I have to start by praising Gurdjieff for his ideas, their relative completeness, and their uniqueness. Gurdjieff clearly spent many years studying different religions and philosophies, and then formulated what he learned into a teaching that has few equivalents.
Origins of the Gurdjieff Teaching
Let's try to reverse engineer the Gurdjieff philosophy and figure out its origins.
Self-knowledge
This part is the easiest, as there are many strands
of this throughout philosophy and Western esotericism. The best example of course
lies with Socrates and the prescription of the Oracle of Delphi.
Three Centers
There are a couple of origins for this idea. One
might be a unique reading of the three part psyche in Plato's Republic, an alternate take on a similar
idea taken from the Greek monastics, or an
appropriation of the concept in some strands of Western esotericism (for
example, the alchemical idea of mercury, sulphur, and salt).
Magnetic Center
This is a unique idea and one I give Gurdjieff a
great deal of credit for. If the concept exists in other works they have since
been lost to us. I have found no equivalent. I feel it is a great model for
understanding the transition from ordinary life to the spiritual life. The
concept of course melds excellently into the idea of metanoia taken from an
esoteric reading of Christianity. After the magnetic center is sufficiently
strong, it leads to self-transformation.
Contradiction
This idea likely originates from alchemy or the
Western esoteric tradition. The thesis here is man is trapped in falsehoods and
deceptions, and self-transformation comes from confronting these. The process
of doing this creates "heat" like in the alchemist's crucible.
Law of Octaves
I always took this idea as a prescription that
"any process once begun eventually loses its initiative" and
"over time movements may represent one thing but then will vacillate and
come to embody the opposite." Gurdjieff gave the example of pacifist
Christianity turning later to the Inquisition and crusades. Gurdjieff used musical
scales as his example for this; based on this I feel this idea must originate
in some works of Pythagoreanism, or in strands of Platonism.
Self-remembering
Here we find corollaries with "sati"
(mindfulness) in Buddhism, or with "nepsis" (watchfulness) in Eastern
Christianity.
Three Spiritual Bodies
Gurdjieff had the idea of three spiritual bodies -
the astral, mental, and divine - which we can find a corollary with in the idea
of the three kayas in Vajrayana (Tibetan) Buddhism. I have tried to make sense
of these over the years (both the Gurdjieff and Buddhist versions) and I have
concluded that the latter suffers from severe issues of mistranslation. Gurdjieff,
for his part, mentions these and never elaborates. So, this is my best
explanation of these.
1. The physical body - where we are now
2. The astral body - represents an OOB projection in
the real time zone (the "RTZ," as Frank Kepple would call it)
3. The mental body - represents an OOB projection in
a nonphysical domain
4. The divine body - represents an OOB projection to
the Source (formless supreme reality)
This, I think, is the correct understanding of
these, and helps to elucidate what they are referring to. In all other cases we
would have to assume the explanations are just misunderstandings or
mistranslations.
Esotericism
The concept in general likely has several
inspirations - the Western esoteric tradition, the monks of Mt. Athos, the Sufi
orders, and the Tibetan monasteries. I am
aware of no independent tradition that comes as close to Gurdjieff in completeness,
however.
Errors of Gurdjieff
Just as I critiqued Christianity before, in a Gurdjieff
school these would be very "bold" pronouncements to make. But, speaking
as a scholar of mysticism, these would be the criticisms I would identify.
1. The idea man is born without a soul
I must admit even now I find this idea fascinating.
Gurdjieff taught that man was born without a soul, and one had to be forged through
"work." Here I think that he developed this concept as a way to make
religion palatable in the West. In the West many people have a profound hostility
to religion and yet there is still a great inner desire to seek something
"more." This teaching allows those people to come to religion by
understanding it differently.
Having explored the question with many people over the years, it
seems likely that we are all born with spirit fully formed as a part of us.
Perhaps a better model is it is there but we have "forgotten" it, and
need to remember and reconnect with that part of ourselves.
2. Miracles
Gurdjieff presented the idea of small energy
"accumulators," and that the miraculous was possible through
super-effort and direct connection to the large "accumulator." I was
open to the miraculous for a long time, and studied strands of it where I could (for
example, the reference to the "dynamikos" of Christ in the Gospels,
or the "siddhis" of the Hindu yogis). However, after many years I
have to conclude that miracles are impossible. There are indeed many strange
phenomena, including OOBEs, self-healing, precognition, intuition, and so on
that are true - however they are rare and
simply come as a part of one's progress in the spiritual life.
