Do you feel the schools perpetuated by the decendents of Madame De Salzman, her son and Lord Pentland are guilty of merely parroting, and mechanically go through the motions of Gurdjieff’s teachings and methods?
I would be interested to know.
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Hi Scipio

thanks for the post - apologies for not being on the ball and not blogging much lately, I wasn’t ignoring it!

Re your question: I would say that it is not, imho, a question of parroting as such because the teaching renews itself.

In my understanding (and I could be wrong so caveat emptor) the student needs a teacher who has already travelled to the end of the road - who is ‘awake’ in Gurdjieff’s parlance.

Because the teacher is awake, he/she can discern what the student needs. And what the student needs is always different in different cases. This is why there are many different paths. That is to say that esoteric teaching is prescribed much on the sense that a doctor prescribes for specific ailments. It is religion (as opposed to esotericism) which deals in the ‘one size fits all sort of thing.

Again, as I understand it, when a teacher dies, his teaching (as a living form) dies with him because the teacher is the essential element. Another teacher may come but his ‘method’ would be different - he would be a completely different individual after all.

Of course, some of the old students would find it hard to give up the teaching of their previous teacher and may try to continue it - this is the origin of many religious forms and various ‘paths’ such as the Sufi orders.

Whether it has happened to the Gurdjieff work is really a judgement call that each ‘seeker’ must really make for themselves. Nothing worng with it either way - it could even be part of one’s path to be in a deteriorated group for a while. Learning is the thing not the outward form.

if you are learning and progressing you are on the path whatever ‘group’ you are in or even none. Conversely one could be sitting at the feet of Buddha but if one is learning nothing then one is effectively in a ‘false group’ because one is being ‘false’ oneself no?