"Look back at the hour that has just passed, as if it were for you last hour on earth, and you have just realized that you have died. Ask yourself Are you satisfied with the last hour of your life? George Gurdjieff asked his students. Quotes and aphorisms belonging to him make us think about how we live.
Does a person understand why he lives at all? One can hardly be satisfied or dissatisfied about this without having a concrete idea of what life really means to him. Is it really the vanity of the vanities of everyday life with its demands of the struggle for a "place under the sun" - this is life in human sense? Look at yourself and your surroundings. How many people want the meaning of their existence to be different from the meaning of the existence of plants and animals? There are a number of reasons why this excites you, and does not excite anyone from your usual environment.
The fourth way is an esoteric teaching about the evolution of a human being from the level of satisfying the unusual desires and interests of the “white crows of the human flock” to the level of the formation of higher bodies in a person capable of living after the death of the physical body.
Accidentally or intentionally, an indefatigable desire to understand the meaning of human life, formed by someone in Gurdjieff's childhood, resulted in the years of his travels in the East in search of knowledge that would answer this question. Gurdjieff's path required complete dedication and superhuman efforts.
After many years of wandering, he returned to Europe to convey to people the teachings belonging to esoteric schools. At the same time, according to Gurdjieff, “The Fourth Way is impossible without some kind of work of a certain significance, without some kind of undertaking, around which and in connection with which it only exists. When this work is completed, i.e. the goal is achieved, the fourth way disappears, i.e. disappears in a given place, disappears in a given form, perhaps continuing in another place and in another form.
What does the Fourth Way according to Gurdjieff mean?
George Gurdjieff believed that a person is not able to evolve as long as he uses only crumbs of his capabilities, being in an ordinary state, similar to "sleep". A person's attention is constantly attracted by various little things, and he cannot control himself. Therefore, plans are constantly changing - either he wants to really live, and not function in the form of an animal, then he suddenly forgets, or even if he remembers, he no longer wants anything, then suddenly desires wake up in him again and he is ready to set goals for himself, etc. .d.
And therefore it is impossible to understand the essence of Gurdjieff's teaching without a deep study of oneself and gaining control over oneself.
To start moving towards this understanding, he offered his students special exercises, including movements - the sacred dances of Gurdjieff, explained the ideas of the esoteric teachings with practical examples, not allowing them to be turned into mere material for reflection.
"Man-machine" according to Gurdjieff
According to the teachings of George Gurdjieff, man is a mechanical "machine" that operates on the principle of stimulus-response.
That is, when a person is “sleeping”, he cannot control himself, let alone his life, since life is completely controlled by internal or external random mechanical stimuli. And thus, each of our actions is caused not by our Will, but by mechanical, often random reactions to these mechanical stimuli.
The weather deteriorates - and our mood deteriorates, they shout at us - and we immediately begin to shout back.
We do not live, but simply go with the flow, continuing to mechanically respond to external randomly generated stimuli.
At the same time, in a normal state, a person is unable to see and realize the mechanism of formation of these stimuli and reactions. Therefore, the work of change begins with the study and observation of oneself, gradually forming the ability to really realize oneself.
Only a full awareness of the nature of their mechanical reactions, the stimuli that trigger them, and an impartial observation of the present moment allow a person to see complete picture what is happening and make a conscious choice of their reaction and, ultimately, live, and not function according to the stimulus-response principle. This is the beginning of Gurdjieff's technique.
When you spill your morning coffee, argue with your loved ones over trifles, and make mistakes at your job, you are not self-aware—you are asleep. All your attention is focused on one “subject” and you do not see the full picture of what is happening.
When you are here and now, even spilling your morning coffee, being aware of yourself, you notice the beauty of the early morning, do not be late for important meetings and know how to achieve your goals - you are no longer a machine, you are no longer sleeping.
Gurdjieff: Development Techniques
All esoteric, unlike religious teachings, strive for the same goal as the Fourth Way - the evolutionary development of a human being, but they work on a different principle.
George Gurdjieff allegorically compared man to a wagon. He believed that a person is divided into parts.
According to Gurdjieff's system, there are four centers in man: intellectual, emotional, motor and instinctive. They have to fulfill their functions, but often they try to take on other people's duties.
For example, we often try to evaluate works of art only with the mind, although this must be done with the mind and feelings. Gurdjieff's exercises help to establish a connection between different parts of a person.
In various teachings, people work with only one center, being fully aware only of its work, and then they have to do the same work with other centers.
For example, a real monk can develop his emotional center through sincere faith, gaining unity and will that dominate his emotions.
But him physical body and mental capacity may remain undeveloped. And in order to use for his evolution what he has achieved, he will have to develop his body and the ability to think. At the same time, the monk’s attitude to his body changes diametrically in the opposite way- from the idea of him as a reason for the desire to fall into sin to the idea of a divine vessel bestowed by God, in which the soul can blossom.
The fourth way is the way of the cunning
To explain the idea of centers, Gurdjieff compared man to a wagon. The driver is an intellectual center, the horse is emotional, the wagon is instinctive-motor.
