above the World

Alexander de Salzmann

One day he told me why he never smiled. He said that once Mr. Gurdjieff had picked him up and put him above the world where he could see everything as it really is. Then he fell back down to crawl in the earth's dust again. From then on, he was unable to laugh. He yearned for that larger view until the end of his days.

Louise March - The Gurdjieff Years p.33

the Highlands of Pamir

Alfons Paquet met Alexander de Salzmann in Istanbul 1921, Salzmann invited him to the Institute:

We met in the late evening and visited the Institute. It was named the Institute for the Harmonic Development of Man. Nothing less!...
I was introduced to the head of the school, a Caucasian, who had traveled for years to the mountain regions of Inner Asia, where he visited monasteries and studied the cults, dances and sciences of the monks. This man claimed that India wasn´t the "home of wonders", but instead he talked of the highlands of Pamir...
The fields of study of this Institute include lectures on asian religious myth, on rythym, on the law of octaves, on the science of numbers and what else is related to the Kabbalah and the magical crafts. They teach here a interpretation of the strange stone monuments, the dolmen...
Enthusiasm and boast, which accompany certain esoteric schools in the countries of the West, are far from them...

Alfons Paquet´s "Delphische Wanderung" was published in 1922.  Five pages of this book are dedicated to the visit of Gurdjieffs Institute in Istanbul, which Paquet visited only on one night in 1921.

the Enneagram is a Universal Symbol

"Speaking in general it must be understood 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."

"The knowledge of the enneagram has for a very long time been preserved in secret and if it now is, so to speak, made available to all, it is only in an incomplete and theoretical form of which nobody could make any practical use without instruction from a man who knows."

G.I. Gurdjieff

Fourth Way Enneagram Literature:

P.D. Ouspensky - In Search of the Miraculous

J.G. Bennett - Enneagram Studies

Anthony Blake - The Intelligent Enneagram

Steffan Soule - Accomplish the Impossible

Russell A. Smith - Gurdjieff: Cosmic Secrets

Sophia Wellbeloved - Gurdjieff: The Key Concepts

Dr. H.J. Sharp - Sacred Geometry and the Enneagram

Richard J. Defouw - The Enneagram in the Writings of Gurdjieff

William Patrick Patterson - Taking With the Left Hand: Enneagram Craze

how to educate our children

Would you be kind enough to give me some advice how to give a good education to the children who are entrusted to us, such as we are? 

Gurdjieff: You ask Mme de Salzmann to give you two chapters of a book I have written (Meetings with Remarkable Men), "My Father" and "My First Tutor." I have explained there briefly what you ask me. These two chapters will give you some good instruction.

Paris Meeting, 28 October 1943

why Gurdjieff became a writer in 1924

Since I had not, when in full strength and health, succeeded in introducing in practice into the life of people the beneficial truths elucidated for them by me, then I must at least, at any cost, succeed in doing this in theory, before my death.

Life is real only then, when "I AM"(Prologue)

you cannot imagine how extraordinary he was

Suddenly he began to talk about what he called the "week of miracles." It was a week that he and other members of the Russian group had spent with Gurdjieff in Finland. "I was in another room," said Ouspensky. "I heard Gurdjieff's voice speaking inside me. He told me something, something very important." Ouspensky's eyes became glazed. He seemed to go into a trance. The zoubrovka perhaps—or the memory of Gurdjieff. Hoping to restart this intriguing conversation I piped up in my prissy English voice, "He must have been a very strange man, that Mr. Gurdjieff." Ouspensky gazed at me as if I had said something ridiculous. "Strange! He was extraordinary! You cannot possibly imagine how extraordinary Gurdjieff was." His eyes glazed again...

Robert de Ropp - Warrior´s Way p.102

your life is finished

May 30th 1937, Paris. Wright: "Damn, I'm sleepy. I can't take it. Still, I don't want to hurt the old man's feelings." (Began to read and G. returned and sat down. Wright stopped reading.) "You know, Mr. G., this is interesting and it's a pity it's not well written. You know you talk English very well, too bad you can't dictate. Now if I had time you could dictate to me and I could write this for you in good English." (Read a few pages, stopped again.) "Now I must go and take my little daughter home. She's sleepy and so is her father." G: "Yes, for her sake, stop. She is young. You, of course, are old man now and life finish. But she only begin." Wright (turning red): "My life is NOT finished. I could right now make six more like her...." (Olgivanna with tears in her eyes led the child to the door.)

source: http://www.gurdjieff.org/rope.htm

Another account of this meeting can be found in C.S. Notts "Further Teachings of Gurdjieff". Lloyd Wright referring to Gurdjieff as "the old man", was born in 1867, Gurdjieff was born 1866. This was the first time Gurdjieff und Lloyd Wright met.

