Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff




Jeanne de Salzmann; "You will see that in life you receive exactly what you give. Your life is the mirror of what you are. It is in your image. You are passive, blind, demanding. You take all, you accept all, without feeling any obligation. Your attitude toward the world and toward life is the attitude of one who has the right to make demands and to take, who has no need to pay or to earn. You believe that all things are your due, simply because it is you! All your blindness is there! None of this strikes your attention. And yet this is what keeps one world separate from another world.[...]"	Alfred Richard Orage"Religion without humanity is more dangerous than humanity without religion."	Boris Mouravieff; "... But whoever commits himself on this field of battle will still find help. It comes to him from two sides: from the depths of his being, and from outside him. In the first case, it is his absolute sincerity towards himself and the purity of the faith with which his heart is aflame."	Carlos Castaneda; "In order to keep us obedient and meek and weak, the predators engaged themselves in a stupendous maneuver - stupendous, of course, from the point of view of a fighting strategist. A horrendous maneuver from the point of view of those who suffer it. They gave us their mind! Do you hear me? The predators give us their mind, which becomes our mind. The predators' mind is baroque, contradictory, morose, filled with the fear of being discovered any minute now."

Quotes

Prison

Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff: You do not realise your own situation. You are in a prison. All you can wish for, if you are a sensible man, is to escape. But how to escape? It is necessary to tunnel under a wall. One man can do nothing. But let us suppose there are ten or twenty men - if they work in turn and if one covers another they can complete the tunnel and escape.

Furthermore, no one can escape from prison without the help of those who have escaped before. Only they can say in what way escape is possible or can send tools, files or whatever may be necessary.

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. [...] It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth.

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

Source: 'The Matrix'

Conscience

Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff: Conscience is a state in which a man feels all at once everything that he in general feels, or can feel. And as everyone has within him thousands of contradictory feelings which vary from a deeply hidden realization of his own nothingness and fears of all kinds to the most stupid kind of self-conceit, self-confidence, self-satisfaction, and self-praise, to feel all this together would not only be painful but literally unbearable.

If a man whose entire inner world is composed of contradictions were suddenly to feel all these contradictions simultaneously within himself, if he were to feel all at once that he loves everything he hates and hates everything he loves; that he lies when he tells the truth and that he tells the truth when he lies; and if he could feel the shame and horror of it all, this would be the state which is called 'conscience'. A man cannot live in this state; he must either destroy contradictions or destroy conscience. He cannot destroy conscience, but if he cannot destroy it he can put it to sleep, that is, he can separate by impenetrable barriers one feeling of self from another, never see them together, never feel their incompatibility, the absurdity of one existing alongside another.

Evolution

Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff: In speaking of evolution it is necessary to understand from the outset that no mechanical evolution is possible. The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness. And 'consciousness' cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and 'will' cannot evolve involuntarily. The evolution, of man is the evolution of his power of doing, and 'doing' cannot be the result of things which 'happen.'

Boris Mouravieff: But whoever commits himself on this field of battle will still find help. It comes to him from two sides: from the depths of his being, and from outside him. In the first case, it is his absolute sincerity towards himself and the purity of the faith with which his heart is aflame.

As for outside aid, this comes from the effects of the law which applies to every action. We have defined this law more than once by this formula: tendencies accentuate. It is popularly known, and in many countries it appears in common parlance in the maxim: only the first step counts. [...] In terms of the moral effort that must be made, it is no less difficult to steal for the first time, for example, than to practice an unaccustomed virtue. Repeated action (in this instance, partial victories over negative emotions of the same nature) creates a habit, a force of inertia.

Source: 'Gnosis II' by Boris Mouravieff

Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff: How can you expect kindness and decency on a planet of sleeping people?

Aphorisms

Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff: Like what “it” does not like.

Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff: The worse the conditions of life the more productive the Work, always provided you remember the Work.

Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff: Only he can be just who is able to put himself in the position of others.

Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff: By teaching others you will learn yourself.

Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff: One of the best means for arousing the wish to work on yourself is to realize that you may die at any moment. But first you must learn how to keep it in mind.

Samuel Johnson: When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff: Conscious love evokes the same in response. Emotional love evokes the opposite. Physical love depends on type and polarity. Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness. Hope, when bold, is strength. Hope, with doubt, is cowardice. Hope, with fear, is weakness.