Now they don't work together. The horse does not understand what the coachman is saying to him, and there is no proper care for the wagon. Similarly, the emotional center does not obey the mind, because it does not understand ordinary language. We must observe the work of the centers in order to connect them with each other.
Gurdjieff's teaching
“A beginner pianist can never learn otherwise than little by little. If you want to play without prior practice, you will never be able to play authentic music. The melodies that you will play will turn out to be a cacophony, will make people suffer and hate you, ”said Gurdjieff. Path 4 also begins with small exercises.
Gurdjieff's system helps a person to be here and now. You should work on small things first, and gradually increase the load.
Should start with simple exercises: for example, do not cross your legs while eating, try to make eye contact with the person who is talking to you, then the difficulty level increases.
By making small efforts, and gaining the first victories, gradually we become able to give up useless thoughts, give up bad habits, work hard for days and weeks.
We kind of pump up the muscles of attention and awareness, preparing our body and mind for stronger exercises.
George Gurdjieff and the Enneagram
G. I. Gurdjieff believed that our entire life proceeds under the influence of cosmic laws. To explain them, he used an ancient symbol called Gurdjieff's Enneagram. Deciphering this figure gave his students an understanding of the laws of the world.
According to ancient esoteric literature and archaeological sites the Enneagram is known to have existed in the Middle East at least 2,500 years ago.
This sign is found in Christianity, Judaism and bondage, Sufism, ancient Greek philosophers and mathematicians.
Hydrogens and octaves in the Gurdjieff system
The octave is the line of development of any process in the Universe: from birth new planet before the advent human soul. In order for the processes to proceed intentionally, you need to know that in any business there are points that change the direction of movement. In order for the business started to be successfully completed, you need to make additional efforts. Gurdjieff's theoretical lessons included these topics.
Sometimes, in order to successfully complete an octave, we need a special kind of subtle matter, which the author of the system called hydrogen. It is not hydrogen in the scientific sense of the word.
In order for subtle matters to form in our bodies, we will have to stop the leakage of energy and provide pleasant impressions.
Practice and exercises of Gurdjieff
Gurdjieff's method is based on self-remembering. This means that we must be aware of our actions every second, and, as it were, see ourselves from the outside.
Without impartial self-observation, when we do unconscious things, some part of us rearranges the present to justify itself and thus takes us out of actual reality into imagination.
Talk to two in turn ordinary people after a quarrel. Surely, each of them will present a point of view in which he will be right, and the other is wrong. When we observe ourselves, it is more difficult for our machine to perform this trick, so we perceive the present more adequately and more objectively.
Self-remembering will not work right away, so Gurdjieff's practice begins with small exercises that require some effort. For example, when we sit in an uncomfortable position or do things that are new to us, it requires more concentration and constantly reminds us of ourselves.
In Gurdjieff's system, a special place is given to the division of attention into several parts. For example, we can hold the body in a certain position and listen carefully to music. Try it, it's not as easy as it seems.
School of Gurdjieff
The main center for work on the system during George Gurdjieff's lifetime was the Institute for the Harmonic Development of Man, which he founded in France.
In addition, there were groups of Gurdjieff in America. The life of students was subject to a strict schedule. Everyone was assigned to do hard work. When a person mastered it, he was moved to a new position.
After the death of the master, the followers of Gurdjieff organized groups in different parts the world to convey knowledge. There are now several schools in the Fourth Way tradition. Despite the different emphases in teaching, they all pursue the same goal - to know oneself.
It is almost impossible to approach awareness without the support of other people. In the classroom, students do exercises and discuss ideas, trying to stay in the present as much as possible.
Previously, it was not easy to get into Gurdjieff's club: he immediately forced him to make huge efforts, which many beginning students could not stand.
It is easier to get into the school now, but its methods are such that if you do not work at the proper level and make efforts in working on yourself, you will not be able to advance on the 4th path.
The school is not some Gurdjieff sect. The members of the group control each other, and resemble a research group, not religious people. Students have no ultimate truth, only points of view supported by personal experience, which they share with each other in order to collect a single picture of the world and the position of man in it.
Groups associated with the Fourth Way exist in almost every major city on all continents. Among them there are those who practice only Gurdjieff dances, there are those who approach ideas mainly from the intellectual side, there are also groups that form a single whole all over the world. The Gurdjieff Center in Moscow is one of them.
Literary works of Gurdjieff
Gurdjieff's three books are best known: "Beelzebub's stories to his grandson", "Meetings with wonderful people” and the unfinished book “Life is real only when I am.”
G.I. Gurdjieff suggested mastering the “Everything and Everything” cycle in exactly this order, reading each text three times in order to understand what was written.
Usually we read books almost automatically, so we quickly forget their content, but when studying this literature, maximum efforts must be made.
Gurdjieff's philosophy becomes practical only if we try to apply it, the study of theory alone is not enough.
Georgy Gurzhiev, a quote that many pseudo-esoteric schools now use, created a simple and at the same time the greatest system for human development. But we won't be able to use this method if we don't make enough effort. After all, the most simple rules the hardest to follow. Therefore, if we want to try to work with the system, we need the support and help of like-minded people.
