Conditions. Gurdjieff laid emphasis on idea that seeker must conduct his or her own search - and that teacher cannot do student's work for student, but is more of a guide on 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 willing. To find oneself in a set of conditions 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.’

In 1918 turmoil of Russian revolution forced Gurdjieff and a small group of devoted followers out of Moscow to Essentuki in Caucasus. For next four years core group moved from place to place, from Tiflis in Georgia to Constantinople to Germany. In 1922 Gurdjieff finally managed to establish a more or less stable base of operations, which he dubbed "Institute for Harmonious Development of Man," at Château de Prieuré in Fontainbleau, near Paris. The Institute's varied activities attracted many new people to Gurdjieff's ideas, and in 1924 he went on a short visit to America where he stirred up much interest and started a group in New York. He returned to France. At this moment of beginnings of success on a larger scale, Gurdjieff was nearly killed in an automobile accident. During his long recuperation his teaching activities came to an almost complete halt, but from this time to 1935 he did manage to write his three primary works, Beelzebub's Tales, Meetings with Remarkable Men, and Life Is Real Only Then, When "I Am."

If Beelzebub's Tales is an elaborate modern mythological tapestry and Meetings is a spiritual travelogue, then Life Is Real Only Then is a portrait of creative process in fluid motion. Gurdjieff's most self-revealing book, it takes reader into Gurdjieff's own associative thought-processes, for instance in those passages where he writes about writing itself, trains of thought that led him, when still a young man, to renounce all use of his exceptional psychic powers, somewhat brutal methods he used to whip his New York followers into shape, and his superhuman, insomniacal efforts to keep his Institute functioning and together on a sound financial footing in Fontainbleau days. Life Is Real was never finished - it ends poignantly with a colon.

In 1930s and 1940s Gurdjieff worked with small groups in Paris, where he lived, and New York. Gurdjieff himself was ultimately an enigma to Westerners, even to those who knew him best. It is doubtful that we will ever know "person" behind tremendous force of personality he exerted upon all who worked with him. In times of greatest personal crisis, he would withdraw into circle of his family. He placed extreme demands on his students, but seemed to demand infinitely more of himself. Teacher or prophet, rogue or saint, wily man or gracious servant of God, Gurdjieff today is gone, and among some of his followers there lingers an eschatological atmosphere, a memory-afterglow of a not-so-distant time past when infinite was concretely embodied in time.” (1)

“KL: Yes, he was in Paris from early 20's. When he began his work in Moscow (and in St. Petersburg very shortly), things were going rather well, and then they had a little thing called Russian revolution. It was necessary for Gurdjieff and many of his pupils to leave Russia in a hurry. Many of them were from a stratum of society that was rather too closely associated with Czar, and it in any case conditions had become very bad, very difficult, for anyone in Russia at that time. So Gurdjieff escaped with a small group of followers and established center of his activities next in Constantinople, following which there was a brief period in Berlin, and finally he settled just outside of Paris, at Chateau de Prieure at Fontainebleau, and he worked with pupils there very intensively for next few years. That period was cut short by an automobile accident which was very severe; it nearly killed him. Later on, he worked in Paris itself, with, at any given time, a fairly small circle of pupils.

Q.: Who was funding him?

KL: That's a very interesting question. There were certainly people interested in his work who provided funds.” (2)

There is good reason to believe that people who worked in Mind Control associated with Tavistock, Yale and Baruch would have funneled money and clients to Gurdjieff.

What then is this "work"? Those in Gurdjieff school write of "work on oneself," and often capitalize concept, as in "The Work." Gurdjieff time and again insisted on importance of direct transmission of knowledge from teacher to student, and emphatically warned of grave dangers of attempting to learn exercises from a book or cramming one's head full of abstract spiritual notions on one's own. Those who have met an authentic teacher know sense of presence so important to whole process, teacher is an embodiment of knowledge of which he or she speaks, and in a sense what he or she says is of little importance compared with student's opportunity to observe what he or she is. Descriptions of Gurdjieff by those who worked with him are filled with references to his effortless bearing, his economy of movement, his feline grace, his almost overwhelming physical presence as well as his spontaneity and earthy sense of humor. A student in Gurdjieff's Moscow circle described his first meeting with teacher: ‘He looked at me, and I had distinct impression that he took me in palm of his hand and weighed me.’ {He could cause women to feel sexually aggressive and lose all inhibition through use of this look combined with breathing techniques.}

Although knowledge is not hoarded secretively, there are inevitable difficulties and pitfalls in efforts to share it with outsiders. Jesus called this "casting pearls before swine." Gurdjieff said students of his methods would find themselves "unable to transmit correctly what is said in groups. [Students] very soon begin to learn from their own personal experience how much effort, how much time, and how much explaining is necessary in order to grasp what is said in groups. It becomes clear to them that they are unable to give their friends a right idea of what they have learned themselves." Ouspensky relates that in early work with Gurdjieff in Moscow and St. Petersburg, it was strictly forbidden for students to write down, much less publish, anything at all connected with Gurdjieff and his ideas; somewhat later, Gurdjieff relaxed this rule, accepting as students many who subsequently published accounts of their experiences in work.

Having, I think, caveated whole matter sufficiently into dust, I offer here a brief outsider's summary of what was involved in work of Gurdjieff's groups.

Relaxation. Many of Gurdjieff's exercises involved or began with some sort of gradual relaxation of muscles, starting with muscles of face and working downward through body. Fripp has said that we can do nothing when not relaxed, and since his time at Sherborne has practiced a regular routine of relaxation in morning before breakfast; such a ritual, led by a qualified instructor, has been worked into Guitar Craft seminars. Along with relaxation goes a type of exercise for sensing different parts of body "from inside." For Gurdjieff's groups, this might have involved, for instance, lying on one's back and concentrating all of one's awareness first on one's nose, then on one's right foot, and so on.

Other Exercises; The Movements. Ouspensky relates a series of what he found to be "unbelievably difficult" physical/mental exercises that Gurdjieff had picked up in various esoteric schools during his travels. In general, these involved some precise and exact combination of counting, breathing, sensing of body parts, and movements, to be done in some coordinated sequence. The famous "movements," often done to music Gurdjieff had composed himself, were dances based on those Gurdjieff had observed and participated in, notably among Sufis and dervishes, and in ancient hidden monasteries. Gurdjieff taught that movements were not merely calisthenics, exercises in concentration, and displays of bodily coordination and aesthetic sensibility: on contrary, in movements was embedded real, concrete knowledge, passed from generation to generation of initiates - each posture and gesture representing some cosmic truth that informed observer could read like a book.