Jeanne de Salzmann (born Jeanne-Marie Allemand ) often addressed as Madame de Salzmann (January 26, 1889, Reims – May 24, 1990, Paris ) was a French - Swiss dance teacher and a close pupil of the spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff .
74-582: The Fourth Way is an approach to self-development developed by George Gurdjieff over years of travel in the East (c. 1890 – 1912). Students often refer to the Fourth Way as "The Work", "Work on oneself", or "The System". The exact origins of some of Gurdjieff's teachings are unknown, but various sources have been suggested. The term "Fourth Way" was further used by his student P. D. Ouspensky in his lectures and writings. After Ouspensky's death, his students published
148-522: A book entitled The Fourth Way based on his lectures. According to this system, the three traditional schools, or ways, "are permanent forms which have survived throughout history mostly unchanged, and are based on religion. Where schools of Fakirs , Monks and Yogis exist, they are barely distinguishable from religious schools. The fourth way differs in that "it is not a permanent way. It has no specific forms or institutions and comes and goes controlled by some particular laws of its own." When this work
222-648: A carpenter and amateur ashik or bardic poet, and the priest of the town's cathedral , Dean Borsh, a family friend. The young Gurdjieff avidly read literature from many sources and influenced by these writings and witnessing a number of phenomena that he could not explain, he formed the conviction that there existed a hidden truth known to mankind in the past, which could not be ascertained from science or mainstream religion. In early adulthood, according to his own account, Gurdjieff's search for such knowledge led him to travel widely to Central Asia , Egypt, Iran, India, Tibet and other places before he returned to Russia for
296-564: A child of Gurdjieff, the following six people are quoted to be his children: Gurdjieff had a niece, Luba Gurdjieff Everitt , who for about 40 years (1950s–1990s) ran a small but rather famous restaurant, Luba's Bistro, in Knightsbridge , London. Gurdjieff taught that people cannot perceive reality as they are, because they are not conscious of themselves, but rather live in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep" of constantly turning thoughts, worries and imagination. The title of one of his books
370-412: A daughter, Nathalie de Salzmann (1919-2007). The First World War caused the closure of Dalcroze's Institute and Jeanne and her husband Alexandre moved to Tiflis , Georgia where she continued to teach. In 1919, Thomas de Hartmann introduced the de Salzmanns to George Gurdjieff , a relationship that would last until Gurdjieff's death in 1949. She worked with Gurdjieff for nearly 30 years. De Salzmann
444-631: A distinct meaning to various ancient texts such as the Bible and many religious prayers. He believed that such texts possess meanings very different from those commonly attributed to them. "Sleep not"; "Awake, for you know not the hour"; and "The Kingdom of Heaven is Within" are examples of biblical statements which point to teachings whose essence has been forgotten. Gurdjieff taught people how to strengthen and focus their attention and energy in various ways so as to minimize daydreaming and absentmindedness. According to his teaching, this inner development of oneself
518-467: A few years in 1912. He was never forthcoming about the source of his teaching, which he once labelled as esoteric Christianity , in that it ascribes a psychological rather than a literal meaning to various parables and statements found in the Bible. The only account of his wanderings appears in his book Meetings with Remarkable Men , which is not generally considered to be a reliable autobiography. One example
592-542: A follower. In 1935, Gurdjieff stopped work on All and Everything. He had completed the first two parts of the planned trilogy but then started on the Third Series. (It was later published under the title Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am'. ) In 1936, he settled in a flat at 6, Rue des Colonels-Renard in Paris, where he was to stay for the rest of his life. In 1937, his brother Dmitry died, and The Rope disbanded. Although
666-453: A great spasm of pain shook his body and blood gushed from an ear. Bennett thought: "He has a cerebral haemorrhage. He will kill himself if he continues to force his body to move". But then he reflected: "He has to do all this. If he allows his body to stop moving, he will die. He has power over his body". After recovering, Gurdjieff finalised plans for the official publication of Beelzebub's Tales and made two trips to New York. He also visited