To understand what Gurdjieff meant, the statements from his books will have to be tested in practice. Many of the metaphors are taken from the ancient esoteric knowledge that Gurdjieff studied. He learned about the wagon from the Sufis.
Only in practice will you be able to perceive the ideas of the system as real things, and not abstract philosophical concepts.
For beginners, it's best to start with In Search of the Miraculous. It was written by P. D. Uspensky, a student of Gurdjieff, who had no equal in the skill of expounding the principles of the system. Subsequently, he founded his school in the tradition of the Fourth Way in England.
If you want to know more about the practical side of the system, read books and articles about Gurdjieff. Big stuff for thought is presented in the works of J.G. Bennett, Ch.S. Notta, M. Anderson.
Paying for Mindfulness: Gurdjieff on Money
Once Gurdjieff said about money: “Nothing shows a person so well as his attitude towards money. People are ready to spend as much as they like on their personal fantasies, but they do not appreciate the work of others at all. Payment, whether it be money or giving up pleasant habits, allows you to develop further.
“People don’t appreciate a thing they didn’t pay for.”
“Pay is the principle. The payment is necessary not to the school, but to the students themselves, because without payment they will receive nothing. The idea of a fee is very important, and it must be understood that a fee is absolutely necessary. It is possible to pay one way or another, and everyone must find out for himself. But no one can get something they haven't paid for. Things cannot be given, they can only be bought. It's magical, not simple. If someone has knowledge, he cannot give it to another person, for only if a person pays for it can he have it. This is a cosmic law."
“Pay is the most important principle in the work, and this must be understood. Without payment, you can't get anything. But, as a rule, we want something for nothing, and that's why we have nothing. If we really decided to strive for this kind of knowledge - or even for a very small thing - and we would strive for it, not paying attention to everything else, we would get it. This is a very important question. We say we want knowledge, but we don't really want it. We will pay for something else, but we are not ready to pay for this, and therefore we get nothing as a result.”
Gurdjieff's letter to his daughter
Dushka Howarth, daughter of Georgy Ivanovich, did a lot to pass on her father's archives to the next generations and preserve it musical works. At 70, she learned to use a computer to publish a book of memoirs about him.
Gurdjieff's advice helped her all her life. 63 short instructions that can change the life of anyone if applied correctly.
- Concentrate your attention on yourself.
- Be aware at any moment of what you think, feel, desire or do.
- Always finish what you started.
- Do what you do as well as possible.
- Don't get attached to things that can later destroy you.
- Show your generosity without witnesses.
- Treat everyone as if they were your next of kin.
- Fix everything you messed up.
- Learn to receive and give thanks for every gift.
- Stop your self-protective behavior.
- Do not cheat, do not steal - in doing so, you will cheat and steal from yourself.
- Help those around you without making them dependent on you.
- Don't take up too much space.
- Don't make noise or make unnecessary gestures.
- If you don't have faith yet, imitate it.
- Do not be easily impressed by the influence of strong personalities.
- Don't grab anything or anyone.
- Distribute fairly.
- Don't tempt.
- Eat and sleep exactly as much as necessary.
- Don't talk about your personal problems.
- Don't judge or discriminate until you know all the basic facts.
- Don't make useless friendships.
- Don't follow general trends.
- Don't sell yourself.
- Respect the agreements you sign.
- Be punctual.
- Do not envy someone else's property and achievements.
- Talk only about what is necessary.
- Do not think about the benefits that your actions can bring you.
- Don't threaten.
- Keep your promises.
- In an argument, always put yourself in the place of others.
- Recognize when someone is superior to you.
- Get over your fears.
- Help others to become able to help themselves.
- Get over your feelings of dislike and be close to those you wish to reject.
- Change your pride into self-esteem.
- Change your anger into creativity and creation.
- Change your greed into a reverence for beauty.
- Change your envy into admiration for the virtues of others.
- Change your hatred into mercy.
- Do not praise, but do not insult yourself.
- Take care of what is not yours as well as your own.
- Don't complain, don't complain to yourself.
- Develop your imagination.
- Do not give orders to others just for the pleasure of submission.
- Pay for the work and services you get.
- Do not promote your work and ideas.
- Do not try to awaken in others in relation to yourself such feelings as: pity, sympathy, admiration, complicity.
- Don't try to stand out with your appearance.
- Never contradict, just remain silent.
- Do not get into debt, buy and pay immediately.
- If you offended in public, apologize publicly.
- When you notice your mistake in a conversation, do not insist on being right out of a sense of pride and immediately abandon your previous intentions.
- Do not defend your old ideas just because you have already proclaimed them.
- Don't keep useless things.
- Don't decorate yourself with other people's ideas.
- Don't take pictures with celebrities.
- Be your own judge.
- Don't characterize yourself by what you have.
- Realize that everything belongs to you.
- If you meditate and the Devil comes to you, make the Devil meditate too.
Practicing the Fourth Way Today
If you decide for yourself:
- that you don't want to be a mechanical machine,
- that you want to live and not function on the stimulus-response principle,
- want to know yourself, your functions and the world around you deeper and more objectively,
- bring the light of consciousness and awareness into your existence,
then you have the opportunity to start learning the Fourth Way in a practice group today.
