Gurdjieffs Stop Exercise 1923

Gurdjieffs uniqueness

The more I saw of Gurdjieff the more convinced I became of his uniqueness. He had qualities which I had never seen in anybody else; profound knowledge, immense vitality and complete immunity from fear.

Gurdjieff once said: 'I have very good leather to sell to those who want to make shoes out of it'.

Dr. Kenneth Walker - Venture with Ideas

necessary to hide one's light

He stated that, contrary to the principles expressed in the "Sermon on the Mount", as it was frequently interpreted, it was necessary to "hide one's light" from the ignorant and the uninitiated as they would only, quite automatically, attempt to destroy any such "light" or 'knowledge"; however, it was equally important not to hide that same knowledge or "light" from oneself and from others who were working seriously and honestly towards the same goals of self-development and proper growth.

Fritz Peters - Gurdjieff Remembered (Chapter X)

What happened to Alexander Petrov after 1918?

...Gurdjieff’s group in Moscow. Among them was Alexander Nikanorovich Petrov, one of the chief pupils there. Physically, he was like a healthy young bull, and, as I came to learn, he had a very intelligent mind and was highly gifted in mathematics and engineering.

He was one of Mr. Gurdjieff’s favourite pupils, with whom he worked much on selfconcentration and self-observation.

...the others went to Maikop, where Petrov became director of a state school. Mr Gurdjieff asked him to come to Tiflis when we went there, but he did not come. And when the Bolsheviks again conquered the whole northern Caucasus, he returned to Moscow. Soon, even correspondence with him became impossible.

all quotes are from Hartmann´s - Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff,

please comment if you have any information on Petrov´s life after returning to Moscow about 1918

egg and chicken

Gabo, an old Russian pupil, one day told him that he was eating too much fat, it was not good for him. With a quizzical look Gurdjieff asked, "Since when has egg told something to chicken?"

C.S. Nott - Further Teachings of Gurdjieff p.80

how close people live to the truth

Crumbs of truth are scattered everywhere; and those who know and understand can see and marvel how close people live to the truth, yet how blind they are and powerless to penetrate it.

Views from the Real World p.55

dances are a kind of language

Observe how people dance. Each nationality has its own way of dancing. You can always tell the nationality by the way a man dances. In the East, where traditions are much stronger, you can even tell which tribe or village people come from by the way they dance. In this way dances become like a kind of language by which people - unconsciously, of course - tell us about themselves. It is the same with everything. Each nation has a limited repertoire of movements which come from the impressions of childhood.

from a Gurdjieff Talk in London 1922 
(The Study of Psychology)

I worked harder than any man on earth

I hate you because all my life - that is half a century - I have labored and suffered for you, day and night, to discover why you are unhappy, and whether it was possible to make a man, who was quite indifferent to me, happy. I have worked so hard that I can freely say harder than any man on earth. The result of it all is that all who have ever known me will either hate me or call me a speculator or an enthusiastic psychopathic visionary or what-not.

Gurdjieff - Ecstacy of Revelation

finding a teacher

To a man who is searching with all his being, with all his inner self, comes the unfailing conviction that to find out how to know in order to do is possible only by finding a guide with experience and knowledge, who will take on his spiritual guidance and become his teacher. And it is here that a man's flair is more important than anywhere else. He chooses a guide for himself. It is of course an indispensable condition that he choose as a guide a man who knows, or else all meaning of choice is lost. Who can tell where a guide who does not know may lead a man? Every seeker dreams of a guide who knows, dreams about him but seldom asks himself objectively and sincerely—is he worthy of being guided? Is he ready to follow the way?

Views from the Real World p.57

a genuine representative of science

Look out, you scum, or I'll crush you like cockroaches. Don't you see who's coming? Not just anybody, but a genuine representative of science who has assimilated all the knowledge offered today by the highest seats of learning!

Beelzebubs Tales to his Grandson - 
The sixth and last sojourn of Beelzebub on the planet Earth (Chapter 31)

the Real never ceases to be

Orage´s gravestone

You grieve for those who should not be grieved for.

The wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead.

Never at any time was I not, nor thou,
nor these princes of men.

Nor shall we cease to be hereafter.

The unreal has no being.

The real never ceases to be.

Old Hampstead Churchyard. On the stone is the enneagram carved by his friend Eric Gill, with Krishna's words to Arjuna.

X - the unknown quantity

Small parties of three, four and sometimes even a dozen, would go to a nearby cafe and sit for an hour or more, reconstructing what Gurdjieff had been saying. This led to a strange observation that was verified many times by all of us. One person would have a clear and exact recollection of what Gurdjieff had said on some topic. Another would flatly contradict the account, saying that something quite different had been said. Sometimes several people would insist that Gurdjieff had spoken exclusively and privately to them, giving them a deeply important message. Other people who had been sitting a yard away would not have heard a word.

After some time we concluded that Gurdjieff had a peculiar kind of Maya that enabled him to appear differently to different people at the same time. He was, indeed, as Madame Ouspensky had put it, X—the unknown quantity. To convey some impression of his infinite variety forty people, men and women, who saw most of him at the various periods of his life would have to write forty different books. Unfortunately most of those who could have written of him have died, leaving little or no record of their experience.

J.G. Bennett - Witness p.246

chief obstacle to the spread of G's method

I am reluctant to describe any of Gurdjieff 's spiritual exercises, as I am sure that they should never be undertaken without supervision by some experienced guide. Herein indeed lies the chief obstacle to the spread of Gurdjieff 's method. His pupils are generally agreed that at least seven years of intensive training are needed to form a group leader. The majority of those who attempt this training fall by the way or become so acutely aware of their own defects that they refuse to take responsibility for others. In consequence, those who have at different times accepted the task of guiding others have been overworked and overstrained. Dependence upon highly trained and rarely equipped teachers is a serious defect for which it is difficult to see a remedy.

J.G. Bennett - Witness p.246

What are you trying to do?

At one meeting a man who had just started coming to meetings said,  “Mr. Gurdjieff, what are you trying to do?”

What I try do?” Mr. Gurdjieff replied, “I try show people when it rains the streets are wet.”

That struck me so strongly that I have never forgotten it.

Edwin Wolfe - Episodes with Gurdjieff p.12

the worst collection of paintings in the World

"You know, Miss Keep not have any sympathy for my paintings. Last time she come here, I ask her what she think of my paintings, and she tell me: 'Mr. Gurdjieff, you have everything here, except art'. Miss Keep not appreciate what I do."

"...they tell I have worst collection of paintings in Paris—perhaps in all world. I already unique to most people who know me, but in my collection of bad art people see that I am still more unique ... in another way, unique."

Fritz Peters - Gurdjieff Remembered (Chapter 18)

even God made a mistake

Elizabeth Constant Gordon

Gurdjieff once was telling Elizabeth Gordon, that he had made a mistake. He went on to say that even God made a mistake, one big mistake. Miss Gordon replied that she thought God had done everything necessary to forestall the effect of the Merciless Heropass - "Time, that wears away every living thing". Gurdjieff said, "Yes, everything but one thing; he made an umbrella when he should have made an enema, and now he is idiot and like everyone else sits in galoshes." This seemingly senseless expression puzzled me; only after a long time did I begin to perceive a great truth in the parable.

C.S. Nott - Further Teachings of Gurdjieff p.229

 (Miss Gordon was a close Gurdjieff pupil from 1922 until her death in Paris 1945)

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