G.I. Gurdjieff Quotes with Deep Meaning
“Without self knowledge, without understanding
the working and functions of his machine,
man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and
he will always remain a slave.”
G.I. Gurdjieff
“Conscious faith is freedom.
Emotional faith is slavery.
Mechanical faith is foolishness.”
G.I. Gurdjieff
“Practice love on animals first;
they react better and more sensitively.”
G.I. Gurdjieff
“It is very difficult also to sacrifice one's suffering.
A man will renounce any pleasures you like
but he will not give up his suffering.”
G.I. Gurdjieff
“Awakening is possible only for those
who seek it and want it,
for those who are ready to struggle with themselves
and work on themselves for a very long time
and very persistently in order to attain it.”
G.I. Gurdjieff
“I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself.”
G.I. Gurdjieff,
“There is a cosmic law which says that
every satisfaction must be paid for with a dissatisfaction.”
G.I. Gurdjieff
“To know means to know all.
Not to know all means not to know.
In order to know all,
it is only necessary to know a little.
But, in order to know this little,
it is first necessary to know pretty much.”
G.I. Gurdjieff
“Two things in life are infinite;
the stupidity of man and the mercy of God.”
G.I. Gurdjieff
“Man has no individual i.
But there are, instead,
hundreds and thousands of separate small "i"s,
very often entirely unknown to one another,
never coming into contact, or, on the contrary,
hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible.
Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, "i".
And each time his i is different.
just now it was a thought, now it is a desire,
now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly.
Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion.”
G.I. Gurdjieff
“I will tell you one thing that will make you rich for life.
There are two struggles:
an Inner-world struggle and an Outer-world struggle...
you must make an intentional contact between these two worlds;
then you can crystallize data for the Third World,
the World of the Soul.”
G.I. Gurdjieff
“Common aim is stronger than blood.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“If you want to lose your faith, make friends
with a priest.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“The greatest untold story is the evolution of
God.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“The only type of sexual relations possible are
those with someone who is as advanced and capable
as oneself.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“Remember you come here having already understood
the necessity of struggling with yourself — only
with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives
you the opportunity.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“It is the greatest mistake to think that man is
always one and the same. A man is never the same
for long. He is continually changing. He seldom
remains the same even for half an hour.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
19 likes Like
“Better to die than live in sleep.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
18 likes Like
? G.I. Gurdjieff
tags: love 17 likes Like
“As long as our ideas are the same, we will never
be apart.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“What is possible for individual man is
impossible for the masses.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“Knowledge can be acquired by a suitable and
complete study, no matter what the starting point
is. Only one must know how to 'learn.' What is
nearest to us is man; and you are the nearest of
all men to yourself. Begin with the study of
yourself; remember the saying 'Know thyself.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World:
Early Talks Moscow Essentuki Tiflis Berlin London
Paris NY Chicago as Recollecte
“Only super-efforts count.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“Man must use what he has, not hope for what is
not.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“LIBERATION LEADS TO LIBERATION. These are the
first words of truth — not truth in quotation
marks but truth in the real meaning of the word;
truth which is not merely theoretical, not simply
a word, but truth that can be realized in
practice. The meaning behind these words may be
explained as follows: By liberation is meant the
liberation which is the aim of all schools, all
religions, at all times. This liberation can
indeed be very great. All men desire it and
strive after it. But it cannot be attained
without the first liberation, a lesser
liberation. The great liberation is liberation
from influences outside us. The lesser liberation
is liberation from influences within us.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“In order to awaken, first of all one must
realize that one is in a state of sleep. And in
order to realize that one is indeed in a state of
sleep, one must recognize and fully understand
the nature of the forces which operate to keep
one in the state of sleep, or hypnosis. It is
absurd to think that this can be done by seeking
information from the very source which induces
the hypnosis.