The practical group of the Fourth Way is students who practice Gurdjieff's teaching about the Fourth Way, an objective picture of the world and the position of a person in it.
They share perspectives on Fourth Way ideas, backed up by personal experience, for the purpose of self-discovery and awakening from sleep, putting the pieces together.
“You don't understand your position. You are in prison. All you can want - if you can feel - is to run, to break out of it. But how can you run? It is necessary to dig a passage under the wall. One person cannot do anything. But suppose there are ten or twenty such people - if they work in turns and if one covers the other, they will be able to complete the passage and escape.
“No one will be able to escape from prison without the help of those who escaped before. Only they can tell how it is possible to arrange an escape, only they can hand over the tools - files or something else that may be needed. But one prisoner will not be able to find these people, to come into contact with them. Organization needed. Nothing can be achieved without organization.”
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff
Most major cities Europe, America, South America groups of people can be found studying the ideas and practical techniques given by George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff groups generally shun publicity, do not proselytize, are relatively invisible in the world, and lead ordinary lives of intense inner work.
Unusual person, the "cunning sage" as he is called, Gurdjieff devoted his life to the study of eastern esoteric teachings and the transmission of knowledge of theory and practice in a form adequate to thinking western man. We know relatively little about him. The specific influences and sources of his teaching remain as mysterious as those of another "Man of Knowledge", Don Juan.
He was born in 1872 in Alexandropol, in the region of the Caucasus, to a Greek father and an Armenian mother. As a boy, he becomes a student of the rector of the Russian cathedral which greatly influenced its development.
According to Gurdjieff, his father and his spiritual father - the rector of the cathedral - engendered in him a thirst for knowledge life process on Earth, and in particular the goal human life.
The city of Kars, where he lived, located between the Black and Caspian Seas, was the birthplace of many peoples, faiths, cultures. Already in adolescence Gurdjieff plunged into the atmosphere of a great mixture of cultures. Followers of Christian, Armenian, Assyrian, Islamic and even Zoroastrian traditions lived here. Already in his youth, he came into contact with the holy of holies of almost all secret organizations - religious, philosophical, occult, mystical, political.
He absorbed a lot, especially from Christian monastic sources. Later, he always emphasized the importance of esoteric Christianity. He knew well the Christian ritual and practices, ancient symbolism, liturgy. He was familiar with the technique of rhythmic breathing and mental prayers used in monasteries.
However, despite joining a variety of religious traditions, in which he grew up, he did not find the answer to the basic questions that he asked himself. He goes in search of knowledge.
With a group of friends who called themselves "seekers of Truth", at the age of 16 he goes to the East, on a three-year journey through Central Asia, then reaches Ethiopia, the Solomon Islands. During the trip, he learns, gets acquainted with many traditions. The masters of the esoteric Islamic orders had a particularly great influence on his formation.
It was the Sufi teachings that became the source on the basis of which his Teaching was largely created.
The central symbol of Gurdjieff's work is an enneogram of Sufi origin. Many sacred Sufi dances are performed as meditations in Gurdjieff's schools.
In the teachings of Gurdjieff, other esoteric influences can also be traced - this is the Buddhism of Tibet.
He lived in Tibet for more than 10 years. Here he develops enormous psychic spiritual powers, which is especially valued in Tibet. According to some reports, he was a mentor to the little Dalai Lama, and held important financial positions under the Tibetan authorities.
Very little is known about this period of his life in Tibet and Central Asia, which covers the beginning of 1890 and continues until 1910. It is known that he conducted research, studied the most ancient texts. He conducted his searches in Lamaism and the practice of Lamaism, in tekkas, monasteries where ancient knowledge was preserved, studied Siberian shamanism.
Obviously, as a result of all these searches, studies, practices, a single view of the world, a synthesis of knowledge, has arisen. Gradually, he became aware of his mission: to bring this knowledge about the "horror of the situation", as he said, and possible ways out of it into the Western world.
Next milestone in his biography is 1915, when he first appears in Russia as a Teacher - in the cities of St. Petersburg and Moscow.
In St. Petersburg, he meets with Peter Uspensky. Ouspensky himself had just returned from a journey in search of true esoteric knowledge and was surprised to find that the goal of his search was in his native land, in his native city.
He describes his first meeting with Gurdjieff in In Search of the Miraculous as follows: "I saw a man oriental type, middle-aged, with a black mustache and penetrating eyes. It was a man with the face of an Indian raja or an Arab sheikh. He spoke Russian incorrectly, with a strong Caucasian accent...".
Ouspensky assembled a group of followers who worked with Gurdjieff until the revolution. He spoke with his students about the relationship of man with the universe, about the levels of consciousness, death and immortality, the possibility of self-realization.
One of his early students describes this period as follows: Russia in 1917 was torn apart by war and revolution. Gurdjieff was an unknown "mystery man." No one knew about his origin and why he appeared in both Moscow and St. Petersburg, but whoever came into contact with him wanted to follow him."