740-623: A reputation as a writer on mystical subjects and had conducted his own, ultimately disappointing, search for wisdom in the East. The Fourth Way "system" taught during this period was complex and metaphysical, partly expressed in scientific terminology. During the revolutionary upheaval in Russia, Gurdjieff left Petrograd in 1917 to return to his family home in Alexandropol (present-day Gyumri in Armenia). During
814-672: A result, these ways fail to produce a properly balanced human being. Furthermore, anyone wishing to undertake any of the traditional paths to spiritual knowledge (which Gurdjieff reduced to three—namely the way of the Fakir , the way of the Monk , and the way of the Yogi ) were required to renounce life in the world. But Gurdjieff also described a "Fourth Way" which would be amenable to the requirements of contemporary people living in Europe and America. Instead of training
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#1732855863075888-407: A scientist and wearing a red fireman's belt with brass rings Gurdjieff left Essentuki with fourteen companions (excluding Gurdjieff's family and Ouspensky). They travelled by train to Maikop, where hostilities delayed them for three weeks. In the spring of 1919, Gurdjieff met the artist Alexandre de Salzmann and his wife Jeanne and accepted them as pupils. Assisted by Jeanne de Salzmann, Gurdjieff gave
962-493: A second car accident in 1948 but again made an unexpected recovery. "I was looking at a dying man. Even this is not enough to express it. It was a dead man, a corpse, that came out of the car; and yet it walked. I was shivering like someone who sees a ghost." With iron-like tenacity, he managed to get to his room, where he sat down and said: "Now all organs are destroyed. Must make new". Then, he turned to Bennett, smiling: "Tonight you come dinner. I must make body work". As he spoke,
1036-419: Is Life is Real, Only Then, when "I am" . "Man lives his life in sleep, and in sleep he dies." As a result, a person perceives the world while in a state of dream. He asserted that people in their ordinary waking state function as unconscious automatons , but that a person can "wake up" and become what a human being ought to be. Some contemporary researchers claim that Gurdjieff's concept of self-remembering
1110-656: Is "close to the Buddhist concept of awareness or a popular definition of 'mindfulness'. ... The Buddhist term translated into English as 'mindfulness' originates in the Pali term 'sati', which is identical to Sanskrit 'smṛti'. Both terms mean 'to remember'." As Gurdjieff himself said at a meeting held in his Paris flat during the Second World War: "Our aim is to have constantly a sensation of oneself, of one's individuality: this sensation cannot be expressed intellectually, because it
1184-649: Is additional to the ways of the Fakirs ( Sufis ), Monks and Yogis , so that his student P. D. Ouspensky referred to it as the " Fourth Way ". Gurdjieff's teaching has inspired the formation of many groups around the world. After his death in 1949, the Gurdjieff Foundation in Paris was established and led by his close pupil Jeanne de Salzmann in cooperation with other direct pupils of Gurdjieff, until her death in 1990; and then by her son Michel de Salzmann , until his death in 2001. The International Association of
1258-409: Is finished, that is to say, when the aim set before it has been accomplished, the fourth way disappears, that is, it disappears from the given place, disappears in its given form, continuing perhaps in another place in another form. Schools of the fourth way exist for the needs of the work which is being carried out in connection with the proposed undertaking. They never exist by themselves as schools for
1332-606: Is inscribed in a plate on the grave-marker in the cemetery of Avon, Seine-et-Marne , France, where his body was buried. Gurdjieff spent his childhood in Kars , which, from 1878 to 1918, was the administrative capital of the Russian-ruled Transcaucasus province of Kars Oblast , a border region recently acquired following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire . It contained extensive grassy plateau-steppe and high mountains, and
1406-486: Is no use troubling oneself how to recognize a wrong way. One must think of how to find the right way." The Fourth way was influenced by Tibetan Buddhism , according to Jose Tirado, and Chatral Rinpoche alleged that Gurdjieff spent several years in a Buddhist monastery in the Swat valley . After Gurdjieff's death in 1949 a variety of groups around the world have attempted to continue The Gurdjieff Work. The Gurdjieff Foundation,
1480-510: Is not consciousness at all but merely a form of sleep." Gurdjieff taught "sacred dances" or "movements", now known as Gurdjieff movements , which were performed together as a group. He left a body of music, inspired by that which he had heard in remote monasteries and other places, which was written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas de Hartmann . Ouspensky documented Gurdjieff as saying that "two or three thousand years ago there were yet other ways which no longer exist and
