Journal The Gurdjieff

     Ever since Mr. Gurdjieff’s death, Sufis have claimed him as one of theirs. Either that or claimed that the teaching he brought is really Sufism in disguise. Parallels between Sufism and the ancient teaching of The Fourth Way can be pointed out, of course, certain of his dances, music and perhaps some practices. No one reading the first two series of his Legominism, All & Everything, could doubt his familiarity with and respect for Mohammed, Islam and Sufism. But does that make Gurdjieff a Sufi?

      Gurdjieff is a Christian. But not of contemporary vintage. He often made fun of contemporary Christianity. The Orthodox, he said, had retained at least something, but Roman Catholicism had degenerated entirely. He held that Jesus Christ was not the only divine messenger to the planet, which would of course exempt Gurdjieff’s adhering to the Nicene Creed. Still, in even a casual look at his life, his ‘Christianity’ is so obvious as to make one wonder why it would remain a question. Gurdjieff was baptized a Christian, educated by Russian Orthodox priests, and at his death services were conducted at his request in the Russian Orthodox Church in Paris by a Russian priest.


Gurdjieff’s Vision of Christianity


       Four months after finally succeeding in opening his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, he declared, “The program of the Institute, the power of the Institute, the aim of the Institute, the possibilities of the Institute can be expressed in a few words: the Institute can help one to be able to be a Christian.” [Emphasis added.] He went on to say, “Christianity says precisely this, to love all men. But this is impossible. At the same time it is quite true that it is necessary to love. First one must be able, only then can one love. Unfortunately, with time, modern Christians have adopted the second half, to love, and lost view of the first, the religion [of being able to do], which should have preceded it.”

      He then added, “Half the world is Christian, the other half has other religions. For me, sensible man, this makes no difference; they are the same as the Christian. Therefore it is possible to say that the whole world is Christian, the difference is only in name. And it has been Christian not only for one year but for thousands of years. There were Christians long before the advent of Christianity.” [Emphasis added.]

      This last statement accords with what P. D. Ouspensky reports Gurdjieff said in Russia some seven years before. When asked what is the origin of The Fourth Way, Gurdjieff said that to understand what is meant by the term Christianity one would have to “talk a great deal and to talk for a long time.” Then he declared: “But for the benefit of those who know already [that is, know what he means when he says ‘Christianity’] I will say that, if you like, this is esoteric Christianity.” [Emphasis original.]

      Later on, Ouspensky reports Gurdjieff saying:

It will seem strange to many people when I say that this prehistoric Egypt was Christian many thousands of years before the birth of Christ, that is to say, that its religion was composed of the same principles and ideas that constitute true Christianity…. The Christian church, the Christian form of worship, was not invented by the fathers of the church. It was all taken in a ready-made form from Egypt, only not from the Egypt we know but from one which we do not know. This Egypt was in the same place as the other but it existed much earlier.

      What isn’t commonly understood, though the clues are there in Search, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson and Meetings with Remarkable Men, is that Gurdjieff discovered the teaching of The Fourth Way in Egypt and Ethiopia (Abyssinia). That was his first journey. His second was to rediscover, reassemble and reformulate elements of the original prehistoric teaching of Christianity—existing in Egypt before 3,000 b.c.e.—that over time had moved northward with Pythagoras and into Central Asia.

Bennett’s Bias

      One of the advocates for the notion that Gurdjieff’s teaching is based on Sufism is J. G. Bennett. In his Making a New World, an otherwise interesting study of Gurdjieff and his teaching, Bennett clearly overlooks the importance of Gurdjieff’s connection with Egypt while greatly emphasizing that of Central Asia. But he does write:

We know that the Eastern churches have admirable spiritual exercises, some of which Gurdjieff taught his own pupils. He refers to a journey to Abyssinia with Professor Skridlov. He stayed for three months in Abyssinia where he followed up indications he had found in Egypt of the importance of the Coptic tradition. At the end of his life, I more than once heard him speak of Abyssinia, even referring to it as his ‘second home,’ where he hoped to retire and finish his days. He also mentioned the special knowledge of Christian origins possessed by the Coptic Church that had been lost by the Orthodox and Catholic branches of Christianity.
      So, like a good bit of what has happened to the Work since Gurdjieff’s death, the Work has largely brought this confusion upon itself. The recent new edition of Ouspensky’s Search shows on the cover a Sufi in a turban. This is congruent with covers of Gurdjieff books which show either Arabic writing or Persian rugs. This denial of the origins of Gurdieff’s Fourth Way, intentional or otherwise, now with a historical clash between Judaeo-Christianity and Islam coming to the fore, must be righted if Gurdjieff and the teaching are not to suffer by association.

