Teachings of Gurdjieff: A Pupil's Journal

249 Pages·2017·1.322 MB·English

by  Charles Stanley Nott

C. S. Nott
TEACHINGS OF GURDJIEFF
A PUPIL’S JOURNAL
An Account of
Some Years With
G. I. Gurdjieff and A. R. Orage
in New York and
at Fontainebleau-Avon
ARKANA
PENGUIN BOOKS
ARKANA
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
First published by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd 1961
Published by Arkana 1990
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4
Copyright © C. S. Nott, 1961
All rights reserved
Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject
to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
CONTENTS
PREFACE page IX
PROLOGUE Xi
I. NEW YORK AND FONTAINEBLEAU 1923-5 1
II. NEW YORK AND FONTAINEBLEAU I925-6 88
III. ORAGe’s COMMENTARY ON ‘BEELZEBUb’ 125
IV. FONTAINEBLEAU I928 2X6
POSTSCRIPT 224
INDEX 229

PREFACE
IT IS NOW over thirty-five years since I first came in touch with the
Gurdjieff system. This journal, begun in 1924, is a partial record of my
early years of work (1923 to 1928) with G. I. Gurdjieff and A. R.
Orage. It is not an exposition of the system, but a relation of my own
experience of some of the acts and sayings of these two men, compiled
from diaries and hundreds of pages of notes. It is sequential rather than
chronological; many talks were repeated, sometimes at long intervals,
and from different aspects and in different forms.
In compiling this journal I have had in mind the increasing number of
people who are becoming interested in the ideas of George Ivanovitch
Gurdjieff. Those who are unacquainted with his teaching may find
some of the terms and expressions used confusing; at the same time
there is much that will interest many , who are dissatisfied with our
present way of existence. Some of them may wish to read Gurdjieff’s
own Book Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson: an Objectiue Impartial
Criticism of the Life of Man.
When I first met Gurdjieff and Orage I was immature, naive, and
restless, with no knowledge of real ideas; and I can never be grateful
enough to Gurdjieff for his infmite patience in those early years, and to
the older pupils around him for their guidance, especially A. R. Orage,
Dr Stjoernval, and Thomas de Hartmann, who later became my close
friends and, as it were, elder brothers. I am no longer young; in my
varied existence I have experienced almost all that ordinary life has to
offer—both what is called good and what is called bad. And I can see
now that whatever I have been able to achieve for my own being and
understanding, whatever of reality I have been able to cognize and
comprehend, I owe to Gurdjieff and his system and method. They have
given me a centire of gravity and a real aim, and with Paul I can say
‘Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift’.
ix
PREFACE
Cosmology and cosmogony, the creation and maintenance of the
universe, the laws of Three and Seven, the causes of man’s degeneration
and the means for his redemption, eschatology—the four last things:
detailed explanations of all these may be found in Gurdjieff’s book All
and Everything (Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson), an objective work
of art of the first magnitude. P. D. Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miracu­
lous; Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, while not in the category of
objective art, is nevertheless a masterpiece of objective reporting of
Gurdjieff’s talks in Russia. As an introduction to Gurdjieff’s system it
can never be equalled. But while study of the Fragments gives know­
ledge alone—though of a high order—study of Beelzebub’s Tales gives
both knowledge and ‘understanding’.
Briefly, the Gurdjieff system comprises writings; sacred dances,
movements, and exercises; music; and the ijiner teaching. GurdjiefF’s
writings are arranged in three series: The first, Beelzebub's Tales', the
second,Meetings with Remarkable Mew, the third, Lj/e is Real Only When
‘I Am’. The first was published in 1950, the second is available in French
though not in Enghsh, the third has not been published; some of the
music has been published.
Gurdjieff collected a large number of sacred dances, folk-dances, and
exercises in the Near and Far East; and he himself composed many
dances and movements, a number of them based on the symbol of the
ermeagram. He also composed and collected a great many pieces of
music, which were harmonized under his supervision by Mr de Hart­
mann. Many of these dances and musical compositions are objective
art.
A knowledge of the theory of the system may be acquired from
books; and indeed every serious enquirer should read Beelzebub’s Tales
and Fragments of an Unknown Teaching. But the inner teaching, which
includes practical work—the Method—can be imparted only to special
groups by teachers who have themselves been through long periods of
intensive work.
The first part of the present book consists chiefly of accounts of work
with Gurdjieff; the second of Orage’s commentary in the New York
group; while the third is a kind of sequel to and result of the first two.
C. s. NOTT
PROLOGUE
EVEN WHEN quite a young child in the Hertfordshire village where I
was brought up, there often seemed to me to be something strange and
even absurd in the behaviour of grown-up people; their attitude to one
another in public, and what they said about each other in private, did
not agree. As I grew up I bccame more aware of the diff erence between
hfe as I thought it ought to be and as it actually was. In time, of course,
I had to begin to accept it. ‘Perhaps,’ I wondered, ‘it may be not life,
not the grown-ups, but I that am wrong.’ Yet something in me would
not entirely accept this. As a boy, I imagined that there must be some
place where I should be content; that I would find satisfaction in a job,
or in a religion other than that of the Methodist chapel. I loved my
home and my parents, yet I was seldom satisfied. Whether because of
something in my heredity or of the influence of the planets at my con­
ception and birth, or a mixture of these, I do not know; but an inner