1554-441: Is not so difficult as wishing to work, taking the decision." Though Gurdjieff never put major significance on the term "Fourth Way" and never used the term in his writings, his pupil P. D. Ouspensky from 1924 to 1947 made the term and its use central to his own interpretation of Gurdjieff's teaching. After Ouspensky's death, his students published a book titled The Fourth Way based on his lectures. Gurdjieff's teaching addressed
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#17328558630751628-462: Is of the adventure of walking across the Gobi desert on stilts, where Gurdjieff said he was able to look down on the contours of the sand dunes while the sand storm whirled around below him. Each chapter is named after a "remarkable man", some of whom were putative members of a society called "The Seekers of Truth". After Gurdjieff's death, J. G. Bennett researched his potential sources and suggested that
1702-616: Is organic. It is something which makes you independent, when you are with other people." Gurdjieff argued that many of the existing forms of religious and spiritual tradition on Earth had lost connection with their original meaning and vitality and so could no longer serve humanity in the way that had been intended at their inception. As a result, humans were failing to realize the truths of ancient teachings and were instead becoming more and more like automatons, susceptible to control from outside and increasingly capable of otherwise unthinkable acts of mass psychosis such as World War I . At best,
1776-550: Is quoted by his students in "Views from the Real World" as saying: "The Institute can help one to be able to be a Christian." An aphorism was displayed which stated: "Here there are neither Russians nor English, Jews nor Christians, but only those who pursue one aim – to be able to be." New pupils included C. S. Nott , René Zuber , Margaret Anderson and her ward Fritz Peters. The intellectual and middle-class types who were attracted to Gurdjieff's teaching often found
1850-491: Is the beginning of a possible further process of change, the aim of which is to transform people into what Gurdjieff believed they ought to be. Distrusting "morality", which he describes as varying from culture to culture, often contradictory and hypocritical, Gurdjieff greatly stressed the importance of " conscience ". To provide conditions in which inner attention could be exercised more intensively, Gurdjieff also taught his pupils "sacred dances" or "movements", later known as
1924-412: Is the beginning of a possible further process of change, whose aim is to transform man into "what he ought to be." Gurdjieff's followers believed he was a spiritual master, a human being who is fully awake or enlightened . He was also seen as an esotericist or occultist . He agreed that the teaching was esoteric but claimed that none of it was veiled in secrecy but that many people lack the interest or
1998-639: The Caucasus . There are conflicting views regarding Gurdjieff's birth date, ranging from 1866 to 1877. The bulk of extant records weigh heavily toward 1877, but Gurdjieff in reported conversations with students gave the year of his birth as c. 1867 , which is corroborated by the account of his niece Luba Gurdjieff Everitt and accords with photographs and videos taken of him in 1949. George Kiourtzidis, great-grandson of Gurdjieff's paternal uncle Vasilii (through Vasilii's son Alexander), recalled that his grandfather Alexander, born in 1875, said that Gurdjieff
2072-935: The Galata Tower . The apartment is near the Khanqah (Sufi lodge) of the Mevlevi Order (a Sufi order following the teachings of Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi ), where Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and Thomas de Hartmann witnessed the Sama ceremony of the Whirling Dervishes . In Istanbul, Gurdjieff also met his future pupil, Capt. John G. Bennett , then head of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence in Ottoman Turkey , who described his impression of Gurdjieff as follows: It
2146-565: The Gurdjieff movements , which they performed together as a group. He also left a body of music, inspired by what he heard in visits to remote monasteries and other places, written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas de Hartmann . Gurdjieff used various exercises, such as the "Stop" exercise, to prompt self-observation in his students. Other shocks to help awaken his pupils from constant daydreaming were always possible at any moment. Jeanne de Salzmann Jeanne de Salzmann
2220-640: The Law of Three and the Law of Seven . How the Law of Seven and Law of Three function together is said to be illustrated on the Fourth Way Enneagram , a nine-pointed symbol which is the central glyph of Gurdjieff's system. 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