      Thus, with the understanding that Gurdjieff is a true Christian and that The Fourth Way is an ancient teaching rooted in prehistoric Egypt—and therefore, being the original source teaching for all subsequent teachings—let us look at Gurdjieff’s connection with Islam and Sufism.

       In The Herald of Coming Good Gurdjieff speaks of a brotherhood—a word he puts in quotations apparently to signify that it is something more than a brotherhood as commonly understood—which exists in the heart of Central Asia. Later he will refer to it as a “certain Dervish monastery” where he spent two years studying oriental hypnotism. Because, he says, “I foresaw certain possible changes in the conditions of ordinary life [there would be a world disaster, if the ‘wisdom’ of the East and the ‘energy’ of the West were not integrated and made harmonious—see Fritz Peters’ Boyhood with Gurdjieff and Gurdjieff Remembered] and decided therefore to confide my intentions to a ‘brotherhood’ with a view to securing in certain ways their future co-operation.” He mentions that long discussions followed concerning mutual obligations “which, on my side, were chiefly on the grounds of my future religious and moral actions, and, on their side, were on the grounds of guiding, in strict accordance with the means indicated by me, the inner world of people whom I would confide to them.”

      Gurdjieff is not going to the West as a disciple or student. He is directing them in how the students he will send will be taught—“in accordance with the means indicated by me.” In the translator’s note to Meetings with Remarkable Men, it states that “Gurdjieff was a master…an actual incarnation of knowledge.” (This is heartening, as Gurdjieff is often characterized as a “philosopher and mystic,” but unfortunately speaking of him as a master was not continued.)

      Certainly Gurdjieff was well acquainted with Islam and the Sufis. After his sojourn in Egypt he adopted a disguise and traveled to Mecca, and later he and Professor Skridlov disguised themselves as a direct descendant of Mohammed, a Seïd, and as a Persian dervish, respectively, in order to explore Kafiristan (if Gurdjieff had indeed become a Sufi, why the disguise?). Gurdjieff certainly holds dervishes in high regard, for he writes in the First Series: “By the destruction of this ‘dervishism’ those last dying sparks will also be entirely extinguished there which, preserved as it were in the ashes, might sometime rekindle the hearth of those possibilities upon which Saint Mohammed counted.” He speaks in high terms of the founder of Islam calling him “the Sacred Individual Saint Mohammed” and of Islam as “the fourth great religion.” With time, however, the purity of the religion was diluted by mixing into it “something from the fantastic theory of the Babylonian dualists” and “about the blessings of the notorious ‘paradise’ which as it were, existed ‘in the other world.’” He notes that Islam “from the very first split into two schools the ‘Sunnite’ and the ‘Shiite’” and that the “psychic hatred of each because of frequent clashes now transformed completely into an organic hate.” He warned: “Beings of certain European communities have during recent centuries greatly contributed by their incitement…in order that the animosity should increase should they ever unite, since if this was to happen, there might soon be an end there for those European communities.”

      If one brotherhood stands out above all others for Gurdjieff it is clearly the World Brotherhood. “Among the adepts of this monastery there were former Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists, Lamaists, and even one Shamanist. All were united by God the Truth.”

      This World Brotherhood is Gurdjieff’s Brotherhood.

