Introduction to Gurdjeff's teaching

We are going to talk about the Gurdjieff's teaching. George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was an
influential spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century.

The Gurdjieff's teaching consists in two fundamental questions:first, who am I, and second, what
is the purpose of human life in general and of my life in particular? Gurdjieff's teaching reveals
remarkable suggestions in answer to these questions.
Philosophers, theologians, and scientists throughout the ages tried, are trying and will try to
answer to these questions . But Gurdjieff suggests solutions and also gives us methods to work
on ourselves in order to come to our own understanding of the answers to these questions.
Behind Gurdjieff's teaching lies the idea that human beings live and die in a state of sleep, but do
not realize this. In this sense, all human beings are divided into two categories: those who
realize they are asleep and who are attempting to awaken, and those who do not know.
The idea that human beings live mostly in a kind of sleep state is not new. For example, we can
find it expressed by Plato in his allegory. Gurdjieff's teaching is a "how to" teaching, it is directed
at the category of human beings who realize they are asleep and who are attempting to awaken.
A primary feature of this state of sleep is the illusion that we are each separate from one
another. In terms of our personalities, the aggregate of experience in this lifetime, this is true.
Our personalities are each different from one another.
Another primary feature of this state of sleep is that we regard our personalities as real. They are
temporal features that disintegrate with physical death or soon thereafter. Through the Work, we
come to see that, in reality, we are not our personalities, even though our personalities are
important.
We are what Gurdjieff has called essence, our essential and imperishable being. In essence we
are not separate from one another. In essence we are conjoined in identity with the universal.
This teaching then, is the "how to" hidden at the root of every religious tradition. It is the teaching
about "how to" become more conscious and, by doing so, to discover who we really are.
I will say some assertions that i will not be able to verify, at least not in the ordinary way that
verification is understood. Don't believe anything, but at the same time do not close yourself off
to new ideas.
According to gurdjieffs teaching, in our ordinary state, we do not think. In truth, what we call
"our" thoughts come from outside and go through our mind, but do not arise from it. Thoughts do
not originate in us, but to be true men and women, we should think by and for ourselves our own
thoughts, and not submit to those coming from other, outside sources.
Our age is the age of indoctrination. All the means of diffusion that surround us, newspapers,
publicity posters, radio, television, the worldwide web, have as their primary aim: to convince us
by all means to buy this item, to watch that show, to believe this opinion, to vote for such a
political party, to admire a self-proclaimed "artist" and his work, to subscribe to such a
newspaper or magazine, etc. In short, we are manipulated to react to outside stimuli rather than

to act from within, from what Gurdjieff has called"objective conscience" or "objective
consciousness."
Consequently, we consume without thinking and we believe what we are told we must believe.
We have become the more or less consenting slaves of publicity and of propaganda, which seek
to stop us having any inner freedom of thought, and to accept ready-made thoughts.

A journey of a tipical sleeping man acccording to gurdjeffs teaching

Imagine that u are a rich,clever and a culured man.

So....

You have plenty of money, let us say. You live in luxury and enjoy general respect and esteem.
In a word, you have a very good life. Perhaps you think so yourself and consider yourself
wholly free, for after all your time is your own. You settle world problems over a cup of
coffee and you may even be interested in the development of hidden spiritual powers. You are
educated and well read. You are known as a clever man, you are an example of a cultured
man. In short, you are to be envied.
In the morning you wake up under the influence of an unpleasant dream. The slightly
depressed mood disappeared but has left its trace in a kind of lassitude and uncertainty of
movement. You go to the mirror to brush your hair and by ac-cident drop your hairbrush. You
pick it up and just as you have dusted it off, you drop it again. This time you pick it up with a
shade of impatience and because of that you drop it a third time. You try to grab it in midair
but instead, it flies at the mirror. In vain you jump to catch it. Smash! ... a star-shaped cluster
of cracks appears in the antique mirror you were so proud of. Hell! The records of discontent
begin to turn.
You need to vent your annoyance on someone. Finding that your servant has forgotten to put
the newspaper beside your morning coffee, your cup of patience overflows and you decide
you can no longer stand the wretched man in the house. Now it is time for you to go out.
Taking advantage of the fine day, your destination not being far away, you decide to walk
while your car follows slowly behind. The bright sun somewhat mollifies you. Your attention
is attracted to a crowd that has gathered around a man lying unconscious on the pavement. .
Notice how the strangely familiar face of the driver is connected in your associations and
reminds you of the accident you had last year.You were returning home from a birthday party.
What a delicious cake they had there!
This servant of yours who forgot your morning paper ruined your breakfast. Why not makeup
for it now? After all, cake and coffee are extremely impor- tant! Here is the fashionable cafe
you sometimes go to with your friends. But why have you remembered about the acci-dent?
You had surely almost forgotten about the morning's unpleasantness. . . . And now, do your
cake and coffee really taste so good? You see the two ladies at the next table. What a

charming blonde! She glances at you and whispers to her companion, "That's the sort of man I
like." Surely none of your troubles are worth wasting time on or getting upset about. Need one
point out how your mood changed from the moment you met the blonde and how it lasted
while you were with her? You return home humming a good tune and even the broken mirror
only provokes a smile.
But what about the business you went out for in the morning? You have only just remembered
it . . . that's clever! Still, it does not matter. You can telephone. You lift the receiver and the
operator gives you the wrong number. You ring again and get the same number. Some man
says sharply that he is sick of youyou say it is not your fault, an altercation follows and you
are surprised to learn that you are a fool and an idiot, and that if you call again . . . The
rumpled carpet under your foot irritates you, and you should hear the tone of voice in which
you reprove the servant who is handing you a letter. The letter is from a man you respect and
whose good opinion you value.
The contents of the letter are so flattering to you that your irritation gradually dies down and
is replaced by the pleasantly embarrassed feeling that flattery arouses. You finish reading it in
a most amiable mood.
I could continue this picture of your dayyou free man.
Perhaps you think I have been exaggerating. No, this is a true scenario taken from life.

Conclusion
In brief, we can say that mankind is faced with a problem of identity. We do not know who we
are, where we came from, or why we are here. As we explore Gurdjieff's teaching, we are led to
see that the root of the mystery lies at the root of our own being, somewhere in our awareness,
in our consciousness. We discover that by becoming aware of our consciousness, we become
more conscious; our self-consciousness becomes "real" and we "wake up." In "waking up" we
experience our identity, the identity of the individual, with the universal. We discover that we can
develop our capacity to perceive this identity.