The cloak of mystery is nowhere thicker than at the point of Gurdjieff's birth. We know where he was born (Armenia), but the date is uncertain. It could have been as early as 1866 or as late as 1877. In 1912 he appeared in Moscow and began working as a spiritual teacher. The only written account of the years in between is Gurdjieff's own Meetings with Remarkable Men, which purports to be the true story of the author's travels in Asia, the Middle East and Africa in search of various esoteric teachings but which contains episodes that are clearly allegorical.
Webb's version of events prior to Gurdjieff's appearance in Moscow caused a stir due partly to his suggestion that Gurdjieff may have been working as a spy for the Tsarist government, a role that enabled him to travel widely, even as far as Tibet, where, Webb claims, he acted as an advisor to the Dalai Lama and helped to thwart the Younghusband expedition of 1903-04, an attempt by the British to gain a foothold in what was then considered an important buffer state on the border of India.
Whatever the actual destinations and reasons for his travels, it's clear that by the time he turned up in Moscow Gurdjieff had amassed a wealth of knowledge on a range of esoteric subjects. He began teaching what he called the Fourth Way, so named because in contrast to the three Eastern teachings (the way of the fakir, the way of the monk, and the way of the yogi), which focus on developing the body, mind and emotions separately, Gurdjieff's methods, which included music, dance, lectures and group work, were designed to work on all three at the same time. Also, unlike the Eastern teachings, Gurdjieff's methods enabled his followers to continue going about their normal lives while studying.
At the heart of Gurdjieff's teachings is the idea that most people spend their lives in a state closer to sleep than wakefulness. We live like automatons, reacting mechanically to external stimuli. He taught that it was possible through hard work to reach higher levels of consciousness, and that he had knowledge of the best methods for achieving this, knowledge which he'd gained through his contact with various esoteric traditions during his travels. According to Webb, these traditions included esoteric Christianity, Sufism, Cabala, and Tibetan Buddhism.
Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Gurdjieff found it impracticable to continue teaching in Moscow, so he devised and executed an elaborate plan to escape to the West. After being refused a British visa (it's been suggested that this was because the British authorities knew of his spying activities against them in Tibet), he set up a new school, the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, in Fontainebleau, France. Among his students was the writer Katherine Mansfield, who died at Fontainebleau in 1923. This caused quite a stir at the time, but as she was already dying of tuberculosis before she arrived, it seems unfair to apportion any blame to Gurdjieff. On the contrary, it seems she found happiness in the final months of her life in his company.
Gurdjieff continued to teach and write up until his death in 1949. Today his work is carried on by the Gurdjieff Foundation, which has branches in New York, London and Paris. In 1979, Meetings with Remarkable Men was made into a movie starring Terence Stamp. It's notable for the inclusion of several scenes showing the "movements", devised by Gurdjieff based on dances he'd observed among the "whirling" Dervishes and other Sufi orders during his travels in Asia and the Middle East (here's a short clip on YouTube showing a couple of them). In 1980, Keith Jarrett recorded Sacred Hymns, an album of music penned by Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann based on folk and religious music Gurdjieff had heard during the same travels.
(To be continued...)
No comments:
Post a Comment