A group of his students leave Russia, make an intricate journey on foot through the mountains to Tiflis. Here he collects new group and worked with her for several years, but when the revolution reached Georgia, they crossed the border, reached Constantinople, then Berlin, and finally, after several years of hardship, Paris. Here Gurdjieff decided to settle down, for a year he collected the money necessary for the acquisition of the Château de Avon near Fontainebleau, where he founded the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man.
10 years from 1923 to 1933 were spent on hard work with students at the Institute; during this time Gurdjieff tested and tested the system of teaching, self-observation, practical exercises.
Whoever came to study with him could be sure that constant and intense effort would be required of him. The time spent in the "Prier", as the castle was called, was seen as an opportunity to develop self-awareness.
It was a period of intense work that included demonstrations and lectures in Europe and America. It was interrupted by a serious accident - car accident, after which Gurdjieff miraculously survived.
This event brought a new direction to his work. He started writing three big books. They were written to solve the following major problems facing humanity:
- ruthlessly destroy the faith and views that have been rooted in the consciousness for centuries about everything that exists in the world;
- to acquaint the reader with the material necessary for new creativity;
- help the emergence of a true idea of the world, replacing the fantastic, illusory that exists now. Give an idea of the real world.
These are books " Everything and everyone", "Meeting wonderful people" and " Life is true only when I am".
In the first book, Gurdjieff comments on life modern man through the gaze of a cosmic being that arrived on Earth. This work is an encyclopedic commentary answering most important issues facing humanity.
In the second book, he tells his story of the search for truth, recalls his mentors and unusual people whom he met in his wanderings in search of esoteric knowledge.
In the third, an account is given of personal development, describing special practices that develop awareness of "oneself".
In 1933 another book was written " Herald of good things to come", presenting the ideas on which Gurdjieff's work is based, and describing the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man.
From 1933 to 1949, a new phase of his activity took place. He closes the Institute, travels everywhere, creates new groups in some American cities.
By the time of his death, in 1949, he had several hundred students, mainly in New York and Paris. Now the number of followers of his teachings is in the thousands.
The philosophical teaching of Gurdjieff contains many classical esoteric ideas, but a number of his own ideas are particularly original, these are:
- illusion belief ordinary life;
- the idea of the correlation of the microcosmic plane with the macrocosmic;
- recognition of the special role of the Moon in the cosmic evolution of mankind;
- division of man into four bodies;
- the doctrine of the centers, their manifested or unmanifested functioning;
- the doctrine of types human personality;
- features of a person's mental work on himself;
- the idea of the "Ray of Creation";
- an increase in the number of laws that materiality obeys as it moves away from the Absolute;
- the subordination of the evolution of the Universe to the law of the octave.
According to Gurdjieff, man lives in a very insignificant place in the universe. The planet is governed by many mechanical laws that impede the self-realization of man. Inner growth is not easy to achieve; great attention and great efforts are required from a person. And although a person has the opportunity to increase the level of his consciousness and, consequently, being, it is incredibly difficult for him to realize this alone. Work on oneself, according to the teachings of Gurdjieff, is individual and experimental. Nothing should be taken for granted unless proven by personal experience.
On the "Fourth Way" - this is how Gurdjieff called his teaching - a person must assert himself. The method of self-development that he taught is an attempt to free a person from the burden of laws that affect his development.
He argued: one of the important laws of development is related to the spiritual impulse, i.e. for spiritual development personality needs additional influence from the Teacher or the group.
He spoke of the law of three, which he called the basic law concerning all events - always and everywhere. This law says that every manifestation is the result of three forces: active, passive and neutral. This law - the basis of any creativity - is reflected in many world religions.
As a result of this law, work on oneself is not reading books. Threefold effort is needed: active - the Master, passive - the student, neutral - the group. But he who craves knowledge must himself make the first effort to find true knowledge and approach it.
Knowledge cannot come to people without their own efforts, he said. "An organization is needed, it is necessary to work in a group and with the help of someone who has already been liberated before. Only such a person can suggest what the path of liberation is. exact knowledge, the instructions of those who have already walked the path, and it is necessary to use them together.
The esoteric truth of Gurdjieff's teaching is addressed primarily to man himself and only through him to the outside world.
This teaching allows you to take a critical look at yourself and the world, try to understand the worldview of another person, think seriously about the fundamental issues of being.
Sacred movements of Gurdjieff
"Remember yourself," said Mr. Gurdjieff, "come back to yourself." This, he argued, is essential, otherwise, our movements, thoughts, emotions are mainly the result of our conditioning: family, social, educational, religious. "Man is a prison" - said Mr. Gurdjieff. Thus, there is a challenge for a human being - to develop consciousness in order to get out of the animal state and conditioning. Our only possibility is in searching: searching for ourselves with sincerity, passion and humor. And we need help. Not just intellectual knowledge, but also something that involves the physical and emotional parts of our being.
We can all see that we are capable of driving a car, smoking a cigarette, cooking, thinking, feeling, talking, moving, working without realizing it. The forces of self-forgetting are strong. The temptation to "be passive" is especially powerful. It's comfortable. We so easily allow ourselves to be distracted, manipulated, put to sleep. Everything in Mr. Gurdjieff's work is very practical; he clearly proclaimed the importance of the body and physical work in the transmission of his teachings. And this importance he attached to the Dances, with a specific approach, such as Gurdjieff's Movements.