....One thing alone is certain, that man's
slavery grows and increases. Man is becoming a
willing slave. He no longer needs chains. He
begins to grow fond of his slavery, to be proud
of it. And this is the most terrible thing that
can happen to a man.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“Life is real only then, when "I am".”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“Meat is necessary when there is hard physical
work to be done, or in a very cold climate, or
when edible plants cannot be found...Animal flesh
provides all the substances we need, both for the
intensive working of our organism and for
maintaining a normal temperature in cold
climates.”
tags: meat, vegetarian, vegetarianism,
vegetarians 11 likes Like
“From looking at your neighbor and realizing his
true significance, and that he will die, pity and
compassion will arise in you for him and finally
you will love him.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“an honest being who does not behave absurdly has
no
chance at all of becoming famous, or even of
being noticed, however kind
and sensible he may be.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
“Now everything that you do is written in red or
black in Angel Gabriel's book. Not for everyone
is this record kept, but only for those who have
taken a position of responsibility. There is a
Law of Sins, and if you do not fulfil all your
obligations, you will pay.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“With thorns in the inner world there will always
be roses in the outer world, in law-able
compensation.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“Let us take some event in the life of humanity.
For instance, war. There is a war going on at the
present moment. What does it signify? It
signifies that several millions of sleeping
people are trying to destroy several millions of
other sleeping people. They would not do this, of
course, if they were to wake up. Everything that
takes place is owing to this sleep.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“Wish' is the most powerful thing in the world.
Higher than God.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
tags: desire, prayer, wish 8 likes Like
“All who have come to me must have enema each
day.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“man lies to himself a lot.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“In my opinion, what will be troublesome for you
in all this is chiefly that in childhood there
was implanted in you—and has now become perfectly
harmonized with your general psyche—an
excellently working automatism for perceiving all
kinds of new impressions, thanks to which
“blessing” you have now, during your responsible
life, no need to make any individual effort
whatsoever.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub's Tales to His
Grandson
“It is necessary to observe yourself differently
than you do in ordinary life. It is necessary to
have a different attitude, not the attitude you
had till now. You know where your habitual
attitudes have led you till now. There is no
sense in going on as before.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, Views From the Real World
“entire life, from the moment I began to
distinguish a boy from a girl, I have always done
everything, absolutely everything, not as it is
done by other, like myself, biped destroyers of
Nature’s good.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub's Tales to His
Grandson
“Se io è presente in me non contano più né Dio né
diavolo.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“Modern civilization is based on violence and
slavery and fine words.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
“You are in prison. If you wish to get out of
prison, the first thing you must do is realize
that you are in prison. If you think you are
free, you can't escape.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff
society, wake-up-call 1 likes Like
“it was customary in long-past centuries on Earth
for every man bold enough to aspire to the right
to be considered by others and to consider
himself a “conscious thinker” to be instructed,
while still in the early years of his responsible
existence, that man has two kinds of mentation
one kind, mentation by thought, expressed by
words always possessing a relative meaning, and
another kind, proper to all animals as well as to
man, which I would call “mentation by form.” The
second kind of mentation, that is, “mentation by
form”—through which, by the way, the exact
meaning of all writing should be perceived and
then assimilated after conscious confrontation
with information previously acquired—is
determined in people by the conditions of
geographical locality, climate, time, and in
general the whole environment in which they have
arisen and in which their existence has flowed up
to adulthood. Thus, in the brains of people of
different races living in different geographical
localities under different conditions, there
arise in regard to one and the same thing or idea
quite different independent forms, which during
the flow of associations evoke in their being a
definite sensation giving rise to a definite
picturing, and this picturing is expressed by
some word or other that serves only for its outer
subjective expression. That is why each word for
the same thing or idea almost always acquires for
people of different geographical localities and
races a quite specific and entirely different so
to say “inner content.” In other words, if in the
“presence” of a man who has arisen and grown up
in a given locality a certain “form” has been
fixed as a result of specific local influences
and impressions, this “form” evokes in him by
association the sensation of a definite “inner
content,” and consequently a definite picturing
or concept, for the expression of which he uses
some word that has become habitual and, as I
said, subjective to him, but the hearer of that
word—in whose being, owing to the different
conditions of his arising and growth, a form with
a different “inner content” has been fixed for
the given word—will always perceive and
infallibly understand that word in quite another
sense.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
“Contemporary man, owing to certain, almost
imperceptible conditions of ordinary life which
are firmly rooted in modern civilisation and
which seem to have become, so to speak, "
inevitable " in daily life, has gradually
deviated from the natural type he ought to have
represented on account of the sum-total of the
influences of place and environment in which he
was born and reared and which, under normal
conditions, without any artificial impediments,
would have indicated by their very nature for
each individual the lawful path of his
development in that final normal type which he
ought to have become even in his preparatory age.
Today, civilisation, with its unlimited scope
in extending its influence, has wrenched man from
the normal conditions in which he should be
living. It is, of course, true that modern
civilisation has opened up for man new and vaster
horizons in different technical, mechanical and
many other so-called " sciences ", thereby
enlarging his world perception, but civilisation
has, instead of a balanced rising to a higher
degree of development, developed only certain
sides of his general being to the detriment of
others, while, because of the absence of an
harmonious education, certain faculties inherent
in man have even been completely destroyed,
depriving him in this way of the natural
privileges of his type. In other words, by not
educating the growing generation harmoniously,
this civilisation, which should have been,
according to common sense, in all respects like a
good mother to man, has withheld from him what
she should have given him ; and, it appears, that
she has even taken from him the possibility of
the progressive and balanced development of a new
type, which development would have inevitably
taken place if only in the course of time and
according to the law of general human progress.
From this follows the indubitable fact, which can
be clearly established, that, instead of an
accomplished individual type, which historical
data would show man to have been some centuries
ago and one normally in communion with Nature and
the environment generating him, there developed
instead a being that was uprooted from the soil,
unfit for life, and a stranger to all normal
conditions of existence.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, The Herald of Coming Good
“The general psyche of the modern man is split
into three, so to say, completely independent "
entities ", which bear no relation to each other
and which are separate both in their functions
and in their manifestations, whereas, according
to historical data, these three sources formed,
in the majority of people, even in the time of
the Babylonian civilisation, one indivisible
whole, which appeared to be at once a common
repository of all their perceptions and the
radiating Centre of their manifestations.
Because of this one-sided education of the modern
man, upon the attainment of his majority, these
three entirely independent sources or centres of
his life, that is, firstly, the source of his
intellectual life, secondly, the source of his "
emotional " life, and, thirdly, his instinct or "
motor " centre, instead of fusing inwardly in the
normal way to produce common outer
manifestations, have become, especially of late,
quite independent outward functions, and not only
the methods of education of those functions, but
also the quality of their manifestations, have
become dependent on special outer subjective
conditions. According to the deductions based
on detailed experiments made by Mr. Gurdjieff
himself, as well as those by many other people
who have seriously thought about this question,
every really conscious perception and
manifestation of man can only result from the
simultaneous and co-ordinate working of the three
aforesaid sources, which make up his general
individuality, and each of which must fulfil its
role, that is, furnish its own share of
associations and experiences. The complete
achievement of the requisite and normal
manifestation in each distinct case is possible
only upon the co-ordination of the activity of
all these three sources. In the modern man,
partly owing to his abnormal education during his
preparatory age, and partly owing to influences
due to certain causes of the generally
established abnormal conditions of modern life,
the working of his psychic centres during his
responsible age is almost entirely disconnected,
therefore his intellectual, emotional and
instinctive motor functions do not serve as a
natural complement and corrective for one
another, but, on the contrary, travel along
different roads, which rarely meet and for this
reason permit very little leisure for obtaining
that, which should in reality be understood by
the word " consciousness ", wrongly used by
modern people today.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, The Herald of Coming Good
“This realisation of disconnected and conflicting
activity of the centres of origin, which ought to
represent the psyche of man, and, at the same
time, of the complete absence of even a
theoretical conception of the indispensability of
an education corresponding to these separate,
relatively independent parts, setting aside the
ignorance of its practical application, must
inevitably lead to the conclusion that man is not
master even of himself. He cannot be master of
himself, for not only does he not control these
centres, which ought to function in complete
subordination to his consciousness, but he does
not even know which of his centres governs them
all. The system applied in the Institute For
Man's Harmonious Development for observing human
psychic activities clearly demonstrates that the
modern man never acts of his own accord, but only
manifests actions stimulated by external
irritations. The modern man does not think, but
something thinks for him ; he does not act, but
something acts through him ; he does not create,
but something is created through him ; he does
not achieve, but something is achieved through
him.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, The Herald of Coming Good
“decided to make use of one of the oddities of
that freshly baked fashionable language called
“English,” and each time the occasion requires
it, to swear by my “English soul.” The point is
that in this fashionable language the word for
“soul” and the word for the bottom of the foot,
also “sole,” are pronounced and even written
almost alike. I do not know how it is for you,
who are already half a candidate for a buyer of
my writings, but as for me, no matter how great
my mental desire, my peculiar nature cannot avoid
being indignant at this manifestation of people
of contemporary civilization, whereby the very
highest in man, particularly beloved by our
Common Father Creator, can be named and often
understood as that which is lowest and dirtiest
in man.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
“When my grandmother—may she attain the Kingdom
of Heaven—was dying, my mother, as was then the
custom, took me to her bedside and, as I kissed
her right hand, my dear grandmother placed her
dying left hand on my head and said in a whisper,
yet very distinctly: “Eldest of my grandsons!
Listen and always remember my strict injunction
to you: In life never do as others do.” Having
said this, she gazed at the bridge of my nose
and, evidently noticing my perplexity and my
obscure understanding of what she had said, added
somewhat angrily and imperiously: “Either do
nothing—just go to school—or do something nobody
else does Whereupon she immediately, without
hesitation and with a perceptible impulse of
disdain for all around her, and with commendable
self-cognizance, gave up her soul directly into
the hands of His Faithfulness, the Archangel
Gabriel.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub's Tales to His
Grandson
“Time in itself does not exist, there is only the
totality of the results issuing from all the
cosmic phenomena present in a given place.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
“Consider everything belonging to another as if
it were your own, and so treat it.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
“Everything existing in the world “falls to the
bottom.” The “bottom” for any part of the
Universe is its nearest “stability,” and this
stability is the point toward which all the lines
of force from all directions converge.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
“MY DEAR and kind Grandfather, will you please
explain to me, if only in a general way, why is
it that the beings on the planet Earth take the
ephemeral for the real?” To this question of his
grandson, Beelzebub replied: “On the planet Earth
this particularity in the psyche of the three-
brained beings arose only during later periods;
and it arose only because their predominant part,
formed in them as in all three-brained beings,
gradually allowed the other parts of their total
presence to perceive every new impression without
fulfilling what is called ‘being-partkdolgduty,’
that is to say, merely as such impressions are
generally perceived by one or another of their
independent localizations known as ‘being-
centers.’ Or, to put it in their language, they
believe everything anybody says, instead of
believing only what they have been able to verify
by their own ‘sane deliberation’—in other words,
only those convictions they have reached as a
result of confronting and evaluating the data
already deposited in them, which have given rise
to different conceptions in each of their
localizations of diverse nature.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
“As he was rummaging about, a book called ‘The
Gospels’ fell into his hands. ” ‘The Gospels’ is
the name given there to a book written once upon
a time by a certain Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
about Jesus Christ, a Messenger from our
Endlessness to that planet. “This book is widely
circulated among the three-centered beings there
who nominally exist according to the indications
of this Messenger. “And when this ‘writer’
happened to come across that book, the notion
suddenly popped into his head: ‘Why shouldn’t I
also write a gospel?’ “According to certain
investigations that I had to make for quite
different needs of mine, he must then have
deliberated as follows: ‘Am I any worse than
those ancient barbarians, Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and Johnnie? ‘At least I am more cultured than
they were, and I can certainly write a much
better gospel for my contemporaries. ‘What is
more, a gospel is the very thing that is needed
just now, because the “English” and “Americans”
have a great weakness for this book, and the rate
of exchange of their pounds and dollars is “not
half bad” just now.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
“The Institute For Man's Harmonious Development",
is due to the fact that the future
representatives of this " typicality " have
never, either with a view to the real
understanding of actuality, or in the period of
their preparatory age, or, again, in the period
of their responsible life, absolutely never, and
in spite of the obvious necessity of such a step,
laid themselves open to experience, but have
contented themselves with other people's
fantasies, forming from them illusory conceptions
and, at the same time, limiting themselves to
intercourse with those like them, and have
automatised themselves to a point of engaging
upon authoritative discussions of all kinds of
seemingly scientific, but, for the most part,
abstract themes.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
“During these uninterrupted peregrinations of
mine from place to place, and almost continuous
and intense reflection about this, I at last
formed a preliminary plan in my mind.
