the Majority of people over 40 are Zombies

Men cease “thinking originally” at thirty-five years, women at forty years.

The majority of people over forty are one-third to two-thirds dead and merely survive thanks to circumstances over which they have no control.

A.R. Orage - Commentary on BT

the Three Phases of the Gurdjieff Work

Gurdjieff’s work has text, music and exercises. It is a complete method.

First phase: self-observation, participation, experiment.

Second phase: voluntary suffering.

Third phase: conscious labor.

A.R. Orage - Commentary on BT

his presence was filled with an unusual majestic force

G. Gurdjieff appeared. But, he was no longer the same man. He was transformed. He emanated a great radiance, without his outer appearance being changed. His presence was filled with an unusual majestic force, which he had never shown us. He looked at us intently, as if passing us a message. What I felt from him made a very deep impression.

Then, G. Gurdjieff beckoned me to come closer. I went towards him, and G. told me of an exercise that I was to give to my companions at our next meeting:

"To think of him, Mme de S. and all the group members as a network, all connected to one another, even at a great distance."

I relayed the exercise that evening at a meeting in his flat in the Rue des Colonels Renard. This gave us a greater consciousness of our relationship with him and the group.

Solange Claustres - Becoming Conscious with Mr. Gurdjieff p.86

the future of the Fourth Way on Earth

One day G. Gurdjieff had said that the role of the Fourth Way, this teaching which is neither the way of the monk, nor the yogi, nor the fakir, is to appear and disappear, after having deposited what was necessary at this moment, in a certain epoch, in a certain place on the Earth. That this way could blend into society, change form, become an organisation, a religion, or disappear.

Another time G. had said that what had been created would disappear by the fourth generation.

Solange Claustres - Becoming Conscious with Mr. Gurdjieff

Gurdjieff is a multitude

"He is a multitude," Jane Heap had told us. "But if you watch, sometimes you sec the sage pass by."

We watched for the sage and yes, were fearful in case we missed the golden moment when he passed.

We were not so much afraid of Mr Gurdjieff himself as of ourselves, our weakness, our sleep.

A.L. Staveley - Memories of Gurdjieff p.51

Henry Miller´s quotes on Gurdjieff

To begin with, Gurdjieff was a thoroughly enigmatic figure. He was a living example of that Greek word, Enantiodromos, meaning the process by which a thing changes into its opposite. He could be tender, fierce, strict, indulgent, wise, clownish, utterly serious and a farceur all at one time.

Gurdjieff was a perpetual surprise. However, young as he was, and with no preparation for the ordeal, Fritz Peters, the boy, was astute enough to know that he was in the hands of a most unusual human being, a man who has been called a Master, a Guru, a Teacher, everything but a Saint.

Much has been written about the scandalous behavior of Gurdjieff. And it is true that he seemed to care little for conventional behavior. In a sense, he was like a cross between the Gnostics of old and the latter day Dadaists. Certainly, of him the Latin saying "nothing human is beneath me" was true. He was human to the core. At times he reached sublime heights.

It delivers over to us one of the most enigmatic and controversial figures of our time, one unfortunately too little known by present day man. I have read the book several times myself and each time with renewed interest. In a way of speaking I regard it as something on a par with Alice in Wonderland, a real treasure of our literature.

"Gurdjieff was one of the most mysterious figures of the twentieth century. His writing was incomprehensible to me, yet I feel I know him intimately because of a delectable book titled, Boyhood With Gurdjieff by Fritz Peters."

"Political leaders are never leaders. For leaders we have to look to the Awakeners! Lao Tse, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Milarepa, Gurdjieff, Krishnamurti."

Steal the Dog

Gurdjieff had appointed a prim, control-oriented woman. Miss Ethel Merston, as his administrator when he was away. On a trip, he and Miss Merston stopped at an inn where a large dog seemed to adopt Gurdjieff: he and the dog became instant friends. At their next stop, Gurdjieff asked Miss Merston if she would like to do something for him. All too eagerly, she said she would. Very well, Gurdjieff told her, that dog at the inn should belong to me. So go back to that inn and steal that dog.

Miss Merston was horrified. As Gurdjieff knew very well, this act of theft was utterly contrary to her nature. But he insisted - it must be done! Forcing herself every inch of the way, she returned alone to the inn. She immediately saw the dog wandering around, and - agonizing over it - she induced the animal to get into the ear. Then the innkeeper popped up. She was busted! She began to babble some explanation about how the dog had jumped in the car on its own but the innkeeper only expressed puzzlement that they’d left the dog behind in the first place - because the gentleman with her earlier had already bought the dog.

Gurdjieff had never really put her at risk of being arrested - but, quite harmlessly, he’d forced her to go against the grain of her programming and confront her greatest fears.