2294-590: The Molokans , Doukhobors , Pryguny , and Subbotniks . Gurdjieff makes particular mention of the Yazidi community . Growing up in a multi-ethnic society, Gurdjieff became fluent in Armenian , Pontic Greek , Russian , and Turkish , speaking the last in a mixture of elegant Ottoman Turkish with some dialect. He later acquired "a working facility with several European languages". Early influences on him included his father,
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2368-705: The October Revolution , he set up a temporary study community in Essentuki in the Caucasus, where he worked intensively with a small group of Russian pupils. Gurdjieff's eldest sister Anna and her family later arrived there as refugees, informing him that Turks had shot his father in Alexandropol on 15 May. As the area became increasingly threatened by civil war, Gurdjieff fabricated a newspaper story announcing his forthcoming "scientific expedition" to "Mount Induc". Posing as
2442-831: The Russian Revolution with dozens of followers and family members, Gurdjieff settled in France and established his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Château Le Prieuré at Fontainebleau-Avon in October 1922. The institute was an esoteric school based on Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teaching. After nearly dying in a car crash in 1924, he recovered and closed down the institute. He began writing All and Everything . From 1930, Gurdjieff made visits to North America where he resumed his teachings. Ouspensky relates that in
2516-416: The " Sarmoung Brotherhood ". Gurdjieff wrote that he supported himself during his travels by engaging in various enterprises such as running a travelling repair shop and making paper flowers; and on one occasion while thinking about what he could do, he described catching sparrows in the park and then dyeing them yellow to be sold as canaries; It is also speculated by commentators that during his travels he
2590-487: The 1870s managed large herds of cattle and sheep. The long-held view is that Gurdjieff's mother was Armenian , although some scholars have recently speculated that she too was Greek. According to Gurdjieff himself, his father came of a Greek family whose ancestors had emigrated from Byzantium after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, with his family initially moving to central Anatolia , and from there eventually to Georgia in
2664-731: The Gurdjieff Foundations comprises the Institut Gurdjieff in France; The Gurdjieff Foundation in the USA; The Gurdjieff Society in the UK; and the Gurdjieff Foundation in Venezuela. Gurdjieff was born in Alexandropol, Yerevan Governorate , Russian Empire (now Gyumri , Armenia ). His father Ivan Ivanovich Gurdjieff was Greek , and a renowned ashugh under the pseudonym of Adash , who in
2738-515: The Gurdjieff Institute of Paris and continued Gurdjieff's teachings, emphasizing work with the movements, until she died, 101 years old, in 1990. Jeanne de Salzmann played a major role in realizing the 1979 movie Meetings with Remarkable Men by Peter Brook . She was buried at Cimetière de Plainpalais in Geneva. After her death, her son Michel de Salzmann (1923–2001) took over
2812-590: The Gurdjieff work. George Gurdjieff George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (c. 1867 – 29 October 1949) was a Greek–Armenian philosopher , mystic , spiritual teacher , composer , and movements teacher . Gurdjieff taught that people are not conscious of themselves and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and serve our purpose as human beings. The practice of his teaching has become known as "The Work" (connoting work on oneself) and
2886-450: The Prieuré operation ran into debt and was shut down in 1932. Gurdjieff constituted a new teaching group in Paris. Known as The Rope, it was composed of only women, many of them writers, and several lesbians. Members included Kathryn Hulme , Jane Heap , Margaret Anderson and Enrico Caruso 's widow, Dorothy. Gurdjieff became acquainted with Gertrude Stein through its members, but she was never
2960-415: The Prieuré's spartan accommodation and emphasis on hard labour on the grounds disconcerting. Gurdjieff was putting into practice his teaching that people need to develop physically, emotionally and intellectually, so lectures, music, dance, and manual work were organised. Older pupils noticed how the Prieuré teaching differed from the complex metaphysical "system" that had been taught in Russia. In addition to
3034-625: The Stjoernvals, the Hartmanns, and the de Salzmanns continued to assimilate his teaching. Gurdjieff concentrated on his still unstaged ballet, The Struggle of the Magicians . Thomas de Hartmann (who had made his debut years ago, before Tsar Nicholas II of Russia ), worked on the music for the ballet, and Olga Ivanovna Hinzenberg (who years later wed the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright ), practiced