It is possible to grow towards a higher and more balanced state of consciousness and towards a sense of presence and a sense of being. The method is described quite simply: moving, dancing, remember yourself.
G. Gurdjieff talked about the "double arrow" phenomenon: on the one hand, attention is directed outward - to the form of movements, to the rhythm of the music, to others dancing around us and a slight tendency to compare and condemn, etc. On the other hand, the arrow is directed inward - back to our center, to the source of movement, to internal energies, which move us, back to the source of any function, such as breathing, watching, moving.
We are looking for a balance "one eye in, the other eye out", as Mr. Gurdjieff said. Thus we can be in the activity of our life without ever losing ourselves.
SOURCES OF DANCES
When Mr. Gurdjieff was about twenty years old, he embarked on a twenty-year spiritual journey that took him to Egypt, the eastern Mediterranean, Afghanistan, Turkey, Central Asia, India, Tibet, and the Gobi Desert. He visited many esoteric schools, temples, monasteries and discovered that much of the eternal wisdom, true knowledge and understanding of humanity and nature has been preserved and transmitted through music and dance. These Dances, with a variety of movements and postures similar to the alphabet, could be read like a book by those who could read and interpret them.
In Gurdjieff's Sacred Movements we strictly reproduce these movements as conveyed by Mr. Gurdjieff through his students (such as Mr. Bennett) and we use the music that he and Thomas de Hartmann created for each Dance. AT total about two hundred Movements (Dances)!
DANCE EFFECT
One of the goals of this process is to open the "presence of the being" by bringing into a new balance the three centers: physical, emotional and mental. And a new order of their functioning. It is clear that the main instrument is the physical center. We use it not as simply as in gymnastics, developing joint mobility, stretching muscles, and so on.
These Dances also enliven inner fire, the deep longing of the heart that the Sufis speak of, the courage to keep going into the depths and the refusal to give up. Therefore, whatever we learn by practicing these Dances, we learn for our everyday life.
In addition, Movements often include counting, words, phrases that trigger the part of the mind that supports the process, that part of the mind has no chance to evade the Here and Now. If she dodges, an error in movement is immediately manifested. Thus, we learn through mistakes. Therefore, the Mind is not condemned, but is more involved with its rationality and clarity in the work together with the Body and the Heart.
Another goal is to create a distance from body sensations, emotions and moods, thoughts and thought associations: to learn to control them instead of being enslaved by them.
Gurdjieff's Sacred Movements help participants become "masters of themselves", bringing them more and more into a space of calm and inner peace. We also learn to move at the same time relaxed and fast, and not relaxed and lazy, and not fast and tense.
You need to be able to release the state of tension at any moment, which appears, for example, with an overabundance of desire, excitement of the mind, anxiety. We learn to move out of relaxation, keeping the question alive; "How can I move out of stillness without disturbing it?", even by doing such energetic dances as the Dervish Dances, And we also learn to remain inwardly actively present by performing slow repetitive movements that require a lot of focused precision, such as the Om Circle.
This is a kind of meeting of Yin and Yang, male and female principles that will radiate into our lives. This relaxed alertness can open us up to the synergy of the different qualities of energy that moves through our bodies. In all my life as a dancer, no other approach has ever given me such a blissful feeling, with my body being a living channel for subtle and very pleasant energies to flow.
Accepting all these energies, standing between heaven and earth, we become the meeting point of two worlds, the human and the other, from which the highest energy comes.
The dance then takes on a completely different meaning; you become an instrument of universal energy. Moving along this path through music, dance and self-observation is a movement towards a more total and complete life.
/Amiyo Devienne/
Similar information.
The sacred movements of Gurdjieff are special kind spiritual practices, expressed in the form of dances. They got their name from a man named George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, who was a famous teacher and spiritual mentor, mystic, philosopher, writer, musician, scientist and traveler, who lived in the 20th century. Most of all, this person is known as the founder of the concept internal development a man called "The Fourth Way".
The whole life of Georgy Ivanovich was devoted to the search for answers to the questions: "Who am I?", "Where did I come from?" and "Where am I going?". For all the time of his wanderings around the world, he studied in brotherhoods and monasteries of various spiritual traditions, and in the 20s of the XX century he founded own school "Institute of Harmonious Human Development" where they practiced various methods and disciplines that contribute to the transformation of the human personality.
One of the most striking and mysterious practices that were practiced at the Institute, and which attracted many followers, were these special movements called Gurdjieff dances or sacred movements of Gurdjieff. Georgy Ivanovich himself called himself temple dance teacher and categorically refused any other status. And it was through his work that the existence of temple dances and sacred rhythms became known to the Western world.
According to Gurdjieff, in ancient times these movements played a huge role in the traditions of the peoples of Asia and Africa, they were a component of Sacred gymnastics, Sacred dances and ritual ceremonies in the Far East. And at the beginning of the last century, they practiced in monasteries and temples closed from prying eyes. According to many spiritual seekers, among whom are archaeologists and orientalists, Sacred gymnastics is even now preserved in some regions of Central Asia, and more specifically, on the territory stretching from Tashkent to East Turkestan.
