PRE-PUBLICATION REVIEWS OF
GURDJIEFF UNVEILED

The website now has pre-publication reviews and endorsements of Gurdjieff Unveiled in relation to Hinduism, Theosophy, and teaching and studying the Work.

THE GURDJIEFF-HINDU LINK:

some thoughts triggered by reading Seymour B. Ginsburg’s Gurdjieff Unveiled, from members of the Mirtola ashram.

"Every teacher or spiritual guide expresses the truth he has experienced in the terms and language of the epoch in which he lives. On the face of it, Gurdjieff's teaching seems to be a radical departure from previous spiritual traditions.
A new book, Gurdjieff Unveiled, by Seymour B. Ginsburg, written specifically to serve as a brief, simple, and eminently comprehensible introduction to the complex, many-layered philosophy of Gurdjieff, is invaluable for the fascinating insights it provides into the many interlinked strands that this enigmatic teacher wove into his formulation of the Fourth Way, so specifically suited to the needs of modern man, and particularly into its hidden links with the Hindu mystical tradition.
Like the author, many people have found that as one studies the Gurdjieff teaching and tries to apply it in one’s life, it leads to a deepening interest in other spiritual traditions, which in turn reinforces and refines one's understanding of what it is to work on oneself. Seymour B. Ginsburg brings to this concise and extremely practical handbook an unusually rich depth of experience: over 20 years in the Gurdjieff work as well as a similar period as a student in the Hindu mystical tradition – he was a pupil of Sri Madhava Ashish, a seer and Vaishnav monk, who was the guru at what could be described as virtually a Fourth Way ashram in India and whose method combined work on oneself with meditation and dream analysis as well as community work.
Written with the aim of aiding the student to understand and use the practical methods that lie at the core of the complex lines of Gurdjieff's teaching, the book is unusual for its exploration of the fascinating correspondences between the Gurdjieff methods and those of the Hindu mystical tradition. Many of the pupils who have tried to apply both systems in their own life have gradually come to see that most of these practices are designed to help the seeker separate his essential identity from the ego-personality: ‘nama-rupa’. In order to reach this essential identity, Gurdjieff taught that one should become aware of oneself as a ‘three-brained being’, harmonizing the three main faculties or centers within us – physical, emotional and mental – in order to reach a state beyond them. In a similar attempt, modern Hindu mystics like Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj exhorted the disciple to enquire ‘Who am I?’, as an essential step in the quest of moving beyond the personality to the witnessing consciousness, which is perhaps similar to Gurdjieff's Objective Consciousness.
By advocating exercises in attention, self-remembering, ‘sitting in the present,’ voluntary suffering, ‘the yes–no struggle,’ and ‘shocks,’ it seems that the aim of all Gurdjieff's teaching and exercises was to lead the disciple to withdraw from his normal psycho-physical identifications. As he says in Views from the Real World: ‘As long as a man does not separate himself from himself he can achieve nothing, and no one can help him’ [1].
When we look at the Hindu mystical tradition we discover a similar intent. The stages of yoga, for instance, offer several parallels to Gurdjieff's teachings. We can relate pranayama (breath control) to Gurdjieff's suggestion that we imagine part of each breath, our second being food, penetrating inwards, spreading through the whole organism (‘The Principle of Illustrative Inculcation,’ talked of in Life is Real Only Then, When I AM). Pratyahara (control of the sense life and emotions) corresponds to Gurdjieff's dictum about working against one’s negative manifestations (internal and external considering, etc). Dharana (self-recollectedness) can be translated as self-remembering, while dhyana (meditation) is perhaps similar to Gurdjieff's inculcation of the stage prior to the ‘fourth state of consciousness’ [2].
Gurdjieff Unveiled helps us to see that Gurdjieff is obviously not talking of ‘physical’ hydrogens and oxygens, nor is Beelzebub anthropologically assessing the states of different civilizations. Gurdjieff's aim concerns the control and refinement of consciousness, exactly what Patanjali’s attempt was when he enunciated the ‘eight limbs’ of yoga, and also the aim of the mystical traditions of Hinduism.
The mechanistic, scientific world view which formed the dominant climate of thought in the first half of the 20th century – the period of Gurdjieff's arising, as he would call it – was not particularly conducive to spiritual inquiry, and that is perhaps why, in ‘casting his net,’ Gurdjieff does not use any overtly spiritual framework. However, the scientific metaphysic has for some time been losing its dominance; our belief systems have evolved from thinking of reality in purely rational and materialistic terms, to accepting the extra-rational, non-material aspects of life, ranging from Freud’s discovery of the Unconscious (with all that that implies) to particle physics and the Uncertainty Principle. It is therefore a time that is particularly conducive to drawing analogies between the Gurdjieff work and other systems (such as the Hindu mystical tradition), which speak of recognizably the same states of consciousness. It is one of the main strengths of this brief volume, Gurdjieff Unveiled, that the reader senses the voice of experience in the authoritative way it explains the correspondences between such seemingly diverse teachings.

