The Gurdjieff Work in Ireland
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"The work of Gurdjieff has many aspects. But through whatever form he expresses himself, his voice is heard as a call. He calls because he suffers from the inner chaos in which we live. He calls us to open our eyes. He asks us why we are here, what we wish for, what forces we obey. He asks us, above all, if we understand what we are. He wants us to bring everything back into question. And because he insists and his insistence compels us to answer, a relationship is created between him and ourselves which is an integral part of his work."
- Jeanne de Salzmann
The Gurdjieff Work
George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff
Gurdjieff was born in Armenia around 1870. Although his first tutor was a priest, he received a scientific education, but in surroundings and a way of life that had changed little for centuries. To his questions: who am l? Why am I here? He found no answer either in religion or in science, but suspected that the truth lay hidden behind what had come down from the past in religious traditions and those strange myths and legends which he learned from his father, a traditional bard or 'ashokh'. Inspiring likeminded companions, he set out to find in Asia and Africa the truth that he sought, learning many languages, and acquiring many practical skills to earn the money for his journeys.
An ancient Teaching
In 1912 he brought to Moscow an unknown teaching, a teaching that was not a religion, nor a philosophy, but a practical teaching to be lived. To follow the way he proposed, nothing is to be believed, and life in the world is not to be renounced. It is a way in life, on which - gradually for it cannot be done all at once - everything has to be questioned - one's beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, one's whole outlook on the life of man on this Earth.
Gurdjieff in Europe
After the Russian revolution and the First World War, Gurdjieff set up an institute in France, and later taught in Paris. His book All and Everything, Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson is "an Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man", man within the scale of the universe. From a very old tradition which he rediscovered, he brought exercises and Sacred Dances based on universal laws, to stretch the pupil to the utmost in the search for harmony and awakening.