Notes


Orthodox had retained at least something. J. G. Bennett, Idiots in Paris (York Beach, Me.: Samuel Weiser, 1991), p. 52.
The program of the Institute. G. I. Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World (London: Arkana, 1984), p. 152.
Christians long before the advent of Christianity. Gurdjieff, p. 153.
This is esoteric Christianity. P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 102.
Prehistoric Egypt was Christian many thousands of years before the birth of Christ. Ouspensky, p. 302. To follow Gurdjieff’s search in Egypt, see the video Gurdjieff in Egypt (Fairfax, Calif: Arete Communications, 1999).
Certain Dervish monastery. G. I. Gurdjieff, The Herald of Coming Good (Edmonds, Wash.: Sure Fire Press, 1988), pp. 59, 19.
I foresaw certain possible changes in the conditions of ordinary life. Gurdjieff, Herald, p. 59.
Gurdjieff was a master. G. I. Gurdjieff, Meetings with Remarkable Men (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1963), p. x.



First printed in The Gurdjieff Journal.

William Patrick Patterson is the author of seven books on The Fourth Way, the latest of which is “Spiritual Survival in a Radically Changing World-Time.”


Anonymous
Good article, William. I’m unsure – is some of it your own, or was all of it printed in the Gurdjieff journal?I’m also unsure that Sufis have claimed Gurdjieff as one of their own. I’m only aware of Idries Shah’s orpinion that Gurdjieff was trained by Sufis, but left his training too early, so that his system was flawed. Part of Shah’s mission, apparently, was to revitalise Gurdjieff’s teaching, which had become crystallised, as all teachings do after a while. He did take on some Gurdjeffians, though not all of them. His brother Omar probably also took some on.It’s interesting that G. considered himself an esoteric Christian, because this very label has been applied to Sufis even though they’re often thought of as Muslims; but Shah and other Sufis, including the Hindu Sufi teacher of Irina Tweedie, maintain that Sufism predated Islam by millenia, so in a way that ties in with Gurdjieff’s statement about Christianity predating Christ.Some Islamic “Sufis” these days seem to be pale imitations of the real Sufi greats such as Rumi and Ibn Arabi, who were Muslims, to be sure, but didn’t consider orthodox Islam to be essential, and indeed had disciples of other faiths, including Christians.I must say, Sufism has enhanced my understanding of Christianity, and isn’t at all incompatible with it.


Anonymous

The untitled comment is a sly, probably crypto-Idries Shah-Sufi, bit of disinformative innuendo. Mr. Cee casually expresses two “uncertainties” to evoke vague suspicions regarding the article. There’s no reason for the uncertainty about whether it was written by Mr. Patterson as, following the article title he is explicitly given as the author. Nor for raising doubt about the authorship because it was first printed elsewhere. Have Sufis claimed Gurdjieff as one of their own? The example of Idries Shah’s indirect claim is used as an opportunity to repeat Shah’s unsubstantiated negative evaluation of Gurdjieff’s Teaching. Shah went fishing in Gurdjieffian waters for the disaffected so he could turn them to his brand of Sufism. He even went to the extreme of writing, under a pen name, a book about Gurdjieff’s purported teachers to demonstrate the superiority of his own lineage. In Patterson’s video, Gurdjieff in Egypt, he demonstrates compelling parallels between Egyptian myth-history of creation and Gurdjieff’s account in The First Series. These complement what he reports Gurdjieff having told Ouspensky about the Teaching’s origins in prehistoric Egypt. I know of no such comparable demonstration regarding Sufism. As an example from my own direct experience, a disciple of a Sufi master living in Canada, told me his master had evidence of the Sufic origins of the enneagram, and that he would search his papers for it. It hasn’t turned up yet in over 10 years.


alan francis

Opinions vary and to put a label on Gurdjieff is formatory. That is why he scattered dust into peoples eyes. If you understand this and the true meaning of paradigm it is to keep the question open. To explore and continually suffer the unknown in the face of the pursuit of knowledge. That said, he did make some statements that should be addressed. Gurdjieff was a Master in many ways and this includes strategic positioning and part of that clearly took in the fact that the focus of his Work would take place in Christian countries and for example very little in China. Thus, as one example, it makes perfect sense to emphasize Christianity and deemphasize Taoism. The point is when you try to take something Gurdjieff says at face value you are grossly underestimating him. Yes, this may be esoteric Christianity from ancient Osirian Egypt, but for most people this means nothing. Or it may be esoteric Taoism from two princes who migrated from ancient Gobi to the Yellow River. As with professor Skridlov and Prince Lubovedsky the external curiosity must not obscure our true search within.The problem is no one wishes to hear qualified statements, the modern mind thrives on unequivocal answers, yes and or no. Ancient schools would put an advocate in the position of adversary and have them support opposing views in order to force people out of their crystalized positions. Of course this is not helpful with someone like Indries Shaw who knowingly falsified in Teachers of Gurdjieff and seems to have merely sought to feed an overweaning ego or was there something more to him? At the same time we search with this openess like a lamb we need to be able to make decisions and carry out actions in life, with our children, in our own Work. To be in question and not be paralyzed from action this is the great Koan of our Work. Live it.Have the courage to act without the need to be right, to be self-righteous.Think in different categories, think relatively, think on different levels – think.

John G. Bennett and the Gurdjieff connection[edit]
In June 1962, a couple of years prior to the publication of The Sufis, Shah had also established contact with members of the movement that had formed around the mystical teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.[26][30] A press article had appeared,[nb 1] describing the author's visit to a secret monastery in Central Asia, where methods strikingly similar to Gurdjieff's methods were apparently being taught.[30] The otherwise unattested monastery had, it was implied, a representative in England.[5] One of Ouspensky's earliest pupils, Reggie Hoare, who had been part of the Gurdjieff work since 1924, made contact with Shah through that article. Hoare "attached special significance to what Shah had told him about the Enneagram symbol and said that Shah had revealed secrets about it that went far beyond what we had heard from Ouspensky."[31] Through Hoare, Shah was introduced to other Gurdjieffians, including John G. Bennett, a noted Gurdjieff student and founder of an "Institute for the Comparative Study of History, Philosophy and the Sciences" located at Coombe Springs, a 7-acre (28,000 m2) estate in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey.[31]
At that time, Bennett had already investigated the Sufi origins of many of Gurdjieff's teachings, based on both Gurdjieff's own numerous statements, and on travels Bennett himself made in the East where he met various Sufi Sheikhs.[32] He was convinced that Gurdjieff had adopted many of the ideas and techniques of the Sufis and that, for those who heard Gurdjieff's lectures in the early 1920s, "the Sufi origin of his teaching was unmistakable to anyone who had studied both."[32]

Sarmoung teachings according to Idries Shah

Idries Shah himself does not describe any personal contact with the Sarmoung, but mentions the "Sarmouni" several times in his writings. For instance, in Tales of the Dervishes he attributes a teaching story to a Sarmouni called Pir-i-Do-Sara (d. 1790). He also offers a following "Sarmouni recital", beginning:-
"He who knows and does not know that he knows: he is asleep. Let him become
one, whole. Let him be awakened.
He who has known but does not know: let him see once more the beginning of all.
He who does not wish to know, and yet says that he needs to know: let him be guided to safety and to light.
He who does not know, and knows that he does not know: let him, through this knowledge, know".

Mark Sedgwick, the coordinator of the Unit for Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University writes:

Although few commentators in Gurdjieff would put it so bluntly, it seems clear to me that the Sarmoung are entirely imaginary. No Sufi tariqa of such a name is known, and in fact "Sarmoung" is a typically Gurdjieffian fantastical name. It is immediately obvious to anyone who knows anything about regular Sufism that there is nothing remotely Sufi about the Sarmoung Order described by Gurdjieff.^[1][16]

James Moore, in his biography of Gurdjieff, writes

Gurdieff's claim to have found and entered 'the chief Sarmoung Monastery' is, in effect, a litmus test, distinguishing literal minds from those preferring allegory.

Gurdjieff's followers believed he was a spiritual Master, possessing higher consciousness; a human being who is fully awake or enlightened. He was also seen as an esotericist or occultist. He agreed that the teaching was esoteric but claimed that none of it was veiled in secrecy; rather, Gurdjieff claimed that many people either don't have an interest or the capability to understand certain ideas. When asked about the teaching he was setting forth, Gurdjieff said, "The teaching whose theory is here being set out is completely self supporting and independent of other lines and it has been completely unknown up to the present time." The exact origins of Gurdjieff's teachings are unknown, but people have offered various sources.

