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Teachings of Gurdjieff: A Pupil's Journal
This is a first hand account of a disillusioned young man who, having travelled round the world studying various ways and religions, finally meets Gurdjieff in New York, and is convinced by seeing the demonstrations of sacred dances that at last he has found the Way he is looking for. The book, compiled from hundreds of pages of notes and diaries, is a record of sayings and doings of Gurdjieff and their impact on the young pupil at that time. It has also a description of life at the Château du Prieuré as experienced by the pupil. The journal is not an exposition of the theory of the Gurdjieff system; it is rather an account of the cumulative effect on one person of practical work in an authentic esoteric school. C. S. Nott's sequel Further Teachings of Journey Through This World and his translation of Conference of the Birds are also available in Kindle format from Toward Publishing. Gurdjieff was born in Armenia around 1870. His first tutor was a priest and he also received a scientific education in surroundings and a way of life that had changed little for centuries. To his Who am I? Why am I here? he found no answer either in religion or in science, but suspected that the truth lay hidden behind what had come down from the past in religious traditions and those strange myths and legends which he learned from his father, a traditional bard or 'ashokh'. With inspired like-minded companions, he set out to find in Asia and Africa the truth he sought, learning many languages, and acquiring many practical skills to earn the money for his journeys. In 1912 he brought to Moscow an unknown teaching, a teaching that was neither a religion, nor a philosophy, but a practical teaching to be lived. He called this teaching 'The Fourth Way'. To follow the way he proposed, nothing is to be believed until verified by direct experience and life in the world is not to be renounced. It is a way in life, on which - gradually, for it cannot be done all at once - everything has to be questioned - one's beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, one's whole outlook on the life of man on this Earth. “Man is asleep”, said Gurdjieff, “he has no real consciousness or will. He is not free; to him, everything 'happens'. He can become conscious and find his true place as a human being in the creation, but this requires a profound transformation”. Gurdjieff calls us to awaken, telling "Man's possibilities are very great. You cannot even conceive a shadow of what man is capable of attaining. But nothing can be attained in sleep. In the consciousness of a sleeping man his illusions, his 'dreams' are mixed with reality. He lives in a subjective world and he can never escape from it. And this is the reason why he can never make use of all the powers he possesses and why he lives in only a small part of himself."
270 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1961
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 17, 2024
Nott was an English student of Gurdjieff, Orage and Ouspensky, being a bit younger than these men. The book is an autobiographical account mostly of his experiences learning and living Gurdjieff’s work. He lived with him for quite a bit of time and was able to get a firm grasp of what Gurdjieff was trying to do, shake you out of your sleep and stay awake.
What I loved about this book is how he explains his own struggle and realizations with the work and what helped him. It is very personal and you get a good sense of the need for the work to be lived rather than systematized or viewed as purely intellectual, a sin he accuses Ouspensky of. Ouspensky wrote that when he met with Gurdjieff after he moved to France, that he had focused on the movements and physical work rather than the systems and diagrams he had taught in Russia, which I sensed Ouspensky disagreed with. Nott’s perspective makes more sense of this, showing Gurdjieff was trying to adjust man’s whole self, which requires mind, heart and body (intellectual, emotional and moving center). A few excerpts I enjoyed below:
“Though I had begun to discover, in the course of my business and my connexion with the First Edition Club in London, that there is an association between the identification with books— book-collecting, book-hoarding, and book-stealing—and sexual maladjustments. Identification with books, even stealing books, is only one of the many manifestations of the diversion of sex energy from its real purpose, that of normal sex relations and its use in iimer develop ment. Yet a man can still have ordinary sex relations with women and at the same time be too passive, especially if the feminine creative part of himself is strong.” *ouch*
“A woman novelist said to Gurdjieff at one meeting; ‘I sometimes feel that I am more conscious when I am writing. Is this so or do I imagine it?’ He replied: ‘You live in dreams and you write about your dreams. Much better for you if you were to scrub one floor consciously than to write a hundred books as you do now.”