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3108-671: The accent that one associates with those born and bred in the narrow circle of the Imperial Court . His appearance was striking enough even in Turkey , where one saw many unusual types. His head was shaven, immense black moustache, eyes which at one moment seemed very pale and at another almost black. Below average height, he gave nevertheless an impression of great physical strength. In August 1921 and 1922, Gurdjieff travelled around western Europe, lecturing and giving demonstrations of his work in various cities, such as Berlin and London. He attracted
3182-731: The allegiance of Ouspensky's many prominent pupils (notably the editor A. R. Orage ). After an unsuccessful attempt to gain British citizenship, Gurdjieff established the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man south of Paris at the Prieuré des Basses Loges in Avon near the famous Château de Fontainebleau . The once-impressive but somewhat crumbling mansion set in extensive grounds housed an entourage of several dozen, including some of Gurdjieff's remaining relatives and some White Russian refugees. Gurdjieff
3256-427: The break in the rhythm. During this period, Gurdjieff acquired notoriety as "the man who killed Katherine Mansfield" after Katherine Mansfield died there of tuberculosis on 9 January 1923. However, James Moore and Ouspensky argue that Mansfield knew she would soon die and that Gurdjieff made her last days happy and fulfilling. Starting in 1924, Gurdjieff made visits to North America, where he eventually received
3330-437: The capability to understand it. 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 Fourth Way teaches that the soul a human individual is born with gets trapped and encapsulated by personality, and stays dormant, leaving one not really conscious, despite believing one is. A person must free
3404-557: The dances. It was here that Gurdjieff opened his first Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man . In late May 1920, when political and social conditions in Georgia deteriorated, his party travelled to Batumi on the Black Sea coast and then by ship to Constantinople (today Istanbul ). Gurdjieff rented an apartment on Kumbaracı Street in Péra and later at 13 Abdullatif Yemeneci Sokak near
3478-460: The early work with Gurdjieff in Moscow and Saint Petersburg , Gurdjieff forbade students from writing down or publishing anything connected with Gurdjieff and his ideas. Gurdjieff said that students of his methods would find themselves unable to transmit correctly what was said in the groups. Later, Gurdjieff relaxed this rule, accepting students who subsequently published accounts of their experiences in
3552-581: The eccentric Rachmilievitch. In the same year, he married the Polish Julia Ostrowska in Saint Petersburg. In 1914, Gurdjieff advertised his ballet, The Struggle of the Magicians, and he supervised his pupils' writing of the sketch Glimpses of Truth. In 1915, Gurdjieff accepted P. D. Ouspensky as a pupil, and in 1916, he accepted the composer Thomas de Hartmann and his wife, Olga, as students. He then had about 30 pupils. Ouspensky already had
3626-434: 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." The Enneagram is often studied in contexts that do not include other elements of Fourth Way teaching . Having migrated for four years after escaping
3700-606: The famous prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux , giving his interpretation of their significance to his pupils. Gurdjieff died of cancer at the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine , France, on 29 October 1949. His funeral took place at the St. Alexandre Nevsky Russian Orthodox Cathedral at 12 Rue Daru, Paris. He is buried in the cemetery at Avon (near Fontainebleau). Although no evidence or documents have certified anyone as
3774-526: The first public demonstration of his Sacred Dances (Movements at the Tbilisi Opera House, 22 June). In March 1918, Ouspensky separated from Gurdjieff, settling in England and teaching the Fourth Way in his own right. The two men were to have a very ambivalent relationship for decades to come. In 1919, Gurdjieff and his closest pupils moved to Tbilisi , Georgia , where Gurdjieff's wife Julia Ostrowska,
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#17328558630753848-417: The flat at 6 Rue des Colonels-Renard was very small, he continued to teach groups of pupils there throughout the war. Visitors have described his pantry or 'inner sanctum' as being stocked with an extraordinary collection of eastern delicacies and the suppers he held with elaborate toasts with vodka and cognac to "idiots". Having cut a physically impressive figure for many years, he was now paunchy. His teaching