3. Food for the moon
This is a part of the nefarious side of Gurdjieff's teaching; the idea that humanity is in a state of mechanical slavery
and that with each death we are being "fed" to sustain higher
entities. This was an idea I found no corollary to with anything in all of
literature until I found a similar concept in Robert Monroe's writing. Monroe
himself may have been influenced in this idea by Gurdjieff.
While I think the concept may have some utility as a parable or teaching tool, I would lean
on the side of caution here as the potential for it to be taken literally is
too feasible. Yes, these are useful models: to think "earth is a
prison," the "human condition is a prison," "man is
asleep," and "man is a slave." These all can motivate people to
make progress on the spiritual quest. But at the same time they are just that,
models.
4. Kundalini
Here is one where I think Gurdjieff's critique was
based off interactions with "occultists" and "theosophists"
who took this term and appropriated it without really knowing what they were
talking about. Gurdjieff decided to turn the concept on its head and use it for
his own teaching about self-deception. However, I feel there is some irony
here. As there is indeed a force of kundalini which can be experienced as a
result of meditation or sleep paralysis. It is an interesting point as it means
Gurdjieff may not have been aware of the phenomenon.
5. Burying the bone too deep
Here I have to critique Gurdjieff's writings which I
admit I do not have a great appreciation of. This is ultimately why I would
consider myself a student more of the strand of his teaching embodied by P. D.
Ouspensky instead. Ouspensky was a much better, clearer, and more focused
writer than Gurdjieff.
One of the things I have touched on when it comes to
these topics is the idea of urgency. We
are confronted with the issues of the human condition; sickness, aging, and
death. At any moment it could all be over with a simple accident. Gurdjieff himself spoke about people who "fell under trams." That is why I
don't think it is useful to obscure one's ideas with overly complex
writing. We find this same issue when we try to read old esoteric texts;
if they used a needlessly convoluted system of symbols to formulate their ideas, the writing becomes useless to us.
I realize Gurdjieff wished to maintain his
"mystique" but ultimately I feel it made his writings impractical. I
recall once reading about ten pages of his first book and realized he had
spent all that time talking about toilets in Persia and
America. Get to what is important!
6. Gurdjieff's bastards
This is one of the major concerns I have with
Gurdjieff after many years. His sexual conduct seems bizarre in juxtaposition
with his spiritual accomplishment. While I can understand his attitude toward
money - he was a pragmatist about it and not about living a life of poverty - here I
am not so sure.
Gurdjieff was known for his many affairs, though he
attempted to keep them discreet, and the many bastards he fathered. While
nature is of course one thing, the shame this would create for the women of the
time is concerning. It does not seem ethically justifiable. I also do not see why
Gurdjieff would have such an interest in sexual conquest; the force of it as a
drive declines as the real priorities of one's life come into better
focus.
7. No contemplative life or mysticism
Ultimately, the lack of references to the contemplative life and
to the more mature and solitary side of the mystic quest are the biggest omissions
I find in the Gurdjieff work. This is where I feel the teaching is ultimately
"incomplete."
I have seen Gurdjieff schools where the people go in
endless circles administering "shocks" to one another. After a point
there is no need for this and it becomes unconstructive to one's progress.
Eventually, one has to graduate from this and move on.
Here I wonder about Gurdjieff's experience with meditation and the
OOBE. There was of course no concept of going OOB during his time. There was
also no study of dreams or lucid dreaming available. Perhaps Beelzebub is a truer tale than it seems and
partly recounts Gurdjieff's adventures while OOB. Or, perhaps it is simply an
imaginary tale meant to get one to think.
Final Thoughts
There are two more ideas I wanted to touch on here
that I am still thinking about.
The Last Supper
The first of these is Gurdjieff's explanation of the
Last Supper. I still find this one fascinating. I have found no other account
like this in literature. Gurdjieff understood the Last Supper as a magical
ritual that fit into the Jewish occult tradition. According to
Gurdjieff, the disciples ate real flesh and drank real blood. Doing so,
according to Gurdjieff, created a "connection" between Christ and the
apostles so they could continue to communicate after his death.
Here I do not know what to think of this. It could coalesce with some of my other thoughts on
the resurrection; that is, while there was no physical return of Christ, he
continued to communicate directly to the apostles as a result of this.
Materiality of the Cosmos
Gurdjieff's idea here was that everything
is material. It is just that on higher planes the materiality of objects
(he used the idea of increasingly less dense "atoms") becomes finer,
superior, and more rarified.
Here I am not so sure about this particularly when
we start talking about formless reality. But, I certainly appreciate this idea
as a very constructive "model" by which we can apprehend the world. It also goes hand in hand with a discussion of "dimensions." Here if you have never seen Carl Sagan's explanation of the fourth dimension (he does this on an episode of Cosmos), I recommend giving it a view.