To an outside observer, these movements may seem at least strange and meaningless, but practitioners are well aware of their meaning. For centuries, movements of special significance and value were carefully hidden from the uninitiated and visiting travelers and were accessible only to a narrow circle of people recognized as true seekers. Such dances include, for example, Helvetiya dervish dances. However, other dances had and have the opportunity to watch almost anyone. Among them are well-known to the general public Mevlevi and Rufaiya Dervish Movements. It is also interesting that movements, dances and rituals of the greatest importance are not limited to any one religion, but have been practiced for many centuries, because through them secret knowledge owned by our distant ancestors.
Sacred movements of Gurdjieff were used by him as developing moral character of a person, his main five senses, as well as concentration and awareness. Any movement performed by the practitioner is an unconscious transition from one posture to another, but each posture chosen by a person corresponds to the maximum of his personality, which in turn reduces the number of possible postures. As a result, all movements are mechanical derivatives.
A person in the course of his life rarely realizes how closely his mental, emotional and motor functions are interconnected with each other. He has no understanding that they are in constant interaction and are conditioned by each other. Changes in one function always generate changes in others. So, for example, the position of a person's body reflects his thoughts and experiences; change emotional state reflected in the thought process and postures; new thoughts are expressed in new emotions and, accordingly, in new postures. In order to change his thinking and the direction of his feelings, a person must first change his movements and postures, but this can be done only by changing mental and emotional stereotypes. As you can see, without changes in one thing it is impossible to achieve changes in another - everything is interconnected. Thanks to specially selected movements, their specific sequence and understanding of their purpose, it becomes possible to achieve a better physical, emotional and mental state, eliminate many personality defects, become a more balanced and harmonious person, having reached his natural state.
Among other things, it is necessary to engage in the development of attention. This is done through special gymnastics, during which you need to concentrate on different parts of the body, be aware of what these parts are doing, without looking at them and without thinking about this process. With the help of complicated movements, a certain degree of control over the state of one's consciousness is developed, which is practically unattainable for an ordinary Western person who does not have experience in such a practice.
Gurdjieff claimed that performing movements allows a person to develop his true "I" in other words, will. As he advances along the Path, he has the opportunity to feel abstracted from his body, and at the same time be its full owner. It is possible to experience a gamut of the most diverse feelings that various gestures and sequences of movements evoke, but at the same time not be identified with them. All this is of great importance for the development of a person's potential.
The movements themselves are very beautiful and graceful. Often they look like a performance and produce deep and indescribable impressions on the psyche of both performers and observers. But you should always remember that the external form is secondary and only reflects the internal.
Today there are several organizations in which Grudjiev's followers continue his work. Their founder is the closest student of Georgy Ivanovich Zhanna de Saltsman. She founded The Gurdjieff Foundation in New York, The Gurdjieff Society in London, the Gurdjieff Institute (L'Institut Gurdjieff) in Paris, and the Fundacion G.I. Gurdjieff in Caracas, Venezuela. It is in these organizations that people step onto the “Fourth Way” and strive to get out of the state of “waking sleep”, in which, unfortunately, the vast majority of people live their lives.
If you are still concerned about slightly different things or you like other concepts, but get to know Sacred movements there is still a desire, then you should know that one of the most accessible for travelers and lovers esoteric tourism places where you can see them is the capital of Turkey - Istanbul. Quite often, dervish dances take place there, which anyone can watch by purchasing a ticket for the corresponding performance in advance. Therefore, going to esoteric journey and being in Istanbul, do not use the opportunity to visit a restaurant « AlemdarRestaurant» where the dervishes perform their dances.
Address of the restaurant "Alemdar Restaurant": Alemdar Mah. Alemdar Cad. No: 7/2, Sultanahmet, Istanbul
We bring to your attention short video dances by Gurdjieff below:
The sacred dances and movements of Gurdjieff are a wonderful gift for everyone who wants to work on themselves. The exercises and dances known as Gurdjieff's Sacred Dances were collected by George Ivanovich Gurdjieff during his twenty years of wanderings in Egypt, Turkey, Tibet, India, Assyria, Greece, Russia and other countries of Europe and Central Asia in churches and monasteries.
Psychologist, philosopher, scientist, traveler, choreographer, teacher and mystic, founder of the doctrine of the “Fourth Way” of the inner realization of a person. Russia, Georgy Ivanovich Gurdjieff was born on November 28, 1877 in Alexandropol (since 1924 - Leninakan) in Armenia in a mixed Armenian-Greek family. He spent his childhood years in Kars, was a student of the rector of the Russian Cathedral, who had a great influence on Gurdjieff. Although he never received a systematic secondary education, he knew several languages from childhood.
Searching for answers to " eternal questions” led him to the creation of the doctrine of the “fourth way” of the inner realization of man. Travels and wanderings (1896-1922), first as part of small group"Seekers of Truth", then as a wanderer, teacher and emigrant.
According to Gurdjieff, in ancient times Movements occupied important place in Asian art. They were also used in Africa and far east in sacred gymnastics, sacred dances and religious ceremonies. The seekers of truth, whose group included archaeologists and specialists in Eastern religions, have established that this sacred gymnastics has been preserved in certain parts of Central Asia, in particular, in the territory from Tashkent to Chinese Turkestan.