John Shirley - Gurdjieff. An Introduction to His Life and Ideas

Thomas de Hartmann talk from 1950

“He gave an imitation of how we wriggle and scratch after a movement stops — the devil always finds something for us — but we must remain quite still after a movement till one more note gives the signal to move. ‘This will make a big impression on your audience—and on you if you watch some day’.

‘I tell once for ever about beginning of the music of Georgi Ivanovitch. In 1917 M. and Mme Ouspensky and others did movements, but 1918 was the beginning of music. Georgi Ivanovitch lay on a sofa at Essen- tuki with a guitar — but he did not strike it the ordinary way - and gave the melodies. There was a violin, he told me, ‘In two days you must play it’, so I had to: and ‘a plate for putting glasses on’ as a drum.

Then in Tiflis we had a piano. Georgi Ivanovitch could do the impossible. In the midst of revolution he was working intensively on each one of us, our inner psychic states. It was a terrible piano. He said: ‘Any idiot can play on a good piano’, so I had to play on it. (See p 86).
When he wanted to make me angry, he gave the melodies each time a little different; he was training me. With these melodies there is only one right way to harmonize them, you have to ‘catch’ what they need. It is not ‘my music’, it is his. I have only picked up the Master’s handkerchief. Mme Salzmann remembers that time.

All the movements have their own scales. No. 19 is the five tone scale of Bali. The Chinese and Tibetan scale is different. Some have to be like “Little Bells’’ that hang in the temples.
The music and movements are one, they are like the body and soul in man, the rhythm is what joins them. You do not move in jerks on hearing the sound, like electric bells or lamps flicking up, but feel it beforehand. It is like a circle going round all the time, but as it passes a tangent touching a certain point, the actual movement comes” He drew a big circle in the air with his right arm, brushing the left hand each time it passed.

“Those who had the great happiness to live with Georgi Ivanovitch know that something was given them, more than they deserved. He was trying to hammer a soul into man, something that could survive. Perhaps he is present here in reality.”

Mr. de Hartmann’s talk at Colet Gardens on 9th March 1950.

Gurdjieff knew Leo Tolstoy

Tolstoy - Beelzebub was on this planet until 1921. And he was struck with this, that Tolstoy, with no more knowledge than you and I, nevertheless got himself passed off as one of the writers of contemporary religion. He was, so Gurdjieff says, who knew him, a perfectly silly man.

Later on he gives an example of Tolstoy, though not naming him, who without any real knowledge of life or self became regarded as the author of a modern gospel. Gurdjieff knew Tolstoy, who was naive and self-ignorant. 

Why do people believe Tolstoy’s gospel? Because we never verify by applying personal knowledge and effort. Why not? It involves effort of self-knowledge and consequent estrangement.

Tolstoy’s stories are accepted as having spiritual value, they have only psychological.

A.R. Orage - Commentary on "Beelzebubs Tales to his grandson"

feeding the moon or feeding the sun?

You said last year that if a great many people practised this method fully it might be disastrous.

Orage: Yes, if a great many people commenced to feed the sun it might cause a cosmic disaster - but this is not possible practically. Another function of man is to cease feeding the moon and only feed the sun - but then again that is conditioned on the quantity of the necessary substance available - and it is limited. 

It is not possible for very many people to even begin to practise the first three steps of this method - self-observation, participation and Experimentation - to say nothing of conscious labor and voluntary suffering. So the possibility of the work is always limited - say as the quantity of radium is limited. (This certainly relieves my emotions of worry over my fellow beings.) But, practically no one need fear that there will not be enough of the necessary chemicals available for his own use.

Orage´s Commentary on "Beelzebubs Tales to his Grandson" p.77

30.000 perceptions per second

The number of perceptions that we are receiving is 30.000 per second.

10.000 intellectual, 10.000 emotional, 10.000 instinctive. 

These determine our content in our three centers, but from birth we have been aware of only a fraction of 1%.

A.R. Orage - Commentary on "Beelzebubs Tales to his grandson" p.16

the Higher Mind (falcon) Higher Intellectual Center

There can appear an awareness, or higher mind, which stands behind our thought. Adie described this by reference to ancient Egyptian statues showing a falcon perched at the back of the human head with its wings spread. When that higher mind is present, we do not have to lose ourselves in our mentation, although we are so used to this forgetting of ourselves that we believe it is inevitable. One can experience silence even while talking and moving, for the higher mind which observes the activity of the lower faculties does not comment in words, and is above hurry, anxiety or fear. Perhaps the silence is actually the receptive self-awareness possible when thoughts, feelings and sensations do not prepossess the soul. St Augustine wrote that peace is “the tranquillity of order”.

George Adie - A Gurdjieff pupil in Australia

Describing G.I. Gurdjieff by Planet Karatas on Scribd

the Purpose of Life

Men have mind and women feelings more highly developed. Men must feel, and women must think—both must be fused into one for real understandings. Either alone can give nothing. Think what you feel, and feel what you think. Fusion produces another force.

