Download or read book My Life J G Bennett and G I Gurdjieff written by Elizabeth Bennett and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-05-17 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author stresses at the outset that this book is a memoir, not to be confused with an autobiography. The published book is a compilation of a set of manuscripts, and the transcription of a voice recording made in the last year of her life. The text is divided into chapters, each of which gives a vignette of a particular series of events in the author's life - beginning with her sheltered childhood at Eton College; her experiences as a volunteer in the ranks, and later as an officer in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force during the Second World War; her first introduction to the ideas now known as the Fourth Way; the ten months she spent in G.I Gurdjieff's inner circle in Paris in 1949; her life and travels with her husband during the 1950s. This book gives a remarkably candid account of life impressions, and a fascinating insight into the personal lives of two great 20th century teachers. Illustrated with a selection of twenty-four of the author's own sketches in pen and watercolour.
Download or read book Idiots in Paris written by J. G. Bennett and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-09 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the few months before his death in Paris on October 29th, 1949, Gurdjieff's flat in the Rue des Colonels Rénard became the centre of his teaching. Followers of his ideas came to be with him at his table. They came to work - but in a way they could not expect. At the centre of what happened were the meals with their extraordinary rituals. Of these rituals, perhaps the most significant was the one known as the 'toast of the idiots'. The 'science of idiotism' that Gurdjieff taught portrayed the whole human situation and the hazards of attaining liberation. Day after day, Elizabeth Bennett sat with Gurdjieff, often as 'Director', having the task of declaring the right toast at the correct moment and proposing the health of corresponding individuals. Her observations are meticulously recorded in these diaries and woven together with J.G. Bennett's own commentary. The record of Mr. Bennett's struggles are a teaching in itself. There are few explanations, because this is how it really was. We are afforded a unique glimpse into the methods of a Master and much that can shatter our illusions about the nature of the spiritual life. Gurdjieff subtly revealed his mission to those who could know it. To each he gave according to capacity, never failing to strike at the very roots of self-deception in his followers. Elizabeth Bennett was born in 1918, and died 1991. The present work is a direct transcript of a diary she kept during the last 3 months of Gurdjieff's life in 1949. A fuller account of her own life is provided in her memoirs, entitled "My Life: J.G. Bennett and G.I. Gurdjieff" written in the years before her own death. Although she taught many people in her later years, she refused the title of teacher and taught by the example of humility, courage and common sense in the hard and demanding path she chose for herself.
Download or read book Idiots in Paris written by John Godolphin Bennett and published by Red Wheel. This book was released on 1991 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These diary entries from John and Elizabeth Bennett cover the few months before Gurdjieff's death in Paris on October29, 1949. Twice daily the group would go through a series of rituals, the most significant of which was known as "the toast of the idiots". This "science of idiotism" portrayed the human situation and the hazards of attaining liberation.
Download or read book Gurdjieff written by J. G. Bennett and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-07 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most complete, comprehensive account of the life and work of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, one of the greatest men of the 20th century, and the only one which attempts to describe his mission. Since Gurdjieff's death in 1949, countless books have been written describing an author's experience with him, in more or less personal detail. This is the first and only book written by an associate of Gurdjieff, presenting an overview of Gurdjieff's life, cultural background, studies, teachings, practices, cosmology, psychology and goals. The author encountered Gurdjieff first in Istanbul in 1920, saw him again in London and the Prieure, Fontainebleau, lost touch with him for 25 years and saw him again in Paris and New York in the last two years of his life. He devoted the last 25 years of his own life to researching and transmitting Gurdjieff's teachings. As the title suggests, the author identifies Gurdjieff's work as nothing less than the inauguration of a new epoch of human evolution, based upon a new understanding of the meaning of "Conscience"; a model based not upon the supremacy of the individual and humanity as a whole, but upon cooperation with both higher and lower powers. The twelve chapters and two appendices are written as a series of essays, which can be read either sequentially or separately. The second appendix gives an account of a cosmological system that is parallel to but entirely separate from the Ray of Creation described in detail in Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous.""
