George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1866 – 1949) was a mystic, philosopher, spiritual teacher, and composer. He was born in Alexandrapol (now Gyumri), Armenia, then part of the Russian Empire in the Transcaucasus, and spent his childhood in Kars. In early adulthood, Gurdjieff’s curiosity led him to travel to Central Asia, Egypt, Iran, India, Tibet and Rome before returning to Russia. In 1922 he established his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Chateau du Prieure at Fontainebleau, just outside Paris. Many of the methods and practices which became central to the work of Gurdjieff’s pupils were developed during this time. He introduced to the West a unique esoteric teaching of self-transformation that has been called “The Fourth Way.” Gurdjieff’s trilogy of books, titled All and Everything, contains the volumes Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, Meetings with Remarkable Men, and Life Is Real Only Then, When “I Am”.
Quotes by G. I. Gurdjieff…
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.
Take the understanding of the East and the knowledge of the West, and then seek.
Real ‘I’ is the Messiah, for whom the creature is waiting.