References
1. Gurdjieff, G.I. Views from the Real World. New York: Triangle Editions, 1973, p. 148.
2. G.I. Gurdjieff as quoted by P.D. Ouspensky, in Ouspensky, P.D., In Search of the Miraculous. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1950, p. 141.

FROM ANTON LYSY,

"Dean of Studies, The Olcott Institute, The Theosophical Society in America
For many I know who tried to understand Gurdjieff by reading him without an experienced guide to ‘the Work,’ the ‘Work’ became a meaningless ‘Drudgery’ that led only to more confusion.
In his Gurdjieff Unveiled, Seymour Ginsburg serves as the guide we all need in order to enter safely the realm of this mysterious teacher. In six chapters written with perfect clarity, he leads the reader through an understanding of the interpenetration of Consciousness, Energy, and Meditation. Each chapter includes a well-designed exercise that takes the theoretical aspects down from 30,000 feet and grounds them here and now wherever one may be.
The diagrams and charts are all elegant in their simplicity and explanatory power. This book definitely provides a well-wrought skeleton key for entering deeper and higher into Gurdjieff’s practice, something more of us need to explore if our species is ever going to mature.

FROM JACQUES LEURS

Facilitator of Belgium groups in the study of Gurdjieff’s Legacy
Sy Ginsburg’s Gurdjieff Unveiled is a must for every one approaching the vast legacy of Mister Gurdjieff, as a private seeker or as the facilitator of a group of seekers.
It is exceptional that a man like Mister Gurdjieff is cause of so many discussions and contradictions, yet more than 1000 books have been published by his pupils about his teaching. Many of these books do not mention the basic exercises Mister Gurdjieff imposed on his pupils. So it is quite impossible and even confusing to practice correctly without this publication.
Sy has been so kind to send me a pre-print version in the beginning of 2004 when I started up new groups in Belgium. I followed the book as a guideline with five different groups on different locations during 6 months and noticed a solid understanding by these attending the lectures.
Whereas in the past people left the lectures, confronted with themselves or unsatisfied about the given content, with these new groups, nothing like this happened. (I previously gave the introduction to the Enneagram in the personality tradition and noticed that I was incapable of providing answers to questions raised by the understanding of personality). My groups proved to be very punctual in attending the lectures and practiced the exercises successfully. They all mentioned progress in their search and often achieved personal accomplishments within weeks. Less than 10% stopped the lectures and they did so in a very early stage. The groups decided a long time before the last lecture that they wanted to continue the meetings to learn more.
At the end of the year, I started up a group for those aged 14 years old for the first time. These teenagers are mostly kids of the members of the 2004 groups. I cannot imagine a better reward than such trust and faith of parents towards the work of Mister Gurdjieff. I realize the benefit that can be achieved by teaching the basics to young people and I am grateful for the chance I never had before.
I followed the content of the book, but used my own words to explain it. All anecdotes told during the lectures were my own. If an exercise is not clear to the facilitator or mastered by him, he or she must practice this before teaching it to others. No exercise should be given to others without personal positive benefit given to the facilitator. Quality must prevail on quantity, and essence on appearance.
I wish the buyer all the best when reading this book and practicing the exercises: may they mean as much for him/her as they do for me. Whenever and whereever you might need help, feel free to contact people more experienced and refer to this publication, I am convinced that soon it will be one of the cornerstones to access the work of Mister Gurdjieff for independent seekers.

FROM WILLIAM Y. MURPHEY

(30-year Gurdjieff student)

Gurdjieff Unveiled is a great book because it involves ‘doing’. And it involves each individual voluntarily doing the ‘doing.’ I highly recommend it as a comprehensive manual for the group leaders and individual Fourth-Way students.

FROM KEITH BUZZELL

who draws upon a lifetime of diligent, active study of Beelzebub’s Tales with Gurdjieff groups and other serious students (his Perspectives on Beelzebub’s Tales, Fifth Press, is forthcoming in 2005).
Seymour B. Ginsburg has produced a timely, compact, and practical text with his Gurdjieff Unveiled. Ginsburg has refined the text over a number of years of use with introductory groups, giving it the admirable quality of emphasizing the many threads that bind the Gurdjieff teaching to the Great Traditions, while simultaneously including threads drawn from current understandings of man's psychological nature. The exercises he recommends at the end of each chapter provide a tested ‘real time’ experience for the reader that help fix the ideas discussed in the given chapter. While some may consider his discussion of dreams a bit unorthodox or ‘outside’ the formal Gurdjieff teaching, his explanation of their importance in the pursuit of spiritual understanding is straightforward and evocative of important questions about the nature of our ‘inner world.’