3922-426: The future, under the pretext of different worthy reasons, to remove from my eyesight all those who by this or that make my life too comfortable". Whilst recovering from his injuries and still too weak to write himself, he began to dictate his magnum opus, Beelzebub's Tales , the first part of All and Everything , in a mixture of Armenian and Russian. The book is generally found to be convoluted and obscure and forces
3996-559: The men were symbolic of the three types of people to whom Gurdjieff referred: No. 1 centred in their physical body; No. 2 centred in their emotions and No. 3 centred in their mind. Gurdjieff describes how he encountered dervishes , fakirs and descendants of the Essenes , whose teaching he said had been conserved at a monastery in Sarmoung. The book also has an overarching quest involving a map of "pre-sand Egypt" and culminates in an encounter with
4070-430: The mind, body and emotions separately, Gurdjieff's discipline worked on all three to promote an organic connection between them and a balanced development. In parallel with other spiritual traditions, Gurdjieff taught that a person must expend considerable effort to effect the transformation that leads to awakening . Gurdjieff referred to it as "The Work" or "Work on oneself". According to Gurdjieff, "Working on oneself
4144-609: The physical hardships, his personal behaviour towards pupils could be ferocious: Gurdjieff was standing by his bed in a state of what seemed to me to be completely uncontrolled fury. He was raging at Orage, who stood impassively and very pale, framed in one of the windows ... Suddenly, in the space of an instant, Gurdjieff's voice stopped, his whole personality changed and he gave me a broad smile—and looking incredibly peaceful and inwardly quiet, motioned me to leave. He then resumed his tirade with undiminished force. This happened so quickly that I do not believe that Mr. Orage even noticed
4218-415: The pupils taught previously by A. R. Orage. In 1924, while driving alone from Paris to Fontainebleau, he had a near-fatal car accident. Nursed by his wife and mother, he made a slow and painful recovery against all medical expectations. Still convalescent, he formally "disbanded" his institute on 26 August (in fact he dispersed only his "less dedicated" pupils) which he expressed was a personal undertaking: "in
4292-564: The purpose of education and instruction. The Fourth Way addresses the question of humanity's place in the Universe and the possibilities of inner development. It emphasizes that people ordinarily live in a state referred to as a semi-hypnotic "waking sleep," while higher levels of consciousness, virtue, and unity of will are possible. The Fourth Way teaches how to increase and focus attention and energy in various ways, and to minimize day-dreaming and absent-mindedness. This inner development in oneself
4366-476: The question of humanity's place in the universe and the importance of developing its latent potentialities—regarded as our natural endowment as human beings, but which was rarely brought to fruition. He taught that higher levels of consciousness, higher bodies, inner growth and development are real possibilities that nonetheless require conscious work to achieve. The aim was not to acquire anything new but to recover what we had lost. In his teaching, Gurdjieff gave
4440-532: The reader to "work" to find its meaning. He continued to develop the book over some years, writing in noisy cafes which he found conducive for setting down his thoughts. Gurdjieff's mother died in 1925 and his wife developed cancer and died in June 1926. Ouspensky attended her funeral. According to Fritz Peters , Gurdjieff was in New York from November 1925 to the spring of 1926, when he succeeded in raising over $ 100,000. He
4514-401: The soul by following a teaching which can lead to this aim or "go nowhere" upon death of his body. Should a person be able to receive the teaching and find a school, upon the death of the physical body they will "go elsewhere." Humans are born asleep , live in sleep , and die in sleep , only imagining that they are awake with few exceptions. The ordinary waking "consciousness" of human beings
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#17328558630754588-414: The various surviving sects and schools could provide only a one-sided development, which did not result in a fully integrated human being. According to Gurdjieff, only one of the three dimensions of a person—namely, either the emotions, or the physical body or the mind—tends to develop in such schools and sects, and generally at the expense of the other faculties or centres , as Gurdjieff called them. As
4662-433: The war, and it also brought him to the attention of the authorities, leading to a night in the cells. After the war, Gurdjieff tried to reconnect with his former pupils. Ouspensky was hesitant, but after his death (October 1947), his widow advised his remaining pupils to see Gurdjieff in Paris. J. G. Bennett also visited from England, their first meeting in 25 years. Ouspensky's pupils in England had all thought that Gurdjieff
