[.ca] The Teachers of Gurdjieff (ISBN 1883536162)

The book that launched a thousand quests...:
'The Teachers of Gudjieff' is one of those rare books that touches people so deeply that it can really be said to transform lives. It's astonishing how often I meet people who say: 'I didn't really know what I was looking for until I came across a book...' and I know what is coming next. That book inevitably turns out to be either Rafael Lefort's 'The Teachers of Gurdjieff' or Idries Shah's 'The Sufis'. The irony of 'The Teachers of Gurdjieff' is that it isn't really about Gurdjieff at all. Instead it is a series of snapshots of the Sufi tradition, presented through a constellation of extraordinary characters who 'Lefort' meets as he tries to locate the source of Gurdjieff's teaching. Some simple calculations will reveal that none of these men could actually have been Gurdjieff's teachers - but that is hardly the point. Gurdjieff is only a convenient hanger for a semi-fictional narrative that was really intended to present Sufism as a comprehensive, sophisticated living teaching. And when such a fascinating, rich tapestry is unfurled before us, who cares about Gurdjieff anyway? 'The Teachers of Gurjieff' introduced a slew of ideas about what the Sufis were really doing that were completely unknown in the West of the 1960s. These included the passing of disciples from master to master, 'craft' formats for imparting the teaching, the ability to carry on the teaching whilst not in physical contact, the 'instrumental' use of texts and many other things besides. It also, controversially, highlighted some of the numerous similarities between the Sufi way and the teaching of Christ. So there was something there to outrage Gurdjieffians, academic experts on 'Sufism' (who believed they already knew what it was) and Churchmen as well - if they weren't prepared to let 'The Teachers...' show them the limitations of some of their pre-conceived ideas. And that *was* the point - for those who let it, the effect of 'The Teachers' was (and is still) bracing and salutory, overturning fixed thinking and making room for new flexibility. Inevitably 'The Teachers of Gurdjieff' fuelled expectations of a new phase of Sufi teaching in the West - expectations that were met during his lifetime by the work of Idries Shah. And Shah's books remain the definitive statement of the Sufi way for our times. But for those inspired by 'The Teachers...' to make contact with a functioning school, books such as Juan Sgolastra's 'The Way' and Marco Santello's 'Between Heaven and Earth' might now prove a fruitful next step.

Setting the Stage for Idries Shah:
By now it seems almost certain that the author of this book was actually Idries Shah, who went on to make a name for himself as one of the most visible proponents of Sufism in the West (the recommended reading list at the end of the book lists twenty-two books by Idries Shah and no one else). Although Idries Shah's bona fides as a teacher have been questioned in various forums (see for example Peter Washington's "Madame Blavatsky's Baboon") he seems to have been accepted by many as a legitimate teacher - that is to say, someone who is who carrying on an authentic time-tested spiritual tradition which has been passed on to him by teachers who themselves had been accepted as authentic bearers of a spiritual tradition. Whether he was in fact an authentic teacher of a pre-existing tradition I myself am not qualified to say. I will say that "The Teacher's of Gurdjieff" is not only a highly readable book but also one from which is it possible to extract a few worthwhile nuggets of insight. Brief - 146 pages of large type - and written in a deceptively simply style, the book purports to be a search for and interviews with Sufi teachers who claimed to have taught the great twentieth century magus George Gurdjieff. As with Gurdjieff's own book, "Meetings with Remarkable Men" it is not quite clear if the characters introduced are real living men who the writer actually met and conversed with or simply creative inventions serving his didactic purposes. Whichever, in the course of the author's meetings with these purported teachers of Gurdjieff in the souks, bazaars, tea houses, shops, and mosques of Adana, Baghdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Aleppo, Istanbul, Tabriz, Konia, Meshed, Kandahar, Peshwar, Jelalabad, and elsewhere, he eventually comes to a final conclusion about Gurdjieff's teachings, of which he had been a follower. "Upon anguished reflection," he tells us, "I could no longer belief that Gurdjieff's message was a complete one. That he was sent to prepare an area for a certain purpose I did not doubt." The purpose was to inject, or perhaps reinject, Sufi teachings into the mainstream of Western thought. The purpose of this book was to finally put Gurdjieff to rest and set the stage for the appearance of the next big Sufi-oriented teacher in the West - Idries Shah himself. As such it was a masterstroke, as witnessed by the continuing popularity of Idries Shah's teachings. Definitely worth reading, but keep a few grains of salt handy.