The Fourth Way teaches that humans are not born with a soul, and are not really Conscious, but only believe they are Conscious because of the socialization process. A person must create/develop a soul through the course of his life by following a teaching which can lead to this aim, or he will "die like a dog," and that men are born asleep, live in sleep and die in sleep, only imagining that they are awake. The system also teaches that the ordinary waking "consciousness" of human beings is not consciousness at all but merely a form of sleep, and that actual higher Consciousness is possible.

Gurdjieff taught that traditional paths to spiritual enlightenment followed one of three ways:
The Way of the fakir
The fakir works to obtain mastery of the attention (self-mastery) through struggles with [controlling] the physical body involving difficult physical exercises and postures.
The Way of the monk
The monk (or nun) works to obtain the same mastery of the attention (self-mastery) through struggle with [controlling] the affections, in the domain, as we say, of the heart, which has been emphasized in the west, and come to be known as the way of faith due to its practice particularly by Catholic religious.
The Way of the yogi
The yogi works to obtain the same mastery of the attention (as before: 'self mastery') through struggle with [controlling] mental habits and capabilities.
Gurdjieff insisted that these paths - although they may intend to seek to produce a fully developed human being - tended in actuality to cultivate certain faculties at the expense of others. The goal of religion, the goal of spirituality was, in fact, to produce a well-balanced, responsive and sane human being capable of dealing with all manner of eventualities that life may present to them. Traditional methods as such generally failed to achieve this end. Gurdjieff therefore made it clear that it was necessary to cultivate a way that integrated and combined the traditional three ways. Gurdjieff saw himself as being one who presented such a teaching.

The Fourth Way
Gurdjieff said that his Fourth Way was a quicker means than the first three ways because it simultaneously combined work on all three centers rather than focusing on one as is done in the first three ways, that it could be followed by ordinary people in everyday life, requiring no retirement into the desert. The Fourth Way does involve certain conditions imposed by a teacher, but blind acceptance of them is discouraged. Each student is advised to do only what they understand, and to verify for themselves the veracity of the teaching's ideas.
By bringing together the way of the Fakir (Sufi tradition), the way of the Yogi (Hindu and Sikh traditions) and the way of the Monk (Christian and Buddhist traditions, amongst others) Gurdjieff clearly places the Fourth Way at a crossroads of differing beliefs.

Ouspensky documented Gurdjieff as saying that "two or three thousand years ago there were yet other ways which no longer exist and the ways now in existence were not so divided, they stood much closer to one another. The fourth way differs from the old and the new ways by the fact that it is never a permanent way. It has no definite forms and there are no institutions connected with it.
Ouspensky quotes Gurdjieff that there are fake schools and that "It is impossible to recognize a wrong way without knowing the right way. This means that it is no use troubling oneself how to recognize a wrong way. One must think of how to find the right way.

Origins

In his works, Gurdjieff credits his teachings to a number of more or less mysterious sources:-
Various small sects of 'real' Christians in Asia and the Middle East. Gurdjieff believed that mainstream Christian teachings had become corrupted. (He does not use the term "gnostic").
Various dervishes (he did not use the term 'Sufi')
Gurdjieff mentions practicing Yoga in his youth, but his later comments about Indian fakirs and yogis are dismissive.
The mysterious Sarmoung monastery in a remote area of central Asia, to which Gurdjieff was led blindfold.
The non-denominational "Universal Brotherhood".
Attempts to fill out his sketchy and perhaps mythologized account have featured:
Technical vocabulary first appearing in early 19th century Russian freemasonry, derived from Robert Fludd (P. D. Ouspensky)
Orthodox Esoteric Christianity (Boris Mouravieff)
Naqshbandi Sufism, (Idries Shah,Rafael Lefort)
Caucasian Ahmsta Kebzeh (Murat Yagan)
Tibetan Buddhism, according to Jose Tirado.
Chatral Rinpoche believes that Gurdjieff spent several years in a monastery in the Swat valley.
James George theorises that Surmang, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery now in China is the real Sarmoung monastery.
in principle to Zoroaster, and explicitly to the 12th century Khwajagan Sufi leader, Abdul Khaliq Gajadwani (J. G. Bennett)

