soundings

Livestream by the Gurdjieff Ensemble

The Gurdjieff Ensemble is offering the Music of G. I. Gurdjieff available through YouTube Link: https://bit.ly/3i1Dbto, starting today at 10:00 am California Time (10:00 pm Yerevan Time UTC+04). This musical event was filmed at Karahunj prehistoric archeological site in Syunik province, in Armenia.

Remembrance In Honor of Mr. Gurdjieff's Day of Birth

Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff
January 13, 1872 – October 29, 1949

Any prayer may be heard by the Higher Powers
and a corresponding answer obtained only if uttered thrice:

Firstly—for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one's parents.

Secondly—for the welfare of one's neighbor.

And only thirdly—for oneself personally.

—Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff

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Dear Friend,

Today, January 13th, is considered to be Mr. Gurdjieff's birthday.

To commemorate this event, we invite you to view the new celebratory film honoring Mr. Gurdjieff. To view the film, click here.

Remembrance In Honor of Mr. Gurdjieff's Ascent

AU REVOIR, TOUT LE MONDE!

Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff

January 13, 1872 - October 29, 1949

 

"Mr. Gurdjieff is a kind of walking God

- a planetary or even Solar God."

- A.R. Orage

The Gurdjieff Journal #63

 

The Gurdjieff Journal always produces provocative articles, linking the Fourth Way of Gurdjieff with other philosophies, spiritual ways, and contemporary life in general.  Particularly fascinating was the article on J.G Bennett, illustrating how one can become trapped as a 'perennial seeker,' exploring various ways but never really committing to any.  Here's what awaits you in the current issue; subscription info here: http://www.gurdjiefflegacy.org/10journal/gurdjieffjournal.php#Subscribe

The Question of The Soul  Part II

J. G. Bennett's Legacy  Part I

The Kantian Connection

Personas & the Inner Animal

Film Review: Mirror, Mirror on the Screen

Book Review: Mind & Cosmos

East Coast Seminar with William Patrick Patterson of Gurdjieff Legacy

A seminar on Gurdjieff's Esoteric Teaching of the Fourth Way will be given on Memorial Day weekend, May 23-26, 2014 in Morristown NJ.  

William Patrick Patterson was a direct student of Lord John Pentland, the man Gurdjieff chose to lead the Work in America.  He has actived studied and practiced the teaching for forty-five years, and is the author of nine books on the Fourth Way.

This will be Mr. Patterson's only East Coast seminar this year; early registration is encouraged. 

More info here: http://www.gurdjiefflegacy.org/20announce/events.php?page=2

Fourth Way talk and workshop in Baltimore, January 2014

William Patrick Patterson, longtime student and teacher in the genuine lineage of G.I. Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teaching, will give a talk and workshop in Baltimore, MD.

On Friday January 17, Mr. Patterson will speak on his new book Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff–The Man, The Teaching, His Mission, as well as the theme The Secrets of How to Use Technology and Not be Abused By It.  The following morning there will be an experiential workshop.

Registration and more info here: http://www.gurdjiefflegacy.org/20announce/events.php

New book from William Patrick Patterson: Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff–The Man, The Teaching, His Mission

This is the author's ninth and final book on the Fourth Way teaching, which he has practiced himself for forty-four years.  The aim is to give an objective, panoramic view of Gurdjieff's life and his struggle to establish this esoteric teaching in the West.  Includes never-before-published materials from the archives of Gurdjieff's direct students.

Purchase and more info here:
http://www.gurdjiefflegacy.org/30books/fourth.php?page=2

Gurdjieff Legacy event in Yellow Springs, Ohio: Glimpses of Gurdjieff's Fourth Way

Thursday, November 21, 2013, 6:30 p.m.

Enchanted by technology, we give our power to the mechanical side of ourselves, thereby hindering our spiritual growth. We know what to do but don't know how to be able to do it. Gurdjieff taught the "how" and "how to be able." For a glimpse of this seminal teaching join us as we work together to understand, to listen, to be.