“Time can assuage the pangs of love, but only death can still the anguish of wounded vanity. Love is simple and seeks no subterfuge, but vanity cozens you with a hundred disguises. It is part and parcel of every virtue; it is the mainspring of courage and the strength of ambition; it gives constancy to the lover and endurance to the stoic; it adds fuel to the fire of the artist’s desire for fame, and it is at once the support and the compensation of the honest man’s integrity; it even leers cynically in the humility of the saint. You cannot escape it, and should you take pains to guard against it, it will make use of those very pains to trip you up. You are defenceless against its onslaught because you know not on what unprotected side it will attack you. Cynicism cannot protect you from its snares nor humour from its mockery. It is vanity fmally that makes man support his abominable lot.”
What I loved about this book is how he explains his own struggle and realizations with the work and what helped him. It is very personal and you get a good sense of the need for the work to be lived rather than systematized or viewed as purely intellectual, a sin he accuses Ouspensky of. Ouspensky wrote that when he met with Gurdjieff after he moved to France, that he had focused on the movements and physical work rather than the systems and diagrams he had taught in Russia, which I sensed Ouspensky disagreed with. Nott’s perspective makes more sense of this, showing Gurdjieff was trying to adjust man’s whole self, which requires mind, heart and body (intellectual, emotional and moving center). A few excerpts I enjoyed below:
“Though I had begun to discover, in the course of my business and my connexion with the First Edition Club in London, that there is an association between the identification with books— book-collecting, book-hoarding, and book-stealing—and sexual maladjustments. Identification with books, even stealing books, is only one of the many manifestations of the diversion of sex energy from its real purpose, that of normal sex relations and its use in iimer develop ment. Yet a man can still have ordinary sex relations with women and at the same time be too passive, especially if the feminine creative part of himself is strong.” *ouch*
“A woman novelist said to Gurdjieff at one meeting; ‘I sometimes feel that I am more conscious when I am writing. Is this so or do I imagine it?’ He replied: ‘You live in dreams and you write about your dreams. Much better for you if you were to scrub one floor consciously than to write a hundred books as you do now.”
“Time can assuage the pangs of love, but only death can still the anguish of wounded vanity. Love is simple and seeks no subterfuge, but vanity cozens you with a hundred disguises. It is part and parcel of every virtue; it is the mainspring of courage and the strength of ambition; it gives constancy to the lover and endurance to the stoic; it adds fuel to the fire of the artist’s desire for fame, and it is at once the support and the compensation of the honest man’s integrity; it even leers cynically in the humility of the saint. You cannot escape it, and should you take pains to guard against it, it will make use of those very pains to trip you up. You are defenceless against its onslaught because you know not on what unprotected side it will attack you. Cynicism cannot protect you from its snares nor humour from its mockery. It is vanity fmally that makes man support his abominable lot.”
March 18, 2020
I found it an accessible insight into the life of a Gurdjieff follower.
In particular there is a summary of Beleezebub's Tales that provides a decent overview of its central ideas.
In particular there is a summary of Beleezebub's Tales that provides a decent overview of its central ideas.
December 11, 2010
I started this book amongst others and really read most of it these past two days.
Uncannily alike in its approach to man's role in the universe as the Toltec Wisdom School, Messages of the Masters, by Dr. Weiss, and even Conversations With God.
Learning to be a 'three-centered' being is the Method's way of 'becoming' the real man. Gurdjieff disturbs what we think we know. --From A Reader's Journal, by d r melbie.
Uncannily alike in its approach to man's role in the universe as the Toltec Wisdom School, Messages of the Masters, by Dr. Weiss, and even Conversations With God.
Learning to be a 'three-centered' being is the Method's way of 'becoming' the real man. Gurdjieff disturbs what we think we know. --From A Reader's Journal, by d r melbie.
March 20, 2015
excellent service to people interested in knowing about gurdjieff and his work
July 7, 2019
Bright guy taken in by a fraud.
November 20, 2007
But I like his music!!!!!!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews