УМСТВЕННАЯ ОБСТАНОВКА (№ 7) — Г. И. Гурджиев

MENTAL FURNITURE #7 - G. I. Gurdjieff

"If a man could understand all the horror of the lives of ordinary people who are turning round in a circle of insignificant aims, if he could understand what they are losing, he would understand that there can only be one thing that is serious for him - to escape from the general law, to be free. What can be serious for a man in prison who is condemned to death? Only one thing: How to save himself, how to escape: nothing else is serious." - G.I. Gurdjieff

It was late in the morning or perhaps it was late in the afternoon and Moshe was concluding an interview with a writer for Psychology Today:

Writer: "It would seem that your ideas and your methods have much in common with the work of Milton Erickson."

Moshe: "Oh yes, that's true. I have a tremendous degree of respect for his work. And I met him. Margaret Mead introduced us. But, you know, while one can see similarities in my work to Milton Erickson's, the person I feel I have the most kinship with is (G.I.) Gurdjieff."

The interview was never published. The writer moved on to the NY Times. Maybe someone, say Franz Wurm, can shed light on Moshe's relationship to the Gurdjieff "Work" and the Gurdjieff community. Was it direct or indirect? Historical fact: Moshe met Ida Rolf at a conference put on by the noted student of Gurdjieff, J.G. Bennett.

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff was born 1872? 1877? in the Caucasus region of what is now Russia. The so called "rascal sage" heralded the coming of ancient and esoteric Eastern teachings to the West. Neither a modernist nor a purveyor of any "isms," he rather proclaimed there to be eternal Truths (with a capital T), that there are people who know and live those Truths and that Objective knowledge of the Real is possible. His work lives on in various guises amongst groups that are not so much secret as private. Much has been written about Gurdjieff. If you choose, you can find Gurdjieffian books in almost any esoteric bookstore or in regular bookstore in their religion or spiritual sections. Moshe recommended reading A.R. Orage's Psychological Exercises and P.D. Ouspensky's, In Search of the Miraculous. Perhaps some of the flavor will come through. But, knowing how difficult it would be to fully comprehend the Feldenkrais Method by reading our books, you can be assured it would be much more difficult to understand Gurdjieff's work through books alone. And as a flavor it DID figure into Moshe's stew.