There are some similarities between the Fourth Way teaching and other spiritual teachings.
The stop exercise is similar to the Uqufi Zamani exercise in Omar Ali-Shah's book on the Rules or Secrets of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order.
The insistence on the realization in the waking state, the "waking up" techniques are very similar to those used in Karma yoga

Basis of teachings

The Fourth Way focuses on the ability to constantly perform "conscious labors" and "intentional suffering."
Conscious Labor is an action where the person who is performing the act is present to what he is doing; he is not absentminded during his act, and neither is he "remembering himself." At the same time he is striving to perform the act more efficiently.
Intentional suffering is the act of struggling against the desires of the physical body such as daydreaming, pleasure, food (eating for reasons other than real hunger), etc... In Gurdjieff's book Beelzebub's Tales he states that "the greatest 'intentional suffering' can be obtained in our presences by compelling ourselves to endure the displeasing manifestations of others toward ourselves"[25]
Gurdjieff claimed that these two acts were the basis of all evolution of man.
The Fourth Way's focus is on raising the level of consciousness a person can experience, with the ultimate aim of creating a permanent higher level of consciousness. Specific methods are employed to achieve this aim, some of which are described below.
Self-Observation
One aspect is to strive to observe in oneself the certain behaviors and habits which are usually only observed in others, and to observe them in oneself as dispassionately as one may observe them in others; to observe oneself as an interesting stranger. Another aspect is to attempt to discover in oneself an attention that can differentiate between the actual thoughts, feelings, and sensations that are taking place at the moment, without judging or analyzing what is observed.[26]
The Need for Efforts
Gurdjieff emphasized that awakening results from consistent, prolonged efforts. These efforts are the ones that are made after a person is already exhausted and feels that he can't go anymore, but nevertheless he pushes himself.
The Many 'I's
Many I's is a term which indicates the different feelings and thoughts of ‘I’ in a person: I think, I want, I know best, I prefer, I am happy, I am hungry, I am tired, etc. These feelings and thoughts of ‘I’ usually have nothing in common with one another, and are present for short periods of time. They tie in directly with Gurdjieff's claim that man has no unity in himself. This lack of unity results in wanting one thing now, and another, perhaps contradictory, thing later.
Centers
Main article Centers (Fourth Way)
Gurdjieff classified plants as having one center, animals two and humans three. Centers refer to apparatuses within a being that dictate specific organic functions. There are three main centers in a man: intellectual, emotional and physical, and two higher centers: higher emotional and higher intellectual.
Body, Essence and Personality
Gurdjieff divided people into three independent parts, that is, into Body, Essence and Personality.
Body is the physical functions of a body.
Essence - is a "natural part of a person" or "what he is born with"; this is the part of a being which is said to have the ability to evolve.
Personality - is everything artificial that he has "learned" and "seen".
Cosmic Laws
Gurdjieff focused on two main cosmic laws, the Law of Three and the Law of Seven[citation needed].
The Law of Seven is described by Gurdjieff as "the first fundamental cosmic law". This law is used to explain processes. The basic use of the law of seven is to explain why nothing in nature and in life constantly occurs in a straight line, that is to say that there are always ups and downs in life which occur lawfully. Examples of this can be noticed in athletic performances, where a high ranked athlete always has periodic downfalls, as well as in nearly all graphs that plot topics that occur over time, such as the economic graphs, population graphs, death-rate graphs and so on. All show parabolic periods that keep rising and falling. Gurdjieff claimed that since these periods occur lawfully based on the law of seven that it is possible to keep a process in a straight line if the necessary shocks were introduced at the right time. A piano keyboard is an example of the law of seven, as the seven notes of the major scale correspond exactly to it.
The Law of Three is described by Gurdjieff as "the second fundamental cosmic law". This law states that every whole phenomenon is composed of three separate sources, which are Active, Passive and Reconciling or Neutral. This law applies to everything in the universe and humanity, as well as all the structures and processes. The Three Centers in a human, which Gurdjieff said were the Intellectual Centre, the Emotional Centre and the Moving Centre, are an expression of the law of three. Gurdjieff taught his students to think of the law of three forces as essential to transforming the energy of the human being. The process of transformation requires the three actions of affirmation, denial and reconciliation.
How the Law of Seven and Law of Three function together is said to be illustrated on the Fourth Way Enneagram, a nine-pointed symbol which is the central glyph of Gurdjieff's system.
Use of symbols[edit]
In his explanations Gurdjieff often used different symbols such as the Enneagram and the Ray of Creation. Gurdjieff said that "the enneagram is a universal symbol. All knowledge can be included in the enneagram and with the help of the enneagram it can be interpreted ... A man may be quite alone in the desert and he can trace the enneagram in the sand and in it read the eternal laws of the universe. And every time he can learn something new, something he did not know before."[27] The ray of creation is a diagram which represents the Earth's place in the Universe. The diagram has eight levels, each corresponding to Gurdjieff's laws of octaves.
Through the elaboration of the law of octaves and the meaning of the enneagram, Gurdjieff offered his students alternative means of conceptualizing the world and their place in it.
Working conditions and sacred dances[edit]
To provide conditions in which attention could be exercised more intensively, Gurdjieff also taught his pupils "sacred dances" or "movements" which they performed together as a group, and he left a body of music inspired by what he heard in visits to remote monasteries and other places, which was written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas de Hartmann.
Gurdjieff laid emphasis on the idea that the seeker must conduct his or her own search. The teacher cannot do the student's work for the student, but is more of a guide on the path to self-discovery. As a teacher, Gurdjieff specialized in creating conditions for students - conditions in which growth was possible, in which efficient progress could be made by the willing. To find oneself in a set of conditions that a gifted teacher has arranged has another benefit. As Gurdjieff put it, "You must realize that each man has a definite repertoire of roles which he plays in ordinary circumstances ... but put him into even only slightly different circumstances and he is unable to find a suitable role and for a short time he becomes himself.