Download or read book Is There life on Earth written by John Godolphin Bennett and published by Bennett Publishing Company. This book was released on 1989 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Concerning Subud written by J. G. Bennett and published by . This book was released on 2016-06-09 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to the background, origins and practice of Subud, the religious practice introduced by Muhammad "Pak" Subuh in Indonesia in the 1940s, and established internationally from 1957 onwards.
Download or read book What Are We Living For written by John Godolphin Bennett and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-04-21 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: J.G. Bennett's second published book, describing some background and approach to the work of G.I. Gurdjieff, originally published the month prior to Gurdjieff's death.
Download or read book The Masters of Wisdom written by J. Bennett and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-08-05 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The Masters of Wisdom" is the last book to have been published during the John Bennett's lifetime, and is probably the most unusual, having little in common with his previously published works, except in serving a number of discrete objectives. Originally planned to be incorporated into a single volume to be entitled "Gurdjieff and the Masters of Wisdom" this work was separated from what became "Gurdjieff: Making a New World" which eventually was published a year earlier in 1973. In the last years of Bennett's life, he had been deeply affected by his close association with the Turkish mystic, Hasan Lutfi Shushud, and originally a contract was drawn up with a London publishing house for the combined work, in which both men were signed as joint authors. However, before anything was written, Shushud abruptly withdrew his support for the project, ostensibly on the grounds of a disagreement with the publishers. Only after Bennett's death in 1974, Shushud indicated privately that he found Gurdjieff's teaching and methods offensive. There is however some overlap between the two books, and "The Masters of Wisdom" draws on Gurdjieff's resources as well as material provided by Hasan Shushud. "The Masters of Wisdom" is unlike Bennett's other books not only in the way it is constructed, which appears to be somewhat out of balance, but also in the content. The first three chapters provide an overview of material presented 8 years earlier in the fourth volume of "The Dramatic Universe", of the Earth as single intelligent whole, in which humanity plays an increasingly active role and - must accept greater responsibility. These chapters provide an introduction to Chapter 4 which presents an account of the Christ Event not to be found anywhere else, and by Bennett's own account, arising out of insights vouchsafed to him privately by Gurdjieff. The next chapter serves as a bridge to the second major detailed message Bennett shares, which concerns the extraordinary period spanning at least 350 years, when a group of men within a single unbroken tradition played a pivotal and benign role in otherwise catastrophic events. It is not clear why Bennett devotes an entire chapter to Genghis Khan in a book entitled "The Masters of Wisdom" except that he appears to have been an exceptionally gifted individual whom Bennett apparently admired for his great self-control, and his willingness to accept guidance from a spiritual director. The researches Bennett completed in his last years led him to certain conclusions which may not have been fully expressed in this account. Unlike Bennett's other books, "The Masters of Wisdom" contains hidden messages, and also occult elements which are accessible to those able to access them. "Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson" and "The Dramatic Universe" showed the transformative power of books, but like "Meetings with Remarkable Men" this book imparts information which remains hidden except from those readers who find the key. The book is also unlike any of Bennett's other books in containing secret "magic" elements, opening mystical channels. Since the text was left unfinished when Bennett died, it is not possible to know for certain whether the message of the book is complete or would have included other material such as the very detailed accounts that Bennett gave to his student in the last months - the "esoteric phase" - of the Third Basic Course. Overall the message is of the planet we inhabit seen as a single indivisible whole, of which we human beings are an important element, but which is subordinate to the Cosmic forces.
Download or read book Gurdjieff Reconsidered written by Roger Lipsey and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2019-02-05 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a master biographer and longtime Gurdjieff practitioner, a brilliant new exploration of the quintessential Western esoteric teacher of the twentieth-century. The Greek-Armenian teacher G.I. Gurdjieff was one of the most original and provocative spiritual teachers in the twentieth-century West. Whereas much work on Gurdjieff has been either fawning or blindly critical, acclaimed scholar and writer Lipsey balances sympathetic interest in Gurdjieff and his "Fourth Way" teachings with a historian's sense of context and a biographer's feel for personality and relationships. Using a wide range of published and unpublished sources, Lipsey explores Gurdjieff's formative travels in Central Asia, his famed teaching institution in France, the development of the Gurdjieff Movements and music, and, above all, Gurdjieff's fascinating continuous evolution as a teacher. Published on the 70th anniversary of Gurdjieff's death, Gurdjieff Reconsidered delves deeply into Gurdjieff's writings and those of his most important students, including P. D. Ouspensky and Jeanne de Salzmann. Lipsey's comprehensive approach and unerring sense of the subject make this a must-read for anyone with a serious intention to explore Gurdjieff's life, teachings, and reputation.
