Georgy Gudzhiev is one of the most mystical figures of pre-revolutionary Russia, whose fame as a seeker of truth in Sufism, Buddhism and Christianity grew even in Soviet times among rare people who combined the construction of communism with a passion for occultism. He is now known in the same way as Helena Blavatsky and the Roerichs, who were immersed in the same "demonic".
Travels
Georgy Gurdjieff has visited many countries, the Middle East has been examined especially carefully. Was in Greece, Egypt, Afghanistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and many other places. These were expeditions organized by the community "Seekers of Truth", in which the spiritual traditions of different nations were studied and compared, found fragments of knowledge that came from antiquity were collected, even in the form of sacred music and dances.
How did it start
In 1912, George Gurdjieff opened his own school of spiritual knowledge in Moscow, and in 1915 he met the esoteric P. D. Uspensky, who was not only a philosopher, but also an active journalist and an avid traveler. Gurdjieff managed to interest Ouspensky’s friends and acquaintances with his theories of the search for truth and create a rather large group of bored representatives of the creative intelligentsia. Even a branch was established in St. Petersburg.
Ouspensky helped Gurdjieff adapt his ideas for people of the European vision of the world, that is, translate into an understandable language that is accessible to the psychological culture of the West. Then the teachings of Gurdjieff received the name "Fourth Way." So the years went by, and everything did not grow together with the main dream of the spiritual teacher, and the Institute for Harmonious Development did not work anywhere: neither in Moscow, nor in Tiflis, nor in Constantinople. It turned out in Paris, already in 1922.
Assumption
Again Peter Demianovich Ouspensky helped, becoming by that time a philosopher of a higher order. The British, from whom he settled, were afraid to contact the leading world esotericist and occultist, because Gurdjieff was not allowed to enter England, so that the circle of sorcerers and other cosmologists would not expand.
In 1921, he moved to Germany, and then with the help of Uspensky's English neophytes collected money, he bought a castle near Fontainebleau, where the institute flourished for several years. George Gurdjieff, whose biography is reverently studied by supporters of ecumenism today, was satisfied for a short time.
Sacred dances
Many esotericists today claim that Georgy Gurdjieff influenced not only the individual people he met on his way, but also quite strongly - the social life and politics of individual countries. Here are just the methods used by Gurdjieff in this (his well-known sacred dances, for example), remained not fully understood and not understood even by his closest followers.
In the spring of 1915, in a small, medium-sized cafe in Moscow, two people were drinking coffee and talking quietly. One of them was oriental dark-skinned, black-eyed, with a piercing and unpleasant look. His presence here, even with the atmosphere of the Moscow eatery, somehow strangely did not fit. As if he was dressed up, moreover, poorly dressed. It’s as if he’s not at all who he claims to be. And the interlocutor, who later recorded the course of this meeting, had to communicate and act as if he had not noticed anything strange. The second lord was Assumption. And the first - mummers - George Gurdjieff. The views from the real world on this person were at first repulsive.
In a very short time, Ouspensky will become an ardent supporter of the teachings of Gurdjieff, but for now they are talking about travels, the theme of which is close to both of them, then about drugs that help in understanding the very nature of all mystical phenomena. In the second Gurdjieff turned out to be much stronger, although Ouspensky also managed to try many substances in order to consider himself sophisticated. Nevertheless, Ouspensky was imbued, captivated and matured for teaching sacred dances.
Caucasian mystic and the battle of magicians
About a year before the meeting described above, Ouspensky read in a newspaper that a certain Hindu was staging the ballet “The Battle of the Mages”. Inquiring did not cost much. It was Georgy Gurdjieff, who always planned meetings with wonderful people like this: an article of the most irrational content is ordered in the newspapers, and the esoteric-minded intellectual elite itself will run over. Of course, no ballet - in the general sense of the word - was planned.
