Gurdjieff Society of Virginia

04/20/2026

A Natural Bridge

“MR. Gurdjieff”: The sadness one sometimes glimpsed in his eyes was that of all teachers faced with the impossibility of transmitting the truth. At the Prieuré, he seemed like an oriental prince; he was the intractable master. Later, toward the end of his life, years after his accident and the closing of the Prieuré, having finished his work as a writer, he placed himself completely at the service of his pupils and appeared even greater in stature, immense in his simplicity and renunciation. Dependent on all, he served each of them; this was freedom.
Gurdjieff made it clear that there existed a source teaching at the root of what he transmitted: a knowledge having the status of an objective science. He is thus like a bridge thrown down between ourselves and the world of objective reality, and this compels us to realize something essential: that, being the bridge, he thereby escaped being taken by us as the goal. It would be wrong of us, therefore, to betray him by making a god out of him. We must not make his teaching into a new religion. To me he appears all the greater for having known how to remain the one who prepares the way, indifferent to praise and blame alike.

Gurdjieff insisted on the fact that man forgets himself by forgetting the seed that is within him, by turning his back on reality, which is the One. In so doing he increases his suffering, worsens the state he is in, hastens his own downfall and that of his fellow men and adds to the suffering of the Creator, for, in some way, the Creator is he himself.

The only direction is: to connect. Our role, the role of man, is to understand the laws that govern the universe in order not to transgress them and to allow, if not to assist in, the process of transmutation. Shun all that dissipates, go toward what unites; flee from what dilutes, seek what concentrates; shun what degrades energy. Every being, at its own level, should “incarnate” the bridge between what is above and what is beneath itself. Man should find these three levels within himself. “Mr. Gurdjieff” came to bear witness, to remind, to make known, to prepare, to connect, to enable the link to be made.

A teaching is a two-way channel linking Heaven and earth, the invisible and the visible; the “visible” being everything in the universe revealed to us by our sense organs, and the “invisible” being what other, more discerning, organs of perception enable us to perceive beyond the surface, which until then seemed to be the sole reality. To say that a teaching belongs to the monastic way or to the “fourth way” means nothing more than to indicate the form, the particular section, the access point to the channel. Through the channel an influence can pe*****te and be conveyed further. The channel itself is of course made up of forms, but even more so of individuals. Forms or conditions or exercises, people of different levels of being forming an unbroken succession—and it is precisely because it is a channel that there must be no interruption. It could also be said that these individuals act as a junction or a link, that they are like neurons joined one to the next to form a circuit, along which a current can pass.
~Michel Conge Facing Mr. Gurdjieff

04/05/2026

DISREGARD THE OBSTACLES, FOCUS ON THE SELF
Bhagavan: Don't focus on things that get in the way, trying to get rid of them, focus on the fact that you are already the Self and that the other things are only fictions created by your mind; dwell not on multiplicity and the Divine in each, but on the only One, nothing else existing.
Bhagavan Sri Ramana to Ethel Merston, A Woman's Work, p. 175

“The child wants to have, the adult wants to be. The wish to be is behind all my manifestations. To learn to see is the first initiation into self-knowledge. We struggle not against something, we struggle for something. I believe I need to pay attention when, in fact, I need to see and know my inattention. When I begin to see, I begin to love what I see. Where our attention is, God is.”
― Jeanne De Salzmann, The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff

03/30/2026

ETHEL MERSTON MEETING BHAGAVAN

Ethel went to the ashram and, for the first time, saw Bhagavan.
“He was a tall white-bearded man, a long face almost as white as an Italian's, long beautiful hands, and eyes that twinkled and looked through you, though in a very different way from Gurdjieff's piercing gaze.”
The Maharshi sat at the east end of a long, narrow hall, on a couch raised so he could be seen by the devotees who sat on the floor, men on one side, women on the other. The atmosphere was peaceful, silent but for the occasional question and Bhagavan's reply.
At that time, if the question was in English, he answered in English; later, he used an interpreter for his answers.

So affected was Ethel, usually the extrovert, that she spoke to no one.

"The peace of his little hall, the beauty of the great hill towering up behind the ashram and the dynamic look and peace of the Maharshi all held me."

Ethel sat and meditated, and listened as Maharshi answered questions.

Instead of staying one day as planned, Ethel stayed three days.
She moved to a hut near the ashram where two other Europeans were housed—Miss Jackson-Ward, another English visitor, and Major Alan W. Chadwick, the first European to live at the ashram.

On February 7,1939, Ethel asked a question:

Ethel: I have read Who Am I? While inquiring who the 'I' is, I cannot hold it for any length of time. Secondly, I have no interest in the environment, yet I have hopes that I shall find some interest in life.

Maharshi: If there is no interest, it is good.

(The interpreter says that the questioner hopes to find some interest in life.)