restlessness and dissatisfaction with what I happened to be doing on the
one hand, or with circumstances on the other, gave me no inner peace;
there was always the unformulated question ‘What is life for?’
At the age of six I bought my first book; its title, oddly enough, was
Johnny’s Search.
I left school at the age of thirteen, having learnt literally nothing—
for I read and wrote without having been taught—and went from one
job to another, always asking what life was for. At the age of eighteen,
I wandered to Tasmania, then to New Zealand, Austraha, and Canada,
working on sheep-stations and farms, and at other physical jobs. In
1914, when I was living on a small island off the coast of British Colum­
bia, the first World War broke out. I joined up at once, to become one
of the millions of youths and young men who were swept up in that
collective catastrophe; and in 1917 I was invalided out of the trenches
in France. It was then that I began to think seriously about the meaning
of life.
PROLOGUE
Although I had had a religious upbringing and as a youth had been a
Sunday-school teacher and lay preacher (literally a ‘God-fearing’ young
man), organized religion had now no content for me, nor could it give
me a satisfying answer to the questions that arose in me as a consequence
of the disillusionment resulting from the war, in which, it seemed, one’s
life or death often depended on the whim of some vain, stupid man
who happened to be in authority. The stupidity and absurdity of so
much of ordinary life was as nothing compared with the colossal
stupidities of war, when thousands lost their lives through someone’s
vanity, or pride. I used to ask myself, ‘Why must men suffer like this?
Why do the politicians and papers pour out lies? Why is life lived in an
atmosphere of lies?’ I met only one man, George Bernard Shaw, with
whom I had several talks, who was ready to admit that the war was a
ghastly business, and that there was something strangely wrong with
men’s attitude to war and to life in general. To him it was as if we were
living in a limatic asylum.
There must, I felt, be someone, or some teaching, that could give a
clear answer to my questions. And one day, in the last year of the war,
the conviction came that I should find this teacher or teaching; but that
I should have to search, and the most likely place to find one or the
other would be in the Far East. After the armistice I set off, and for two
years worked my way round the world, visiting America, Japan,
China, Malaya, Burma, India, Egypt, and Italy; but though I had many
interesting experiences, met men and religions of all kinds, and saw
many wonderful sights, I did not discover either the teacher or the
teaching that in my inner being I felt would satisfy me.
I returned to England better in health, though still suffering from the
effects of trench-fever and shell-fire. Financial success now came to me
through, business relations with Vierma, where I spent the best part of
a year. Money came easily; and I was able to live as a young ‘man about
town’. Also I ‘took up’ social reform and became a resident of Toynbee
Hall. There, an opportunity came to work with a relief mission in
Russia, in the Ukraine. Here, with the peasants, I spent one of the most
interesting years of my life, for the disease of Communism had not yet
come to the district where I was. Returning to England, I soon found
myself in the hterary and bookish world, and moving in the ‘highest
society’. Everything that an ambitious young man could ask for came
my way, including a public career, backed by people with family,
money, and influence. In a sense it was satisfying, but the satisfaction
was accompanied by a profound dissatisfaction. I seemed to be heading
xii
PROLOGUE
for a blind alley. I felt that all my experiences were as nothing, a mere
background. I must find the Magic Book of the Russian fairy-tales, the
Magic Ring, the Golden Bough; something that would give me a clue
to the meaning of life.
At this time I came across a somiet of Barnabe Barnes which des­
cribed my inner state. So vivid was the impression it made that I must
have read it a hundred times. It is from Parthenophil and Parthenophe
( ):
1593
Ah, sweet Content! Where is thy mild abode?
Is it with Shepherds, and light-hearted Swains
Which sing upon the downs, and pipe abroad
Tending their flocks and catrie on the plains?
Ah, sweet Content! Where dost diou safely rest?
In heaven, with angels, which the praises sing
Of him that made, and rules at His behest
The minds and hearts of every living thing?
Ah, sweet Content! Where doth thine harbour hold?
Is it in churches, with religious men,
Wliich please the gods with prayers manifold.
And in their studies meditate it then?
Whether thou dost in heaven or earth appear.
Be where thou wilt. Thou wilt not harbour here!
Suddenly—and imreasonably as it seemed—I gave up my life in Eng­
land. Actually I was constrained by something within me, something
which had been set going by a chance conversation; and in October
1923 I sailed for New York, where I got work in a bookshop, with the
idea of eventually starting one there myself The shop ‘The Sunwise
Turn’, was a kind of cultural centre, which attracted the young writers,
artists, poets, and musicians of the time. My week-ends I spent with
intellectual friends at Croton on Hudson, discussing and disputing
about how the world ought to be run. My situation and inner state
repeated themselves as they had been in London.
Meeting so many people and absorbing so many new impressions, I
forgot that I had been looking for a teaching, a new way. But wherever
we go, whatever we do, we carry on our backs Sinbad’s ‘old man of the
sea’. Though we may forget him for a time, he never lets go, for he is
part of ourselves.
xiii
PROLOGUE
So, after some three months of the ceaseless round of the social, cul­
tural, and business activity of New York, I again began to experience
the inner emptiness. And it was then that through the apparently
chance appearance of an Enghshman, A. R. Orage, everything became
changed for me.
XIV