After the first coffee drinking, Gurdjieff managed to charm Uspensky, and after a couple of weeks he even received telepathic orders. Moreover, Ouspensky was convinced that Gurdjieff knew everything in the world and could do any thing, including interference in the cosmic course of events. The project of the battle “Battle of the Mages” dealt specifically with cosmology: it should have been sacred dances, where each movement is calculated by a “knowledgeable person” and corresponds exactly to the movement of the sun and planets.
Building a biography
And now people are gifted enough to, for example, write good poems, but who lack some peppercorns so that readers look at the poet with amazed adoration. Then fame is helped by legends, if not real feats, designed for PR and quite rightly introduced into the biography.
Where did this "Caucasian Hindu" come from? Who is he? No one knew for sure. But rumors circulated - one eloquent than the other. Georgy Gurdjieff, quotes from books of which were passed from mouth to mouth, did not refute rumors about himself, but, on the contrary, let out a little more fog here and there. He did not even design an autobiography - he erased it carefully. You can try to compile his biography on the works that remained after him. Many did so. But Georgy Gurdjieff, whose books are a historically extremely unreliable source, also deceived the grateful mankind here. The remaining sources available to us are even less reliable.
According to rumors
They say that Gurdjieff Georgy Ivanovich was born in the Armenian city, which is now called Gyumri. His mother was Armenian, and his father was Greek. In some books that George Gurdjieff wrote, you can find quotes that tell about the author’s childhood and adolescence. Not a single date, location, or name was ever found in reality. It is written there briefly as follows.
As a teenager, Gurdjieff allegedly became interested in supernatural phenomena, wanted to comprehend their nature and even learn to control them. Therefore, he began to read a lot, communicate with Christian priests, and when he did not receive all the desired answers to his extraordinary questions, he set off to travel.
In search of sacred knowledge
Twenty years of wandering gave the same odious sacred knowledge, which, in the assumption of the Assumption, the mystic, of course, possessed. Knowledge led him along the roads of Transcaucasia, Egypt, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, Tibet. He wrote about specific schools, sometimes spoke very vaguely, casually, mentioning Tibetan monasteries, Mount Athos, Chitral, Persian and Bukhara Sufis, dervishes of different orders. Very vaguely described all this George Gudzhiev. Therefore, it is difficult to understand where he really was.
According to information received from various sources, Georgy Gurdjieff guided tours in Egypt, then in Jerusalem, was a tax collector from peasant villages at Tibetan lamas, worked on the railway in Turkey, painted sparrows under canaries for sale, kept a workshop for repairing broken, even owned oil wells and fishing boats, and also traded carpets. Always and everything that Gudzhiev managed to earn, he spent only on travel.
Between work and earnings, during wanderings, as legend has it, he mastered some techniques of hypnosis and telepathy, as well as other supernatural tricks, Sufi and yoga techniques. He was wounded, because he was often brought into the war zones, was seriously ill for a long time, after which he decided to stop using all exceptional force. Among the students, George Gudzhiev was known as a prophet and a magician. He called himself a dance teacher. This, in principle, is true.
Crash
In the summer, the car of the magician and the prophet suddenly crashed into a tree. Teachers discovered unconscious. The disciples wondered: well, it wasn’t the rain that was the fault of the incident; the enemies must have arranged the accident, which Guzhiev had accumulated enough. According to the students, Gurdjieff Georgy Ivanovich, whose books were read to the holes, was equal in his knowledge and skills to Blavatsky and all Tibetan sages combined. He could not have foreseen this tree in the way of the car! If Hitler himself consulted with Gurdjieff, choosing a swastika for the party emblem of National Socialism, if Georgy Gurdjieff and Stalin both developed a method of remaking human consciousness!
Among the frankly funny were moments of true meaning. It is true that Gudzhiev was an exceptionally talented hoaxer. He was omnivorous, and flies of various sizes came across his spider webs. Gujiev could find like-minded people in any layer of society. Among the poor and rich, Jews and anti-Semites, communists and Nazis - he absolutely did not care. Definitely, the personality is extraordinary.
