famous mystic George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1872-1949) was born on the border between Armenia and Turkey, his mother was Armenian and his father - a Greek.In childhood Gurdjieff met with different kinds of mysticism and magic folk who used the inhabitants of his home town: Armenians, Kurds, Turks, Greeks and Russian.Half of his life, he studied Sufism, Buddhism and Eastern Christianity, collecting fragments of ancient knowledge, sometimes even self-organizing archaeological excavations.
At age 11 he ran away from home and became an eternal wanderer.He was looking for ancient wisdom on the open spaces of Africa, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Tibet, India, Russia, Egypt.Crook Gurdjieff penetrated into the essence of the secret teachings.
With a group of friends who called themselves "seekers of truth" in the 16 years he went to the East, in a three-year journey through Central Asia, then reached Ethiopia,
Solomon Islands.During the trip, he constantly studied mysticism.Especially greatly influenced his becoming a master of the Sufi orders.
Even as a young man, Gurdjieff learned with incredible precision to predict the future.He did it while sitting between two candles and staring intensely into the thumb nail as long as did not come into a state of trance and could see the future in her fingernail.
more than 10 years, Gurdjieff lived in Tibet.There he developed a huge mental and spiritual abilities.For example, tens of miles he could kill a yak.But Gurdjieff vowed: never, for any purpose, except research and treatment, do not use their amazing abilities.But along the way he has achieved remarkable success.Once Gurdjieff literally pulled from the world of his student, dies during a typhus epidemic in Tiflis, completely giving him all his life force.
According to some reports, Gurdjieff was a mentor to young Dalai Lama and held important positions in the financial Tibetan authorities.
He arrived in Moscow in 1912-13. And was able to quickly gather a small group of students.In 1915 there was a meeting of Gurdjieff with other seekers of mystical truths - PD Assumption, 37-year-old talented journalist and philosopher, author of several works on mysticism and also traveler.The alliance with the latter group increased the number of Moscow and spawned a group in St. Petersburg.
Catching up with the students his famous technique of self-development, Gurdjieff woke them at night at any time and taught them to be "frozen", no matter what position they have not proven at this time.At public sessions it looked.Troupe students on his team was unfolding in the back of the stage facing the audience.Another team - and the students rush to the ramp.Gurdjieff turns and smokes.The human avalanche flies through the air across the orchestra, landing on an empty chairs on the floor, the bodies pile up on each other and freeze in complete immobility and silence.Interestingly, then none of them had the slightest scratch!
This, of course, were tricks.But they needed to Gurdjieff to attract new students, he taught telepathy, hypnosis, clairvoyance, and the main thing - to convince them that these techniques make a person a free person, choose the "fourth way", going up to this way of the fakir, the monk andYogis.
After the revolution, a group of his students left Russia.Under his leadership, they made the difficult journey on foot through the mountains to Tiflis.When the revolution reached Georgia, they crossed the border, reached Constantinople, then in Berlin, and finally, after a few years of hardship, Paris.Here Gurdjieff decided to settle for the year to raise the money needed for the purchase of the Castle Avon near Fontainebleau, where he founded the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man.
One of the most powerful and famous mystical practices left Gurdjieff and actively transmitted to this day all over the world are the "Sacred Movement" ("Gurdjieff Dances"), partially based on the dances of the peoples of Asia that Gurdjieff studied during his numerous trips.Gurdjieff movements and dances were conceived by him as serving two purposes: 1) the transfer of certain knowledge, for example, the laws of the universe;2) the achievement of certain changes in the practice of the Movement of students, in particular - the higher states of consciousness.