Download or read book Gurdjieff written by John Godolphin Bennett and published by HP Trade. This book was released on 1969 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Long Pilgrimage written by John Bennett and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2016-03-27 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book takes the form of six essays covering the life and teachings of Shri Govindananda Bharati, known at the time of his death as the Shivapuri Baba. The first chapter describes his origins from his birth in 1826 in Kerala, his religious training and preparation and his 40 year circumambulation of the world, meeting all the major world leaders of his day, and his forty year retirement in a forest hut outside Kathmandu. Subsequent chapters, describe his practical teachings, which are so simply explained and so universal that they will always be relevant to seekers. Ancient teachings are presented in a modern interpretation. The Shivapuri Baba himself described his teachings as "the Bhagavad Gita brought up to date'. The final chapter presents a revolutionary world view which reveals an immense wisdom and understanding of human destiny, presented in a form that all can appreciate. The Shivapuri Baba left this life in January of 1963, and at that time few knew of him, and nothing at all had been written about him. The present book was the first public account of the saint, appearing in 1965. In 2001, Thakur Lal Manadhar's son Giridhar approached J.G. Bennett's family requesting the rights to republish in English and Nepali. Giridhar was able to provide a number of photographic images not published previously and many of which were from his own camera. The present edition is taken from the 2001 publication. At the launch of the book in Kathmandu in 2007, Giridhar was asked by a reporter whether the Shivapuri Baba had actually read what was written, noting that the text indicated that he had seen and approved it? Giridhar said that he believed that he had not read it, and stating that at the end of his life, the Shivapuri Baba did not want to engage with anything which would tie him to the world he was preparing to leave for the last time. To Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, visiting in 1956 he said: "I teach three disciplines: physical; moral spiritual." These disciplines form the foundation of Right Life - Swadharma, and the journals of Thakur Lal Manandhar relate how these disciplines were taught in the practical application to every day life. This is a simple but inspiring book from which everybody can benefit .
Download or read book Witness written by J. G. Bennett and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-04-23 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of a life of adventure and search, an account of meetings with great teachers, a love story, an inspirational tale of one of the greatest minds of the 20th century. John Bennett (1897-1974) had not one career but several; starting his life as a soldier and spymaster in the early years of the Middle East conflicts, Bennett moved into - and failed - in the world of finance as an adventurer and entrepreneur. He reinvented himself as a world-leading technologist and director of research. All through his adult life, his outer life was on a parallel and sometimes divergent course to his inner spiritual search under the guidance of P.D. Ouspensky and G.I. Gurdjieff. After his career in the coal industry came to an abrupt end in his sixth decade, he entered the path of a single-minded seeker. For fifteen years, he travelled widely, seeking knowledge and sharing knowledge. Although he began a written account of his ideas in 1940, it was only in the last four years of his life that he declared his willingness to teach and worked intensively with large groups of students at his International Academy for Continuous Education. Subsequent history has revealed over end over that Bennett was ahead of his time, and that he developed and presented a vision of the next stage of evolution of humanity in the Synergic Epoch.
Download or read book Gurdjieff Reconsidered written by Roger Lipsey and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2019-02-05 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a master biographer and longtime Gurdjieff practitioner, a brilliant new exploration of the quintessential Western esoteric teacher of the twentieth-century. The Greek-Armenian teacher G.I. Gurdjieff was one of the most original and provocative spiritual teachers in the twentieth-century West. Whereas much work on Gurdjieff has been either fawning or blindly critical, acclaimed scholar and writer Roger Lipsey balances sympathic interest in Gurdjieff and his "Fourth Way" teachings with a historian's sense of context and a biographer's feel for personality and relationships. Using a wide-range of published and unpublished sources, Lipsey explores Gurdjieff's formative travels in Central Asia, his famed teaching institution in France, the development of the Gurdjieff Movements and music, and, above all, Gurdjieff's fascinating continuous evolution as a teacher. Published on the 70th anniversary of Gurdjieff's death, Gurdjieff Reconsidered delves deeply into Gurdjieff's writings and those of his most important students, including P. D. Ouspensky and Jeanne de Salzmann. Lipsey's comprehensive approach and unerring sense of the subject make this a must-read for anyone with a serious intention to explore Gurdjieff's life, teachings, and reputation.