Liquidating all my affairs and mobilizing all my
material and other possibilities, I began to
collect all kinds of written literature and oral
information, still surviving among certain
Asiatic peoples, about that branch of science,
which was highly developed in ancient times and
called " Mehkeness ", a name signifying the "
taking away-of-responsibility ", and of which
contemporary civilisation knows but an
insignificant portion under the name of "
hypnotism ", while all the literature extant upon
the subject was already as familiar to me as my
own five fingers. Collecting all I could, I
went to a certain Dervish monastery, situated
likewise in Central Asia and where I had already
stayed before, and, settling down there, I
devoted myself wholly to the study of the
material in my possession. After two years of
thorough theoretical study of this branch of
science, when it became necessary to verify
practically certain indispensable details, not as
yet sufficiently elucidated by me in theory, of
the mechanism of the functioning of man's
subconscious sphere, I began to give myself out
to be a " healer " of all kinds of vices and to
apply the results of my theoretical studies to
them, affording them at the same time, of course,
real relief. This continued to be my exclusive
preoccupation and manifestation for four or five
years in accordance with the essential oath
imposed by my task, which consisted in rendering
conscientious aid to sufferers, in never using my
knowledge and practical power in that domain of
science except for the sake of my investigations,
and never for personal or egotistical ends, I not
only arrived at unprecedented practical results
without equal in our day, but also elucidated
almost everything necessary for me. In a short
time, I discovered many details which might
contribute to the solution of the same cardinal
question, as well as many secondary facts, the
existence of which I had scarcely suspected. At
the same time, I also became convinced that the
greater number of minor details necessary for the
final elucidation of this question must be sought
not only in the sphere of man's subconscious
mentation, but in various aspects of the
manifestations in his state of waking
consciousness. After establishing this
definitely, thoughts again began from time to
time to " swarm " in my mind, as they had done
years ago, sometimes automatically, sometimes
directed by my consciousness,—thoughts as to the
means of adapting myself now to the conditions of
ordinary life about me with a view to elucidating
finally and infallibly this question, which
obviously had become a lasting and inseparable
part of my Being. This time my reflections,
which recurred periodically during the two years
of my wanderings on the continents of Asia,
Europe and Africa, resulted in a decision to make
use of my exceptional, for the modern man,
knowledge of the so-called " supernatural
sciences ", as well as of my skill in producing
different " tricks " in the domain of these so-
called " sciences ", and to give myself out to
be, in these pseudo-scientific domains, a so-
called " professor-instructor ".”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
“think and convince the unconscious parts—as if
they were conscious—that if they hinder your
general functioning in the process of ordinary
existence, then in the period of your responsible
age they will not only be unable to enjoy the
good that is proper to them, but also your whole
presence, of which they are a part, will not be
capable of becoming a good servant of our Common
Endless Creator, and will thus be unable to pay
honorably for your arising and existence.”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
“On the planet Earth also, three-brained beings
are formed, and they too contain all the data for
higher being-bodies to be coated in them. “But in
‘strength of spirit’ they do not begin to compare
with the beings breeding on the little planet I
just mentioned The external coating of the
three-brained beings of that planet Earth closely
resembles our own, except that their skin is a
little slimier than ours Moreover, they have no
tails, and their heads are without horns But the
worst thing about them is their feet, for they
have no hoofs”
? G.I. Gurdjieff,
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