Admission: Free

Community Library
415 Xenia Ave
Yellow Springs, Ohio 45387
(800) 470-3086

Led by William Patrick Patterson (longtime student of Lord John Pentland), Gurdjieff Legacy is a wolrdwide organization dedicated to furthering Gurdjieff's seminal teaching of Being and Understanding.

http://www.gurdjiefflegacy.org/20announce/events.php?page=2

Gurdjieff Legacy announces winter seminar in Santa Barbara

William Patrick Patterson is a teacher in the direct lineage of Mr. G.I. Gurdjieff.  His teaching combines simple, direct explanation with a deep guided experiencing of body, heart, and mind.

Mr. Patterson is a leading exponent of the Fourth Way as the teaching for our time, one which will enable deep human experiencing and Sacred Conscience in an increasingly technological-capitalist age.

Each seminar explores a specific theme through Fourth Way practices.  The theme of the most recent seminar was:

Silence is not Silent,

Space is not Empty,

Time is not Time,

Love is not Love,

You are not You

Reads something like an esoteric Rumi poem I think ...

The winter seminar will be held in early December in Santa Barbara, CA.   Those interested will find more info here: 

http://www.gurdjiefflegacy.org/20announce/events.php?page=2

New Dawn review of Gurdjieffian William Patrick Patterson's Adi Da study

ADI DA SAMRAJ REALIZED OR/AND DELUDED?

By William Patrick Patterson

This is the first critical study of Adi Da Samraj, examining the facts of his life and avoiding the sensationalism of “cult busting“ or the hagiographies of his devotees.

What are we to make of Adi Da? He began as simply Franklin Jones (born in 1939) and ended his life claiming to be an avatar, a perfect incarnation of the universe in whose very presence illumination would be achieved without effort. He lived on his own island near Fiji and from there spread his message as the ultimate guru. His books became more and more obscure with their the own unique grammar and terminology. He may be strangely compelling but was he a voice of enlightenment? That’s the question William Patterson sets out to answer.

Jones’ early training was through his own drug based experiences, then with Albert Rudolph who taught Kundalini Yoga and his own version of Gurdjieff's Fourth Way. Jones continued to study a myriad of systems from the Lutheran form of Christianity to Scientology. Under Swami Muktananda he had many visions and experiences which led him to develop his own unique teaching and the publication of his first books.

In 1972 he opened Ashram Books (later called Dawn Horse Books) and offered his first public teachings. He broke with all his teachers and offered his own path to experiencing the divine including a method of breaking traditional sexual mores with a Western form of Tantra.

He attacked the “cult of pairs” and notions of marriage which ultimately led to the so-called "Saturday Night Massacre“— the night when he initiated new teachings on relationships. The radical methods he used shocked his bourgeois followers, but it did have parallels with crazy wisdom traditions in Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as the heterodox sexual method of Tantra. Using such methods on Westerners brought problems including all manner of legal cases.

In 1979 he declared himself Da Free John, an incarnation of god, and in 1983 moved to Naitauba Island, Fiji. Celebrated by some, he was more often attacked by others, and he gradually withdrew from the outside world. He never believed the world truly understood his teachings, and died a sad figure on 28 November 2008, aged 69.

Following   an exhaustive biography that is objective and critical, William Patterson presents a clear and insightful analysis of Adi Da’s teachings. He points out what he sees as misunderstandings within Adi Da’s teachings, and the cost of his crazy wisdom approach.

While his teachings can be seen in terms of the more radical forms of Hindu and Buddhist Tantra, one has to wonder if Adi Da fully appreciated the devastating effect of these methods. Or perhaps the sheer power of these unleashed metaphysical forces overwhelmed self-discipline. Any Tantric technique demands immense WilI and self control, otherwise the practitioner will be outmanoeuvred by the Ego, the very thing they are trying to transcend. It seems that ultimately Adi Da became ensnared between the two.

Patterson offers a challenging examination of Adi Da and leaves it for the reader to make Judgments. The question often dealt with is how to understand Adi Da’s supposed illumination with his narcissism and extreme behaviour, that continued for so long after it had supposedly served its purpose of shocking his students out of their mental chains. It is one thing to use sex to shock your students; it is another to become seemingly addicted to the path of excess, overtaken by the power of indulgence, or Tamas in Hindu terms.

Adi Da Samraj, Realized or/and Deluded? is a critical and well researched examination  of Adi Da, his crazy wisdom and heterodox techniques, and the human costs.

- Robert Black

New Dawn, September-October 2013