Fourth Way Literature 2012

english Fourth Way related books, published in 2012:

Solita Solano/ Kathryn Hulme - Gurdjieff and the Women of the Rope
Kathryn C. Hulme - Undiscovered Country: A Spiritual Adventure
Louise March Göpfert - The Gurdieff Years: 1929-1949
Keith A. Buzzell - Reflections on Gurdjieff's Whim
Georgette Leblanc - The Courage Machine: A New Life in a New World
Christian Wertenbaker - Man in the Cosmos: G. I. Gurdjieff and Modern Science 

Jacob Needleman - An Unknown World: Notes on the Meaning of the Earth
Paul B. Taylor - Real Worlds of G.I.Gurdjieff. Chapters in the Life of a Master
Bob Hunter - Meetings with Beryl Pogson - A Guide to the Fourth Way
Michael S. Pittman - Classical Spirituality in Contemporary America: The Confluence and Contribution of G.I. Gurdjieff and Sufism
Ashala Gabriel - Remembering: Being with my Teacher
David Hall - Beelzebub And The Beast - Comparative Study of G.I. Gurdjieff & Aleister Crowley
Mohammad Tamdgidi - Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study
Theodore J. Nottingham - Written In Our Hearts: The Practice of Spiritual Transformation
Patty de Llosa - Taming your inner tyrant
Herb Cohen - Journey to Feel like a Man: Olympic Fencer, Gurdjieff Work, Tai Chi Teacher
Edward F. Sylvia - Swedenborg & Gurdjieff: The Missing Links
Philip Riley - God Was All Dry: Alienation, Violence, and an Experience in The Fourth Way

Prince Oldenburgsky and Beelzebub

If this episode has a base in historicel fact, the person Beelzebub/Gurdjieff met in Egypt would have been Prince Alexander Petrovich Oldenburgsky (1844-1932).

In Tales, Beelzebubs function in relation to the Temperance committee is the curing of alcoholics, something for which Gurdjieff had proved adept.

Paul B. Taylor - G.I.Gurdjieff. A New Life p. 35

 (Beelzebubs Tales to his Grandson - Beelzebub in Russia,Chapter 34)

studying ancient magic in Baku

I often went to Baku because there was a society there, composed mostly of Persians who were studying ancient magic, of which I had been an associate member for a long time.

Meetings with Remarkable Men p.255 (dated around 1900)

all life is hidden in design

Whenever somenone questioned why Gurdjieff described himself to visitors as a rug merchant, he replied: "Why dealer in rugs? Answer simple. I sell knowledge. All is in rugs around you, all. Read! All life is hidden in design."

The rugs on his floors and walls were texts, stories to be read. Rug or carpet designs, like folk stories, transmit traditional cultural lore from one generation to another. Gurdjieff had always insisted that story, myth, art and dance reduplicate objective language, and that symbols veil truths.

Paul B. Taylor - Gurdjieff. A New Life p.218

Prince Bebutov and the Seekers of Truth

D.I. Bebutov

Prince Bebutov, born 1859 of Armenian descent, was a politician and a leading member of the russian Kadet Party.

He was the founder of the Astreya Lodge, whose house on Rozhdestvensky Boulevard in Moscow, replete with symbols hidden in its ornamented fasade, was familiar to Gurdjieff. Gurdjieffs cousin Merkurov equated members of Bebutovs circle with the "Seekers of Truth". Bebutov practised magic and spiritualistic seances.

Gurdjieff travelled to Istanbul with Bebutov in 1908. There he apparently met with Turkish Masons who had overthrown the Turkish Sultan. Among the European guests of the Turkish revolutionaries was a German, Rudolf von Sebottendorf.

Bebutov was a high ranked mason.("Great East of Russia", "Order of free masons", "Polar Star") He was also one of three founders of a lodge called "The Truth" in Odessa.  Bebutov wrote a book titled "The Russian Masonry of the 20th Century".

Bebutov´s House in Moscow, where the Seekers of Truth were meeting

Masonic Symbols on Bebutov´s house

my teaching is my own

Tibet is an example where, ten years ago, all government was in the hands of the monks. But they couldn’t put my ideas into practice, because my teaching was not known to them. My teaching is my own. It combines all the evidence of ancient truth that I collected in my travels with all the knowledge that I have acquired through my own personal work.

