idiot Toasts, yet another of his methods designed to diminish self-importance. His writings were prepared for publication, though his major works (All and Everything, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd series), only came out after his death.
In 1947 Ouspenski died, according to some sources as a disillusioned drunkard, according to others as a genuine saint, but in reality probably a bit of both. He failed to reconcile with Gurdjieff, though he had been invited to Paris by the master shortly before his death. In 1948 Gurdjieff authorized Mme. Ouspenski, herself a fierce and respected teacher of the Work, to publish her husbands Fragments of an Unknown Teaching (later retitled In Search of the Miraculous).
In 1949, near eighty, Gurdjieffs health failed, and he died shortly after. His final instructions on his death bed were to Jeanne de Salzmann, who later that year organized the re-grouping of the scattered body of Gurdjieff students and communities under the collective banner of the Gurdjieff Foundation.
J.G. Bennett probably became the most influential and effective Gurdjieff exponent not affiliated with the Gurdjieff Foundation, opening his own school in England, which later spread to America. Bennett was a prolific author and a brilliant teacher in his own right, who modestly acknowledged Gurdjieff as his main inspiration. Next to Ouspenski, he did the most to transmit the masters knowledge. He died in 1974.
During his life Gurdjieff remained largely obscure and unknown, and when he was recognized, it was with more notoriety than anything else. Two of his students, Ouspenski and the literary figure A.R. Orage, were far more renowned. After Gurdjieffs death, however, his fame slowly spread, and by the 1970s and 80s he was considered one of the forefathers of the new spirituality movements.
The jury remains out on Gurdjieff the man, but there is little doubt about the value and beauty of the System he left behind, which is all he would have cared about anyway. Also, there can be little doubt about the influential impact he and his Work have had on so many tens of thousands throughout the world, the vast majority of whom never met him. I myself was involved in the Gurdjieff Work in Montreal in the early 1980s, in the lineage of J.G. Bennett, and the impression the Work left on me has in turn left its imprint on my own understandings and teaching methods.
The essence of the man and his life can perhaps be best summarized by this quote from his Russian disciple Rachmilievitch:
God give you the strength and courage, Gurdjieff, to endure your lofty solitude.
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Copyright 1997 by P.T. Mistlberger, All Rights Reserved
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