Nonsense & Rubbish:
Lynn Andrews, Carlos Castenada, Aryel Sanat, Marlo Morgan, Joseph Smith and now Rafael Lefort aka Indries Shah joins the nefarious crowd of esoteric historical revisionists. If there is a neither world, then there must be a special place for those that create history to fit their egoic/selfish aims. Read any of the above authors to see how to rewrite history for your own agenda. But avoid them like the plague if you seek inner growth & fresh illumination.

Manufacturing credentials:
Although it is hardly surprising or even noteworthy that a figure such as Gurdjieff should have some 'sufi' influences in his background, those offered here in evidence constitute a fabrication, if not a plain 'pack of lies'. This apparently pseudonymous work, said to have been written by Idries Shah, is therefore without merit as an indication of anything to do with Gurdjieff's all too obviously shady background, which included some illegal activity. A telling sign in any false or deceiving teacher is the reluctance to show his true biography. And that left the field for this \osham\c. Times change. At one point the sufi background of Gurdjieff seemed a point to advertise. A later generation knows better, and would take it as a warning about sufistic tactics. The 'sufis' might soon change their story and disown him, and in general the legacy of disinformation connected with sufism has accumulated to the point where only a fool would trust this path. In any case, there is an irony here, Gurdjieff as expose of the sufi mafia. So, this is the way these folks do business. What else are they up to? Trogoautoegocratic sacrifices? Watch out! Take it from the veterans. Find another path.

Excellent Book, very beneficial!:
This is a very good book for those people who are interested in the teachings of Gurdjieff. It is a story about a young man from Paris who is studying in a Gurdjieff group. After being in the group and realizing that he is making little progress and that some of the group's main principles contradict much of what Gurdjieff himself taught, he becomes disillusioned. Selling everything he decides to travel to the Middle East in order to find the men who taught Gurdjieff. After interchanges with fellow pupils and teachers of Gurdjieff (some very old) he begins to realize that what Gurdjieff learned was transmitted to him by certain people, in a certain form, at a certain time and for a specific purpose. He learns that the same thing Gurdjieff learned cannot be transmitted to him in the same way because he is a different man, in a different time and from a different culture. As his search continues he realizes that what he began searching for is not necessarily what he needs and what he needs is not necessarily what he wants. A very interesting, funny and illuminating book for the reader who can set aside his assumptions about Gurdjieff. For those who do care, Gurdjieff did study in Sufi orders. However, this book is not as specific in giving all of the details about when, where, what and with whom that Gurdjieff studied, but there are plenty of other facts in other books that do tell. For instance, all of the following longstanding Sufi physical and mental exercises were employed by Gurdjieff: the Sufi Quiff or "stop" exercise(see In Search of the Miraculous by PD Ouspensky & see The Sufis by Idries Shah or Among the Dervishes by OM Burke), the heart to heart method of teaching or "the talk of angels" -- a form of instruction where the teacher's voice speaks inside the disciple's chest (see In Search of... and Shah's "Dermis Probe"), eastern hypnosis combined with a breathing exercise used to cure physical illnesses ---Gurdjieff used this to cure cancer, alcoholism and smoking, this technique came from the prophet, is referenced in the Koran and has been used by Sufi doctors since (see In Search of the Miraculous by PD Ouspenksy and The World of the Sufis edited by Idries Shah), the enneagram or nine angle figure is a symbol that has been used in the Sarmoun Brotherhood and by Sufis of all orders for a very long time (see In Search of the Miraculous, Gurdjieff's Meetings with Remarkable Men, Idries Shah's Commanding Self and OM Burke's Among the Dervishes), the wisdoms of the Sufi teaching master Mullah Nasrudin are used repeatedly by Gurdjieff in his opus Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson (see Beelzebub's and Idries Shah's the Adventures of Mullah Nasrudin '3 books of tales'), the teaching that man is asleep and a machine is a very eastern, particularly Sufi concept to be found in almost all Sufi books in one form or another (see In Search of the Miraculous by PD Ouspensky and Hakim Sanai's The Walled Garden of Truth and Idries Shah's "The Sufis", chapter 1 entitled "The Islanders") and The Fourth Way is what the Naqshbandiyya order of dervishes, founded around the memory of Bahuddin Naqshband, has been called for a long time....Gurdjieff was a member of this order. in addition to these, there are many other facts that point to Gurdjieff employing Sufic techniques. This book will give you some facts about Gurdjieff, but it is by no means all true and to be taken literally. The Sufis make no claims on Gurdjieff as some people believe. They even go so far as to say that Gurdjieff's pupils did not progress because he had not learned the Sufi dictum "time, place and certain people" before he began to teach (see Idries Shah in The Way of the Sufi). Nevertheless, his life and this book are very interesting from the standpoint that HE did progress as hopefully we all can. pick it up!