4736-417: The ways then 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." Ouspensky quotes Gurdjieff that there are fake schools and that "It is impossible to recognize a wrong way without knowing the right way. This means that it
4810-526: Was about three years older than him, which would point to a birth date c. 1872 . Although official documents consistently record the day of his birth as 28 December, Gurdjieff himself celebrated his birthday either on the Old Orthodox Julian calendar date of 1 January, or according to the Gregorian calendar date for New Year of 13 January (up to 1899; 14 January after 1900). The year of 1872
4884-613: Was born Jeanne-Marie Allemand, the daughter of the famous Swiss architect Jules Louis Allemand and of Marie Louise Matignon. Madame de Salzmann began her career at the Conservatory of Geneva , studying piano. Later a student of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze in Germany from 1912, she taught dance and rhythmic movements. She met her husband Alexandre de Salzmann in Hellerau at Dalcroze's Institute. They married on September 6 in Geneva. With him she had
4958-422: Was dead. They discovered he was alive only after the death of Ouspensky, who had not told them that Gurdjieff, from whom he had learnt of the teaching, was still living. They were overjoyed and many of Ouspensky's pupils including Rina Hands, Basil Tilley and Catherine Murphy visited Gurdjieff in Paris. Hands and Murphy worked on the typing and retyping for the publication of All and Everything . Gurdjieff suffered
5032-459: Was engaged in a certain amount of political activity, as part of The Great Game . From 1913 to 1949, the chronology appears to be based on material that can be confirmed by primary documents, independent witnesses, cross-references and reasonable inference. On New Year's Day in 1912, Gurdjieff arrived in Moscow and attracted his first students, including his cousin, the sculptor Sergey Merkurov , and
5106-646: Was established in 1953 in New York City by Jeanne de Salzmann in cooperation with other direct pupils. 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 centers in a man: intellectual , emotional and physical , and two higher centers: higher emotional and higher intellectual . Body, Essence and Personality Gurdjieff divided people's being into Essence and Personality . Cosmic Laws Gurdjieff focused on two main cosmic laws,
5180-708: Was inhabited by a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional population that had a history of respect for travelling mystics and holy men, and for religious syncretism and conversion . Both the city of Kars and the surrounding territory were home to an extremely diverse population: although part of the Armenian Plateau , the Russian-ruled Transcaucasus province of Kars Oblast was home to Armenians , Caucasus Greeks , Pontic Greeks , Georgians , Russians , Kurds , Turks , and smaller numbers of Christian communities from eastern and central Europe such as Caucasus Germans , Estonians , and Russian Orthodox sectarian communities like
5254-464: Was now conveyed more directly through personal interaction with his pupils, who were encouraged to study the ideas he had expressed in Beelzebub's Tales . His personal business enterprises (he had intermittently been a dealer in oriental rugs and carpets for much of his life, among other activities) enabled him to offer charitable relief to neighbours who had been affected by the difficult circumstances of
5328-586: Was recognized as his deputy by many of Gurdjieff's other pupils. She was responsible for transmitting the movements and his teaching through the Gurdjieff Institute of Paris , the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York City , the Gurdjieff Society in London and the Fundación Gurdjieff of Caracas , which she founded or helped founding, as well as other formal and informal groups throughout the world. She led
5402-408: Was there that I first met Gurdjieff in the autumn of 1920, and no surroundings could have been more appropriate. In Gurdjieff, East and West do not just meet. Their difference is annihilated in a world outlook which knows no distinctions of race or creed. This was my first, and has remained one of my strongest impressions. A Greek from the Caucasus , he spoke Turkish with an accent of unexpected purity,
5476-598: Was to make six or seven trips to the US, but alienated a number of people with his brash and impudent demands for money. A Chicago-based Gurdjieff group was founded by Jean Toomer in 1927 after he had trained at the Prieuré for a year. Diana Huebert was a regular member of the Chicago group, and documented the several visits Gurdjieff made to the group in 1932 and 1934 in her memoirs on the man. Despite his fund-raising efforts in America,
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