Gurdjieff

George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff was an Armenian Greek who felt from early childhood that there was something more to life than he was taught at school and what most people appeared to be satisifed with. He travelled widely in his youth, studying the great teachings in various initiate schools. He worked alongside other people also seeking for something higher than what the world can offer. You can read about his search and teachers in his book Meetings With Remarkable Men.

He formulated a system known as the Fourth Way. The first way is the Way of the Fakir, by overcoming the physical body we can attain something permanent. The second way is the Way of the Monk. By intensive work on emotions we can attain something higher. The third way is the Way of the Yogi. By working with our intellect we can attain a higher level of consciousness. All three ways require you to withdraw from life and to give up your friendships, even family relations. The Fourth Way is a way of seeking higher knowledge and a higher level of consciousness while remaining in life. Your outer life remains exactly the same. All work takes place on the inside and cannot be noticed by those around you. This is the inner work of the Fourth Way.

The inner work is based on our three centres, moving/instinctive, emotional and intellectual, being imbalanced. As we are, in our culture and civilisation, we are mainly based in the head, in the intellect. We think more than we feel and we do not activate our moving part in ways that are beneficial to it. First, we need to become more emotional.
Negative emotions, such as anger, jealousy, irritation are not a normal part of our emotions. They do not rightfully belong to our emotional part and are the result of imitating our parents and those around us. What rightfully belongs to it is joy, love, hope.We use only a very limited part of our intellectual centre, the part that can think only in terms ofyes and no, right and wrong.

There are also two entirely unused functions, higher emotional and higher intellectual, which are only potential as we are.

Gurdjieff formulated a system of teaching best explained by P.D. Ouspensky in In Search of the Miraculous. He also brought Movements, a series of physical exercises, or sacred dance, which activates our moving, emotional and intellectual parts simultaneously. This brings about an inner state where our essence, that part of us which remains unchanged since childhood, can grow. Essence is encrusted with personality, which has been acquired from imitation and learnt behaviours. Essence has possibilities that personality does not have.

Man is not born a completed being. We have the potential to evolve, but itrequires initiative and effort from ourselves.