Has anyone ever heard of Gurdjieff or the Fourth way?
What do you make of it?
IMHO, it’s pretty much rubbish. It’s a hodgepodge of ideas swiped from other occult traditions, presented in a convoluted, incomprehensible manner. Spiritual truth is not complex, certainly not as complex as Gurdjieff makes it.
I only know one person who studied Gurdjieff seriously, she was even involved with a study group and did all his mental exercises. When it was time to develop her “watcher” she had a psychotic break, a complete meltdown. For this reason, I must recommend stuff like Gurdjieff only to the most experienced psychic and philosophical explorers. I would recommend you start with something simpler but in the same general vein, like Theosophy.
I know some people who study Gurdjieff’s philosophy, but they don’t like to talk about it, so I can’t tell you much. I don’t think they’re being secretive so that they can feel superior to others or because it makes them feel ‘cooler’; I get the impression that the concepts are based on experiences and mental exercises (which they call “The Work” and that trying to put things into laymen’s terms is counterproductive to their progress.
I’ve also hear that Gurdjieff would intentionally mislead or misrepresent his philosophy to newbies. Not with evil intent, but apparently if people weren’t ready to learn certain ideas, he would lead them down a certain path to bring about their mental evolution. And some ideas are really only effective when they are discovered by the individual, and not spoon-fed by a ‘guru’.
I’ve read some of his books, but I never really knew if I was reading the real thing or the public release version. What I did read didn’t really attract me enough to pursue it further.
As I said, these are my impressions. Hopefully someone in ‘The Work’ will correct me if I’m wrong and tell us more. I certainly hope I don’t come across as critical of this philosophy.
While some of the ideas I read about struck me as ‘out there’, I must say that my friends who are into this are NOT gullible nutjobs. On the contrary, they are the type of people who will question dogma and come to their own conclusions and they are more spiritual than the average individual. IMHO.