Gurdjieff's Sacred Movements help participants become "masters of themselves" by bringing them more and more into a space of calm and inner peace. We also learn to move at the same time relaxed and fast, and not relaxed and lazy, and not fast and tense.
You need to be able to release the state of tension at any moment, which appears, for example, with an overabundance of desire, excitement of the mind, anxiety. We learn to move out of relaxation, keeping the question alive; "How can I move out of stillness without breaking it?", even by doing such vigorous dances as the Dervish Dances, And we also learn to remain inwardly actively present by doing slow repetitive movements that require a lot of focused precision, such as the Om Circle.
This is a kind of meeting of Yin and Yang, male and female principles that will radiate into our lives. This relaxed alertness can open us up to the synergy of the different qualities of energy that moves through our bodies. In all my life as a dancer, no other approach has ever given me such a blissful feeling, with my body being a living channel for subtle and very pleasant energies to flow.
Accepting all these energies, standing between heaven and earth, we become the meeting point of two worlds, the human and the other, from which the highest energy comes.
The dance then takes on a completely different meaning; you become an instrument of universal energy. Moving along this path through music, dance and self-observation is a movement towards a more total and complete life.
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff mystic, philosopher, spiritual teacher(1877-1949) was born into a Greek-Armenian family. His father was a collector and performer ancient epic. G. I. Gurdjieff himself, driven by " irresistible desire to understand the exact meaning of the life process of all the external forms of breathing creatures on earth and, especially, the purpose of human life ...", with a group of like-minded people who called themselves " Seekers of Truth", traveled the East in search of ancient knowledge. In 20 years of travel, he visited Egypt, Afghanistan, Turkey, Central Asia, India, Tibet, the Gobi Desert. He studied the practices of Sufism, Tibetan Buddhism, Esoteric Christianity and the Pythagorean tradition.
He also traveled to Russia, where he gathered a group of followers.
Gurdjieff discovered that many Laws who ruled the universe were expressed in music and dance. In the temples, monasteries, and special schools he attended, dances were a series of unusual sequences of movements in which Truths transmitted from generation to generation could be read.
Performing movements also open the way for human development: overcoming your usual automatisms and limitations, deepening the level of awareness, contact with higher energy.
Gurdjieff considered gymnastics and dancing as an art, as way of harmonious human development, and therefore dances and movements are intended, in his opinion, to connect the mind and feelings with the movements of the body and their joint manifestation. That is, thanks to his dancing body, mind and senses develop simultaneously.
Another purpose of his dancing is teaching. Certain movements carry certain knowledge, religious and philosophical ideas. In some of them you can even read the recipe for cooking a dish.
In many parts of the East, the inner content of this or that dance has been practically forgotten and yet they continue to dance simply out of habit.
In this way, Gurdjieff movements have two goals: education and development.
In the precise movements and combinations of the dancers, it is clear reproduced some laws. Therefore, such dances are called sacred.
"Each position of the body corresponds to a certain internal state. On the other hand, each internal state corresponds to a certain posture. A person in his life uses a certain set of habitual postures, and he moves from one to another without stopping in an intermediate position.
Adopting a new, unusual posture allows you to internally look at yourself in a new way.(G.I. Gurdjieff " Views from the real world").
These dances are also called " meditation with open eyes ". The outer form of every movement " mathematically"Painted from beginning to end. The sacred imitative geometry of dances and universal laws are the background for individual search. Reliance on habits, reflexes and symmetry is minimal here. The movements of the arms, legs and head are combined with each other in rhythms independent of each other. Quiet or spoken aloud dhikrs (prayers), a canonical count, at times in Greek, add to the difficulty.
Sacred Dances and Gurdjieff's movements- this is group practice. This is something that cannot be done alone. Sacred dance is a story told by a group of people, in which everyone, while maintaining a connection with himself, is simultaneously aware of the connection with the group, feeling others.
Gurdjieff's movements allow realize stereotypes our own behavior in relationships with other people, to see what prevents people's relationships from being truly conscious.
Dances and movements of Gurdjieff - wonderful gift for everyone who wants to become more conscious and is ready to take concrete actions for this.
With the right approach, they harmonize various energies within the body, help to enter into presence state, living in the present, which is not easy in everyday life. For the mind constantly lives in the past or the future. Thanks to these dances, a person is completely immersed in present moment being, a short moment between the past and the future. As a result, the desired harmony is created.
Learning process Gurdjieff dances- this is journey to the center of your being, finding inner silence, beauty, bliss.
During the dance takes place relaxation and optimization of energy consumption, people go beyond dual perception.
Today, Gurdjieff's books are published in the West and in Russia in significant numbers. His music, in the processing of the famous Russian composer Thomas de Hartmann, published in the form of musical albums and CDs. Adherents of Gurdjieff's ideas were B. Show, O. Huxley, K.Isherwood. Organizations of his followers who study his works, practice his teachings and perform the sacred dances and movements created by him exist in most countries of Europe, Asia and America.
