Why Gurdjieff?

[mistah charley ph.d.]

I've just joined this forum, so if I seem ignorant of topics that have been discussed here, it's probably because I am. I read several books by and about Gurdjieff back during the twentieth century, but have, in the last few months, returned to investigating the Fourth Way with renewed interest. With regard to matters in this thread:

1. I was a bit surprised and unhappy to learn recently (as I had not heard of this decades ago) about G's various non-marital children. However, my interest is not so much in being G, but in seeing if I can learn better how to be me with the aid of his insights and methods. It reminds me of my reaction, way back when I was much younger and more naive, on reading the Material Question chapter in Meetings. Was G justified in selling" American canaries"? Well, I'd rather not have bought one - but maybe in the long run it was for the greater good of all. I'm not in a position to make a judgment like that - maybe G was. If G was human, then he made mistakes.

2. I haven't read Taylor's G: A New Life, although I've ordered a copy, but find it very plausible that it establishes that

[tr][td] what G says in Life is real... about his break with Orage is fictional. G was not a sincere man, and it's clear that Meetings with Remarkable Men is fictionalized as well. It seems clear to me that G wanted us to be able to see the Truth - but that he knew that telling us the Truth wouldn't work.

3. In this regard, I strongly recommend to all who are interested in "fathoming the gist" that they acquaint themselves with John Henderson's book on Hidden Meanings - previously mentioned at this forum, but well worth mentioning again. The first three chapters are available at http://www.gurdjieffsburieddog.com/uploads/1ST_3__shortened_PDF.pdf

 

[Buddy]

Thanks for mentioning the book, mistah charley, ph.d. I am familiar with G's "Illustrative Inculcation", or method of acting out a lesson. The carriage boarding in St. Petersburg in ISOTM is one example.

Why don't you stop by the newbies section and introduce yourself with a few not-very-personal details?

 

[Beau]

2. I haven't read Taylor's G: A New Life, although I've ordered a copy, but find it very plausible that it establishes that

[tr][td] what G says in Life is real... about his break with Orage is fictional. G was not a sincere man, and it's clear that Meetings with Remarkable Men is fictionalized as well. It seems clear to me that G wanted us to be able to see the Truth - but that he knew that telling us the Truth wouldn't work.

It's certainly possible. Does the possibility that G embellished when retelling stories affect your view of him? Does this take away from the clear verisimilitude of those anecdotal tales? Illion did that very thing when writing Darkness Over Tibet, and the result was a rich story filled with metaphors of great importance to those in The Work.

 

[StrangeCaptain]

2. I haven't read Taylor's G: A New Life, although I've ordered a copy, but find it very plausible that it establishes that

[tr][td] what G says in Life is real... about his break with Orage is fictional. G was not a sincere man, and it's clear that Meetings with Remarkable Men is fictionalized as well. It seems clear to me that G wanted us to be able to see the Truth - but that he knew that telling us the Truth wouldn't work.

It's certainly possible. Does the possibility that G embellished when retelling stories affect your view of him? Does this take away from the clear verisimilitude of those anecdotal tales? Illion did that very thing when writing Darkness Over Tibet, and the result was a rich story filled with metaphors of great importance to those in The Work.

Absolutely... But then in another sense... Yes, something is lost. It is certainly nice to see a teacher who embraces the cold truth and lives and walks and talks and breathes and puts their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us.

Needleman in "Lost Christianity" talks about a sort of cardinal sin that can be made by seekers of truth, which is in essence, forgetting that our teachers have had exactly the same struggles as ourselves. This cardinal sin not only inherently limits our own capabilities but dehumanizes the teacher. When the teacher mythicizes their own history, it seems to be this cardinal sin is just a little easier to make.

But again... There seems to be some historical or esoteric context for a certain time that governs how the message must be conveyed.

Something however was lost for me, for example, when I found out it is likely something like 90% or more of Castaneda's stories were spun out of yarn. It does not make them any less nostalgic or eloquent about the human condition,but I can't place them on par with a work like "Political Ponerology" where the author managed to make lemonade out of lemons during an unimaginably stressful period.

But could I have accepted "Political Ponerology" so fully without feeling a bit the frustration with humankind's seemingly ever repeating cycles that Gurdjieff conveys so well? Don't know...