Georges Gurdjieff (1877–1949,) fully Georgei Ivanovich Gurdjieff, was a Greco-Armenian spiritual leader and occultist. He founded the influential quasi-religious movement Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in Fontainebleau, France.
Born in Alexandropol, Armenia, Russian Empire, Gurdjieff spent his early adult years traveling throughout the Middle East, India, and Central Asia learning about a variety of spiritual traditions. He practiced as a healer in St. Petersburg 1910–17.
In 1914, Gurdjieff met the Russian esotericist P. D. Ouspensky, who became Gurdjieff’s disciple. He left Russia during the Revolution and, in 1922, moved to Fontainebleau, where he established the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man.
A captivating contemporary Christian gnostic, Gurdjieff blended an extraordinary and profound spiritual method that swayed many writers, including Rudyard Kipling, Aldous Huxley, J. B. Priestley, Christopher Isherwood, and many others. Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson (1949,) circulated in manuscript during his lifetime and was published posthumously.
Gurdjieff’s message of inner awakening and his system of self-development were in part disclosed in two obscure autobiographical works published after his death, All and Everything (1950) and Meetings with Remarkable Men (1963.) Gurdjieff still has a considerable following.
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Religion is doing; a man does not merely think his religion or feel it, he “lives” his religion as much as he is able, otherwise it is not religion but fantasy or philosophy.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Religion, Courage, Fear
Humanity is moving in a circle. In one century it destroys everything it creates in another, and the progress in mechanical things of the past hundred years has proceeded at the cost of losing many other things which perhaps were much more important for it.
—Georges Gurdjieff
A “sin” is something which is not necessary.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Sin
Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity of self-change. And in observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Identity
Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Awareness, Self-Knowledge, Courage
Every grown-up man consists wholly of habits, although he is often unaware of it and even denies having any habits at all.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Self-Knowledge, Identity
A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Birth
A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Knowledge
Every ceremony or rite has a value if it is performed without alteration. A ceremony is a book in which a great deal is written. Anyone who understands can read it. One rite often contains more than a hundred books.
—Georges Gurdjieff
A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Suffering
Man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Existence, Dying, Death
In properly organized groups no faith is required; what is required is simply a little trust and even that only for a little while, for the sooner a man begins to verify all he hears the better it is for him.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Faith
It is the greatest mistake to think that man is always one and the same. A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same even for half an hour.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Change
Man has the possibility of existence after death. But possibility is one thing and the realization of the possibility is quite a different thing.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Death, Existence, Dying
A considerable percentage of the people we meet on the street are people who are empty inside, that is, they are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror.
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Death, Dying
Patience is the mother of will
—Georges Gurdjieff
Topics: Patience, One liners
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