Maharshi: That means there are those vasanas [habits of mind; latent tendency or impression]. A dreamer dreams a dream. He sees the dream world with pleasures, pains, etc. But he wakes up and then loses all interest in the dream world. So it is with the waking world also. Just as the dream world, being only a part of yourself and not different from you, ceases to interest you, so also the present world would cease to interest you if you awake from this waking dream, samsara [cycle of births and deaths] ) and realize that it is a part of your Self, and not an objective reality. Because you think that you are apart from the objects around you, you desire a thing - but if you understand that the thing was only a thought form, you would no longer desire it.

All things are like bubbles on water. You are the water, and the objects are the bubbles. They cannot exist apart from the water, but they are not quite the same as the water.

Ethel: I feel I am like froth.

Maharshi: Cease that identification with the unreal and know your real identity. Then you will be firm, and no doubts can arise.

Ethel: But I am the froth.

Maharshi: Because you think that way, there is worry. It is a wrong imagination. Accept your true identity with the Real. Be the water and not the froth. That is done by diving in.

Ethel: If I dive in, I shall find...

Maharshi: But even without diving in, you are That. The ideas of exterior and interior exist only so long as you do not accept your real identity.

Ethel: But I took the idea from you that you want me to dive in.

Maharshi: Yes, quite right. It was said because you are identifying yourself with the froth and not the water. Because of this confusion, the answer was meant to draw your attention to this confusion and bring it home to you.

All that is meant is that the Self is infinite, inclusive of all that you see. There is nothing beyond It nor apart from It. Knowing this, you will not desire anything; not desiring, you will be content. The Self is always realized. There is no seeking to realize what is already—always—realized. For you cannot deny your own existence. That existence is consciousness - the Self. Unless you exist, you cannot ask questions. So you must admit your own existence. That existence is the Self. It is already realized. Therefore, the effort to realize results only in your realizing your present mistake - that you have not realized your Self. There is no fresh realization. The Self becomes revealed.

Ethel: That will take some years.

Maharshi: Why years? The idea of time is only in your mind. It is not in the Self. There is no time for the Self. Time arises as an idea after the ego arises. But you are the Self beyond time and space; you exist even in the absence of time and space.

Thought Ethel:

All was new to me. I had known Krishnamurti, and Ouspensky and Gurdjieff, but never any Hindu Sage of the Advaitic tradition, yet, from the first moment in his presence, he made me feel at home, and the peace of the little hall drew me as nothing had before.... When, finally, I had to leave, I knew that sometime I should return. The return came only about two years later, and from then on, for five consecutive years, I visited the Ashram each summer to sit in Bhagavan's presence.

- A Woman’s Work, Mary Ellen Korman

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01/13/2026

Happy Birthday Mr. Gurdjieff. In honor of what you brought us this quote from Annie Lou Staveley reported in Lessons by Kenneth Thayer Salls

11-06-73
(Reading of A Gnostic Hymn from Mead’s Fragments of a Faith Forgotten)

ALS. The pearl has a special meaning in esoteric teachings, it is produced by a small, one brained being as a result of irritation. Gems taken from the earth are of a
lower level of the octave. After meetings try to write down what is important to you. If you keep trying you will develop a “Work memory”. You must keep trying, again and again, nothing is
easy – you get nothing for nothing. Stubbornness is a very useful trait, sometimes. Some of the difficulty is that the Work is basically so simple. Gurdjieff said at one of the dinners: “Now you are like fisherman with net that has large holes, fish can swim right through.” Later, maybe, the holes will get smaller and smaller until you can catch ideas before they get away.

Jane Heap said: “Little steps for little feet.”

We live partially in two worlds, one, the mundane, the other, a higher world. The Work is an attempt to bring them together, rather than leaving one at the expense of the other.

Days can be like the weather, some are just terrible, others blah, some wonderful. We shouldn’t let our emotional climate dictate our lives. You can use negative states to remember; if you don’t, that day is lost forever and is wasted.

We spend most of our lives living in the past or the future. Some people even get totally stuck living in the past and never live right NOW. They worry about what they once did or what they’re going to do and let petty little fears push them around.

Everything exists and happens NOW. Only our self imposed veil of illusions prevents us from seeing that. We get stuck looking out one window of our house when there are many more available.

We have a small supply of days allotted to us, we can make of them what we will, or let them disappear without a trace.

12/18/2025

The mystery of the return of the Light and the birth of the New....

The following is a precious piece written by Mrs. Staveley that we read out on Christmas Day:

WINTER SOLSTICE

THE CHRISTMAS STORY

In the darkest nighttime, in the coldest and most cheerless time of the year, at the season of the winter solstice—the Christ child can be born. It has to be that way—light in the darkness. The Sun dies and the Sun is reborn. It is the same sun that dies and is reborn, but from time immemorial this has represented a mystery. The child that is reborn, the Christ child, is something new, something promised and long awaited, a messenger from another realm for whom the highest part of us waits. And waits in the darkness for the coming light.

Every part of the Christmas story has to do with man. Any man: you, me. It is an account of real man as he could be—the God-Man, the Hu-Man—but it is also the story of man as he is.

Very few, like the Cherubinic Wanderer of the Middle Ages recognize that “I must myself become Mary and give birth to Christ.” But all of us owe a debt for the gift of our lives, a “tax” that will one day have to be paid. Sometimes we remember that.