Download or read book Gurdjieff written by Joseph Azize and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-01-13 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is the first analysis of all of Gurdjieff's published internal exercises, together with those taught by his students, George and Helen Adie. It includes a fresh biographical study of Gurdjieff, with ground-breaking observations on his relationships with P.D. Ouspensky and A.R. Orage (especially, why he wanted to collaborate with them, and why that broke down). It shows that Gurdjieff was, fundamentally, a mystic, and that his contemplation-like methods were probably drawn from Mt Athos and its hesychast tradition. It shows the continuity in Gurdjieff's teaching, but also development and change. His original contribution to Western Esotericism lay in his use of tasks, disciplines, and contemplation-like exercises to bring his pupils to a sense of their own presence which could, to some extent, be maintained in daily life in the social domain, and not only in the secluded conditions typical of meditation. It contends that he had initially intended not to use contemplation-like exercises, as he perceived dangers to be associated with these monastic methods, and the religious tradition to be in tension with the secular guise in which he first couched his teaching. As Gurdjieff adapted the teaching he had found in Eastern monasteries to Western urban and post-religious culture, he found it necessary to introduce contemplation. His development of the methods is demonstrated, and the importance of the three exercises in the Third Series, Life Is Real only then, when 'I Am', is shown, together with their almost certain borrowing from the exercises of the Philokalia. G.I. Gurdjieff P.D. Ouspensky A.R. Orage George Adie Mysticism Meditation Contemplation Fourth Way Hesychasm Western Esotericism"--
Download or read book In Search of the Miraculous written by P. D. Ouspensky and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2001 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The classic exploration of Eastern religious thinking and philosophy"--Cover.
Download or read book Witness written by John Godolphin Bennett and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Talks With a Devil written by Peter Demianovich Ouspensky and published by Library of Alexandria. This book was released on 1972-01-01 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I will tell you a fairy tale,” said the Devil, “on one condition: you must not ask me the moral. You may draw any conclusion you like, but please do not question me. As it is, far too many follies are laid at our door, yet we, strictly speaking, do not even exist. It is you who create us.” My story takes place in New York some twenty-five years ago. There lived then a young man by the name of Hugh B.; I will not tell you his full name, but you will soon guess it for yourself. His name is known now to people in all five parts of the globe. But then he was completely unknown. I will start at a tragic moment in the life of this young man, when he was travelling from one of the suburbs of New York to Manhattan, with the intention of buying a revolver and then shooting himself on a lonely shore on Long Island; in a spot which had remained in his memory from the times of boyhood excursions, when he and his playmates, pretending to be explorers, had discovered unknown countries around New York. His intention was very definite and the decision final. All in all, it was a very common occurrence in the life of a big city, something encountered repeatedly; in fact, to be frank, I have had to arrange similar events thousands and tens of thousands of times. However, this time such a common beginning had a quite uncommon sequel and a most uncommon result. Nevertheless before turning to the outcome of the day, I must tell you in detail all that led up to it. Hugh was a born inventor. From early childhood, when walking with his mother in the park or playing with other children, or simply sitting quietly in a comer building with bricks or drawing monsters, he invented incessantly, constructing in his mind a variety of extraordinary contrivances, improvements for everything in the world. He derived a special satisfaction from inventing improvements and adaptations for his aunt. He would draw her with a chimney, or on wheels. For one drawing, in which this not young maiden was portrayed with six legs and other variations, the little Hugh was severely punished. It was one of his first memories. Not long after this Hugh learned first to design and then to make models of his inventions. By this time he had learnt that live people cannot be improved upon. Nevertheless his inventions were, of course, all pure fantasy: when he was fourteen, he nearly drowned himself trying out home-made water skis of his own design.
