Gurdjieff (Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism) by Joseph Azize

Author:Joseph Azize [Azize, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2019-12-09T23:00:00+00:00

The reference to “Divine” impulses is a further reason for seeing mysticism in Gurdjieff, even if disguised. I suggest that Gurdjieff is saying, in a roundabout way, that through these exercises one can understand the purpose of the whole of the universe at all levels, including that of one’s self.

This maintenance of one’s own individual reality, even in the experience of the All, is one of the aspects of Gurdjieff’s teaching that, to the best of my understanding, makes it rare. One does not “lose oneself” in any divine or holy realm, at least not through pursuing these exercises. Whatever awareness one has of the All is predicated on awareness of oneself, and of divine impulses operating within oneself. The gap between the divine and the worldly is thus bridged: It is vast, perhaps even unimaginable, but it is not infinite. This would make Gurdjieff’s Transformed-contemplation what has been called a “dialogical” rather than a “unitive” form of mysticism. Katz writes:

“Mysticism” and mystical experience do not . . . necessarily involve a loss of self. Sometimes they do, sometimes they do not. “Mystical experience” is known in both unitive and dialogical forms: the former carries a sense of loss of self and absorption into God or the Ultimate; the latter involves a sense of relationship in which the human self does not sense itself merging into the Absolute.23

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