by Ibrahim Gamard, 11/6/04, revised 12/3/05

The Present Confusion

The following article is intended to share information, based on the author's conclusions after studying this subject for many years. Though it may be controversial, the intent is to stimulate respectful discussion--not angry debate. And the aim is certainly not to blame or condemn individuals currently involved practices based on Gurdjieff's teachings. After all, a number of contemporary Mevlevis in Western countries were themselves trained through such teachings to some extent, and report that it was quite helpful in preparing them for the Mevlevi dervish path.
There has been much confusion for decades about the so-called "sufi origins" of Gurdjieff's teachings, beliefs that Gurdjieff himself was a sufi (of the "blame-seeking" [malâmâtî] kind, as some have speculated) and assumptions that the spiritual training he gave to his students was "dervish training" and that the movement exercises he taught were "dervish dance movements."
This confusion has been increased by some of Gurdjieff's disciples themselves, such as Ouspensky, who apparently believed that the Mevlevi tradition was the source of Gurdjieff's teachings1 and J. G. Bennett ,who believed that the Khwajagan sufi masters of Central Asia, the forerunners of the strictly Islamic Naqshbandi sufi tradition, were closely linked with the mysterious source of Gurdjieff's teachings--the "Sarmân Brotherhood."2
Others have gone to authentic Muslim sufi teachers and added to the confusion by hoping to find the roots of Gurdjieff's teachings in the Islamic sufi tradition: as a result, such seekers have been disappointed by finding "merely religious" Islamic mystical teachings. And some Muslim sufi teachers have been confused by such seekers (who sometimes have an impressive level of dervish- like self-development) who have very little interest in Islam or praying and are actually hoping to find "esoteric teachings" or "secret Masters."
In addition, there are Western sufi teachers, who continue to encourage their followers to combine sufi training with Gurdjieffian teachings and spiritual practices, including some affiliated with the Mevlevi tradition. There are also some "Fourth Way" groups in which members, after being trained to do the complicated Gurdjieff movements exercises, are then taught to do the whirling practice of Mevlevi dervishes as well as the Mevlevi Whirling Prayer Ceremony (Samâ`).