In the way we at present live, each of us is the Inn, where there is no room for the Christ child to be born. The Inn is too full, too busy, there is too much coming and going, getting and spending. It has its own life and knows no other.

And so the Holy Family who have come to pay their tax can find no place for the child to be born except in the manger, the place where the animals eat. Bethlehem also means, “the house of eating.”

Who are the holy family? The as yet unborn Christ child, and Mary, his mother. Mary is called the Virgin and the meaning of virgin is unused. Mary is also the name for the sea: the living water in which higher forms can exist.

Mary represents the unused energies in us. These are the higher energies we disregard and waste during the course of our lives. Joseph is not actually a part of the Holy Family. He is that part of us that is able to recognize and care for them, value, guard and keep them. This he does in the story.

There are only two animals present at the birth of the Christ child, the ox and the ass. They are alike in that they spend their lives in patient, unremitting toil for others. They have nothing of their own.

In that dark night all the world was oblivious and asleep, save for some shepherds in a higher place—“the hillside,” where they watched their sheep by night.

Because they were awake they could be present to a mystery beyond their understanding—they heard the angels rejoicing at the birth of Man.

Something of the magic and mystery of this story has rung down through the ages and we can hear it still. Children are not strangers to this starry night, this night of lights and music emerging from the darkness. Even now there is still that child in us which is not buried totally under the grossness, the sentimentality, and the lies with which we at Christmas fill our “Inn.”

The three wise men followed a star—the inner light reflected from above—and travelled from the East, where the sun rises. They brought gifts for the divine child. Gold incorruptible for the King; frankincense, which when burns ascends in fragrance, for the God; but for the man, Jesus, a bitter herb. For any who would really be like Jesus must taste that bitterness.

But the wise men could not remain and they were obliged to return to their source “by another way.” They needed to avoid Herod, the Tetrarch who wished, and will always wish, to destroy that which threatens the status quo. He is also part of us.

The story is told, the year is ended. Tomorrow the ordinary light of day will be a fraction more, the dark a fraction less. But for a moment the vault of heaven opened and the wonder and the glory could be sensed.

Now we are asleep again. Herod is safe. The c**k crows, the dog barks, the donkey brays. The noisy, busy life of the Inn begins all over again.

Photo Annie Lou Stavely by David Bomberg

10/24/2025

"The difficult position of man, but also his greatness, is that he belongs both to eternity and to time." ~ Michel Conge

//Dressing in one's own earthly rags//

Reims, 14th December 1971

We are eternal beings placed in time. We must be able to discern both. That's when we realize that we've come down onto this plane for a certain purpose, a task to be accomplished. What have you come here for? You won't find out through the workings of your functions, only the eternal Being knows.

The earth, with all its demands and trials is problematic. Making contact with higher forces is not very difficult, only it has to be honored. Making contact with the earth, its demands and trials, is a condition that most human beings don't want to undertake. It's very unpleasant. There's nothing more disagreeable than living earthly life consciously.

If I lose my earthly basis, I'm not a candidate for a complete from of being. Wearing our earthly rags, that's the problem.

Eternity and time are totally different notions. It's the same with immutability which is the basis of being and which co-exists with constant fluctuations. I am eternal and immutable in the image of God, but I am place in special conditions which deceive me.

Life: Real Life Behind Appearances
Michel Conge
pg. 81

01/13/2025

Happy Birthday Mr. Gurdjieff!!

“I will tell you one thing that will make you rich for life. There are two struggles: an Inner-world struggle and an Outer-world struggle...you must make an intentional contact between these two worlds; then you can crystallize data for the Third World, the World of the Soul.”
― G.I. Gurdjieff

12/14/2024

A couple of our members attended this conference in person as well as several who attended remotely on zoom.

The conference, the largest of its kind and marking the 100th anniversary of Gurdjieff’s visit to Harvard University in 1924, featured leading scholars, academics, representatives from the Gurdjieff Foundation, and independent centers.

12/08/2024

Thanks! It was an amazing gathering of scholars, practitioners, panelists and speakers!

Due to overwhelming demand, “The Teachings and Legacy of G.I. Gurdjieff” conference on Dec. 4-5 has reached full capacity for in-person attendance.

All sessions will be live-streamed and recorded; please register to attend on Zoom: https://gurdjieff.hsites.harvard.edu/program

"The Teachings and Legacy of G.I. Gurdjieff”
Dec. 4-5, 2024, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School

11/19/2024

Recognizing an inner reality and returning again and again.

Send a message to learn more

11/17/2024

Gurdjieff in America
To commemorate the first visit of G. I. Gurdjieff to New York in 1924, the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York presents a new documentary film, “Gurdjieff in America as Recollected by his Pupils". Film at the bottom of the page.

The Gurdjieff Foundation of New York is home to a diverse community of people with the common purpose of living a more conscious and balanced life through self-study. We share this aim with affiliated groups around the world.

09/20/2024

To Begin again.