Books written for us
When recovering from the accident, Gurdjieff paid great attention to finalizing books already written and creating new ones. “Everything and Everything” - ten books, divided into three series: “Beelzebub's Tales …”, “Meetings with wonderful people”, “Life is real …” He wrote this for posterity, that is for us. Whether Gurdjieff's books are needed, everyone will decide for himself.
Many scholars with a philosophical background begin to laugh loudly in the front pages. Ministers of different faiths unanimously say that much in these books is demonic, and that even paper spills completely different from ordinary sparks when burning, and you can also hear the devilish hiss from the fire that devours the pages. Judging by the details, those who believe in God have already tried all this.
"Views from the real world" - one of the first books of this psychic. From there, the reader will draw some philosophical doctrines: that a person is not complete, that he can become like a god (are there not serpentine speeches? Be like gods …), and nature develops it just above the level of an animal. Then he must develop himself, knowing himself and his hidden capabilities. Nature has four separate functions: mental (intelligence), sensory (emotions), motor and instinctive. Well, Aristotle wrote about this in more detail. At the same time, a person has a certain essence - that with which he was born, as well as a person - something introduced, artificial. Further, not according to Aristotle: upbringing gives a person too many unnatural habits and tastes, because of this a false personality is formed that suppresses the development of essence.
And now the most “creed” professed by Gurdjieff in all guises: whether a writer, a choreographer, a philosopher, and so on. Attention. A person does not know and cannot know his essence - neither preferences, nor tastes, nor what he really wants from life. In man, the present and the false have dissolved in each other and become almost inseparable from each other. Therefore, each person needs a transformation through suffering. And if life for some reason does not send suffering, then it is very right to make a person suffer, so to speak, in a man-made way ("it is necessary, Fedya, it is necessary …").
And the post-crypt from Gurdjieff (“Meet Great People”): the main tools for a person working on themselves are shared attention, self-remembering and the transformation of suffering. Self-remembering helps to accumulate all sorts of subtle matters in the body, and the transformation of suffering crystallizes a subtle soul from subtle matters. Well, or the body - Gurdjieff does not know, therefore both words in brackets: both soul and body.
Moreover, the author stated that everyone has a soul, but only those who earned it voluntary suffering have a Soul. And each time the question again arises: "Maybe the priests are right when speaking of demonicism?" And again - do normal people need all this? And the last thing - it’s a pity for the kids who can “take the lead” on this.
The long-awaited ballet
The dances taught by the students were extraordinary. Dressed in white robes, they moved with gestures that we can see in Indian films. The production was attended by people of various nationalities, but the teachers understood everything, and it is not clear in what language he explained the exercises. There were British, including those who sponsored the purchase of a palace near Paris for the production of this space ballet. And Gudzhiev looked at them as slaves. There were no exceptions.
That is exactly what his follower K. S. Nott says in his book: having met this time in a cozy Parisian cafe for a cup of coffee with Gudzhiev, Nott asked him a question about his former student, whom Gudzhiev carried away, and then left without regret, for which " the great magician "answered, smiling sarcastically:" I always needed rats for my experiments."
So, Gudzhiev practiced dance training for literally decades, at which time the will of the followers was completely suppressed, and dissenters were ruthlessly expelled. Then Parisian, London and New York brothers were shown some concerts, about which they spoke very differently.
War and post-war time
Gurdjieff survived the occupation of France calmly and cloudlessly. Among his Nazi disciples there were many, including Karl Haushofer, whom Gujiev met in the mountains of Tibet, where this ideologist of the Third Reich was looking for the roots of the Aryan race. After the collapse of fascist Germany, the "great teacher" began to have complications. Pupils almost all fled, many called him offensive nicknames such as the Greek quack and the American master of magic. Also a miracle worker from the Caucasus …