Our Life with Mr.Gurdjieff p.182

desires and nondesires

And so, only he who consciously assists the process of this inner struggle, and consciously assists the "nondesires" to prevail over the "desires," behaves in accordance with the Being of our Common Father Creator Himself, whereas he who consciously assists the contrary only increases His sorrow.

Beelzebubs Tales to his Grandson(Chapter 27)

a King in exile

Gurdjieff...even now, nearly thirty years after his death, the name has for me a certain magic. He was, without doubt, the most extraordinary human being I have ever met.

...

The life of Gurdjieff represented a special aspect of the Warrior's Way. More than any other man I have met, he lived by self-imposed rules and pursued intentional aims. In the fullest sense of the word he was inner-directed and lived strategically, knowing what he was doing and why he was doing it. He cared nothing for the artificial laws that confine weaker people to narrow patterns of behavior. He made his own laws and played the game by his own rules. Because these laws and rules were very different from those that ordinarily govern human behavior he seemed like an enigma to some and like a madman to others. My impression that Gurdjieff was a king in exile, that he had been displaced not only in space but also in time...

...

Jesus evidently had plenty of Hvareno. Gurdjieff had it too. It gave him the quality of a king in exile. His kingdom was neither in our time or our place, but he could, had he wished to, have used his Hvareno to draw great numbers of people to him. He could have had a following of thousands.

Robert de Ropp - Warrior´s Way

know thyself

Man who all 'good' or man who all 'bad' is not whole man, is one-sided. Third thing is conscience; possibility to acquire conscience is already in man when born; this possibility given - free - by Nature. But is only possibility. Real conscience can only be acquired by work, by learning to understand self first. Even your religion - western religion - have this phrase "Know thyself". This phrase most important in all religions. When begin know self already begin have possibility become genuine man. So first thing must learn is know self by this exercise, self-observation. If not do this, then will be like acorn that not become tree—fertilizer. Fertilizer which go back in ground and become possibility for future man.

Fritz Peters - Boyhood with Gurdjieff Chapter 9

sayings on Jesus Christ

In any other man I should have been sceptical of most of his tales; but certainly Georgiy Ivanovich was out of the common theosophical ruck. If he really wanted to go anywhere, were it even to his mysterious monasteries in Tibet - in one of which, he said, echoing an Indian tradition, Jesus had studied! (Bechhofer Roberts - A Journey through Georgia)

Q: Was Christ a teacher with a school preparation, or was he an accidental genius? Gurdjieff: Without knowledge he could not have been what he was, nor could he have done what he did. It is known that where he was there was knowledge.
(Views from the Real World p.85)

But while for some people religion serves as guidance, for others it is only a policeman. Christ, too, was a magician, a man of Knowledge. He was not God, or rather He was God, but on a certain level. (Views from the Real World p.211)

Christ and all the others spoke of the death which can take place in life, the death of the tyrant from whom our slavery comes, that death which is a necessary condition of the first and principal liberation of man. (Views from the Real World p.238)

He said that Jesus knew his own nonentityness and should he return, he would be very angry that people thought he had said he was God. 
(Gurdjieff and the Women of the Rope p.179)

Let us suppose Jesus Christ to be man number eight. (ISOM Chapter 16)

The Last Supper was a magical ceremony similar to 'blood-brotherhood' for establishing a connection between 'astral bodies.' But who is there who knows about this in existing religions and who understands what it means? All this has been long forgotten and everything has been given quite a different meaning. The words have remained but their meaning has long been lost. (ISOM Chapter 5)

There is nothing new in the idea of sleep. People have been told almost since the creation of the world that they are asleep and that they must awaken. How many times is this said in the Gospels, for instance? 'Awake,' 'watch,' 'sleep not.' Christ's disciples even slept when he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane for the last time. (ISOM Chapter 8)

see also the detailed description in Beelzebubs Tales (Chapter on Religion)

my bible is quite another thing

What you learn from bible you wish believe, but your bible is one thing and my bible is quite another. Nobody now believe in Christian thing, not with inner world, especially young ones. Nobody but English old maid and your American Lesbians. In General, man over there not believe. Your bible is hodgepodge.

Gurdjieff and the Women of the Rope p.156

perhaps will understand better

Nott: What about people who have never met you, or will never meet you? How will they be able to understand Beelzebub's Tales?

Gurdjieff: Perhaps will understand better than many always around me. You, by the way, you see much of me and become identified with me. I not wish people identified with me, I wish them identified with my ideas. Many who never will meet me, simple people, will understand my book. Time come perhaps when they read Beelzebub's Tales in Churches.

C.S. Nott - Further Teachings of Gurdjieff p.77