Religion for some is useful, for others policeman. We fully realize small terrors, as for example, finding a mouse in our beds, but we cannot realize the terror—of death. If we did we would live differently. But life prevents us realizing this.

Purpose of Life. Just vibration transmitters. Moon-fodder. We are sheep kept to provide wool for our masters, who feed us and keep us as slaves of illusion. But we have a chance of escape and our “masters” are anxious to help us, but we like being sheep. It is comfortable.

Gurdjieff
12th February 1924
"Gurdjieffs Early Talks"

He who knows his moon can understand the cosmos

Kundalini at base of spine prevents our seeing things as they are; it is the representative of the moon; it is necessary for life, for if we saw things as they were we’d hang ourselves.

He who knows what his moon is and does can understand the cosmos.

G.I. Gurdjieff
Gurdjieff´s Early Talks 1914-1931

bravery in war is only a manifestation of mass hypnosis

All wars, all disputes, all misunderstandings, all misfortunes, all experiences which seem terrible when they occur, when they have passed we can see are not worth a hall-penny. In this sense, as if from a fly one should get an elephant, and now from an elephant a fly. The reason for this is always the same property of the man, that he reflects reality in the reverse.
 

During such events, all are slaves, and all are under a general hypnosis. Where is the dignity attributed to man? Where is man with his free will?

It was always so and it will be always so with the masses, because if there will not be slaves, there will not be masters, there will not be life.

But at the same time, to some men it is given to get out from beneath the mass hypnosis. Men so little realize this mass hypnosis, that the one who is more or less free from it, appears as a being of a lower order.

That which is called bravery in war is really only a manifestation of this mass hypnosis. There exist whole nations which reckon the others cowards, as for example, the Russians the Jews. But the Jewish drummer who, according to the understanding of the Russians, out of cowardice hides in a ditch during the battle, is really a more normal man, more free than they are. That which he has is personal, while for the others, everything personal is missing. There remains only the mass hypnosis. He is the slave only of his personal qualities, while they are twice slaves.

 G.I. Gurdjieff

Lecture(Pre-Institute)

R.H. Ward meeting Gurdjieff in 1928 in Paris

He was saying, however, that the inward world is largely closed to us, though this, hardly aware of its existence as we are, we may fail to realize, just as we may fail to realize that this inward world can be opened to us if we seek the right means to that end. He was saying that man inhabits this inward world much as an embryo inhabits the womb, and that in the majority of cases this embryo man miscarries and never comes to birth. But he was also saying that it is possible for the embryo to grow and to be born, to grow up and to become adult; 

and that, if this were to happen, so that a person came to be a freeman of the inward world, able to live and work there as idult men live and work in the outward world, he would inherit the reality which is potentially his proper psychological place. Then much in his outward world, and in the life he leads in it, would be changed; such a person would no longer be life’s slave; freedom in the inward world would endow him with freedom in the outward world.

Finally Monsieur X was saying, with a certain severity, and as if with an authority which was nothing to do with the disparity of our ages, that I must seek to know and understand these things, that I must not allow myself to become content with outward life alone, and so seek nothing more than the fulfilment of ambition, the securing of a livehhood and an approved position among my fellow men. 

He was saying that there is much more in life than living. This must be done to the full, but not as an end in itself, only as a beginning of the discovery, not beyond death, but within life, of “the next world”, the inward reality. Much of this, at the age of 18, I found bewildering, and Monsieur X certainly understood that I did, for he went on to say that there was in one sense no hurry when one was young, “so long as one never forgot that one must die”, and that therefore time is always short.

Presently he stopped talking and was silent for some time. Then, having paid his bill, he rose and said, “All this means that you must try to find out who you are,” and added, “not here, but there.” With this curious remark, which I take to have referred to the two worlds of which he had spoken, he walked away from the cafe and was lost among the people on the pavement; was lost, it seemed to me, surprisingly quickly and thoroughly. At one moment he was there, at the next he was gone.

Richard Heron Ward(1910-1969) -  A Gallery of Mirrors

to say the truth you can’t always be polite

You have no connection to anything; things connect to you. You are their slave. Do you understand? It’s not you who relates to things, it’s they who relate to you, it’s they who command. Not very happy, eh? Excuse me. It’s impossible always to be polite. Absolutely impossible. If you want to say the truth you can’t always be polite.” 

Gurdjieff: Essays and Reflections on the Man and His Teaching p. 276

people release a great deal of energy when they pray

I understood Mr. Gurdjieff to tell us once, at the Wellington, that all people who pray and believe in a finer, higher life release a great deal of energy when they pray… We should feel that we were charging ourselves with this energy thus released and accumulated by lofty aspirations from all directions of the Earth… so that it would help us grow into ‘men made in the image of God. And having done that,’ he added, ‘promise yourselves that you will pay back for the energy you have stolen, through conscious ef- forts and intentional suffering, when the time comes for you to pay.’

Gurdjieff: His Work, On Myself…With Others…For the Work  p. 146