Source Text
Foreword
GEORGE IVANOVITCH GURDJIEFF (1866–1949) regarded knowledge of reality—what he called true “knowledge of being”—as a stream flowing from remote antiquity, passed on from age to age, from people to people, from race to race. He viewed this knowledge as the indispensable means to achieve inner freedom, liberation. For those who seek to understand the meaning of human life in the universe, he said, the aim of the search is to break through to this stream, to find it. Then there remains only “to know” in order “to be.” But in order to know, he taught, it is necessary to find out “how to know.”
In order to open to reality, to unity with everything in the universe, Gurdjieff called for living the wholeness of “Presence” in the experience of “I Am.”
In the introduction that follows, Mme. de Salzmann reveals how she saw Gurdjieff as a spiritual “master” in the traditional sense—not as a teacher of doctrine but as one who by his very presence awakens and helps others in their search for consciousness.
She returned again and again to the practice necessary to have a new perception of reality and a more stable Presence as an independent life within the body. To live the teaching would be to awake, to die to identification with one’s ordinary level of functioning, and to be reborn to the experience of another dimension, another world.
Introduction
He had an expression I had never seen, and an intelligence, a force, that was different, not the usual intelligence of the thinking mind but a vision that could see everything. He was, at the same time, both kind and very, very demanding. You felt he would see you and show you what you were in a way you would never forget in your whole life.
This behavior seemed to be more spontaneous, more “free.” But was it really freer, or did it only seem so because he intended to appear like that? You might think you knew Gurdjieff very well, but then he would act quite differently and you would see that you did not really know him. He was like an irresistible force, not dependent on any one form but continually giving birth to forms.
Gurdjieff knew how to make use of every life circumstance to have people feel the truth. I saw him at work, attentive to the possibilities of understanding in his different groups and also to the subjective difficulties of each pupil. I saw him deliberately putting the accent on a particular aspect of knowing, then on another aspect, according to a very definite plan. He worked at times with a thought that stimulated the intellect and opened up an entirely new vision, at times with a feeling that required giving up all artifice in favor of an immediate and complete sincerity, at times with the awakening and putting in motion of a body that responded freely to whatever it was asked to serve.
He worked at times with a thought that stimulated the intellect and opened up an entirely new vision, at times with a feeling that required giving up all artifice in favor of an immediate and complete sincerity, at times with the awakening and putting in motion of a body that responded freely to whatever it was asked to serve.
AI Summary
The Reality of Being by Jeanne De Salzmann presents key insights from the Gurdjieff tradition. The 10 passages above capture the essential teachings.
Core Themes:
- [To be expanded]
Key Passages: Highlights 1, 3, and 10 are particularly representative.
This entry was generated from Readwise highlights. Expand with additional context as appropriate.