J.G. Bennett (1897 – 1974) was a British mathematician, scientist, technologist, industrial research director, and author. He is best known for his books on psychology and spirituality, particularly on the teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff. Bennett met Gurdjieff in Istanbul in October 1920 and later helped to coordinate the work of Gurdjieff in England after Gurdjieff had moved to Paris.
Quotes by J.G. Bennett…
When all limitations are transcended, nothing remains but the One Will that is ‘I.’
There are two basic duties for man in this life: one is to serve nature and the other is to find God.
Without humiliation, Love, when it enters the conditioned world, gets caught into the polarity of love and hate and finishes as its own opposite.
Divine Love does not derive its power from separation but from union. It is not fullness but emptiness, not Being but the Void.
The “man of the way” is a familiar concept in all religions. The elect are “called to be saint.” The Buddhist marga, the “path of liberation,” once entered will be followed to the attainment of perfected being. The man of the way in Sufism is the salik or seeker of the truth.
It was the very essence of Gurdjieff’s teaching that the pupil must stand on his own feet and he took every measure, sometimes apparently harsh and brutal, to break down any tendency towards dependence upon himself. He would go to the length of depriving himself of much-needed helpers in his work rather than allow a relationship of dependence, or subordination. At the same time, he took for granted that a teacher is necessary and made it clear why this is so.
No man can work alone until he knows himself, and no one can know himself until he can be separate from his own egoism. The teacher is always needed to apply the knife, to sever the true from the false, but he can never work for his pupil, nor understand for him, nor be for him. We must work, and understand, and be, for ourselves.
