Gurdjieff’s Strange Methods

Osho : Gurdjieff was born near the Caucasus in Russia ― still there are nomads, wandering tribes.
Even sixty years of communist torture has not been able to settle those nomads, because they
consider wandering to be man's birthright, and perhaps they are right. He started moving from one
group to another. He learned many languages of the nomads, he learned many arts of the nomads.
He learned many exercises that are not available to civilized people any more, but nomads need
them.

For example; it may be very cold and the snow is falling, and to live in a tent.... Nomads know
certain exercises of breathing that change the rhythm of the breath, the temperature of your body
increases. Or if it is too hot, if you are passing through a desert, then change again to a different
rhythm...and your body has an automatic, inbuilt, air-conditioning system.

Gurdjieff learned his first lessons in hypnosis with these nomadic groups. If the wife and the
husband are both going to sell some things in the market, in the village, what to do with the
children, the small children? These nomads have used hypnotism for centuries. They will just draw
a circle around the child and tell him, "Till we return you cannot get out of this circle."

Now, this has been told for centuries to every child. From the moment he could understand, he has
heard it. He is hypnotized by it. The moment it is uttered, the moment he sees the line being drawn
around him, he simply relaxes inside: there is no way to get out, he can't get out. Gurdjieff was very
puzzled, because he was ten or twelve years old then: And what nonsense is this? And each child
in every nomad camp is just surrounded by a line, and that's all.

The father and mother disappear for the whole day to work in the town. By the evening when they
come the child is still inside the circle. Gurdjieff started wondering how it happened, why it
happened, and soon he was able to figure out that it is just a question of your unconscious
accepting the idea. Once your unconscious accepts the idea, then your body and your conscious
mind have no power to go against it.

In his own exercises that he developed later on when he became a master, Gurdjieff used all these
nomad techniques that he had learned from those strange people ― uncivilized, with no language,
no written alphabet, but who knew very primitive methods. And he was surprised to see that
hypnotism works not only on children but on grown men, because those children become young
adults; then too it works.

Then they become old, then too it works. It does not change with age. Gurdjieff used to play with
the old people, drawing a circle around them, and the old person would shout, "Don't do that, don't
do that," and before the circle was complete he would jump out. If the circle was complete then it
was impossible, you were caught. And this boy ― who could know whether he would be coming
back again or not? When the circle was half completed, something was open: you could escape.

Then you were saved, otherwise you were caught in it. And many times Gurdjieff succeeded in
making the circle complete. Then even the old man would simply sit down, just like a small child,
and would pray to him, "Break your circle." Gurdjieff used that technique in many ways ― and
many other techniques that he learned from those people. He used to have an exercise called the
"stop exercise," and he exhibited it all over the world, particularly in America and Europe.

He would teach dances, strange dances, because nobody knew those dances that the Caucasian
nomads dance... strange instruments and strange dances. They had strange foods that Gurdjieff
learned to make. His ashram near Paris was something just absolutely out of this world. His kitchen
was full of strange things, strange spices that nobody had ever heard of, and he himself would
prepare outlandish foods.

He had learned it all from those nomads. And those foods had a certain effect. Certain foods have
certain effects; certain dances have certain effects; certain drums, instruments, have certain
effects. Gurdjieff had seen that if a certain music is played and people are dancing a particular
dance, then it is possible for them to dance on red-hot, burning coals and still not be burned.

The dance is creating a certain kind of energy in them so that they can escape the law of fire ―
which is a lower law. Certainly, if consciousness knows something higher it can escape from lower
laws. All the stories about miracles are nothing but stories about people who have come to know
certain higher laws; naturally, then the lower laws don't function. Gurdjieff had seen all these
things, he had experienced them when he was a child, and children are very curious.

There was no father, no mother to prevent him from doing anything, so he was experimenting with
everything, in every possible way. And once he was finished with one nomad group, he would
simply move to another because from other groups he had other things to learn. He developed all
his exercises from these nomadic people. The stop exercise was tremendously significant, perhaps
one of the greatest contributions to the modern world ― and the modern world is not even aware of
it.

Gurdjieff would tell his disciples to be engaged in all kinds of activities: somebody is digging in the
garden, somebody is cutting wood, somebody is preparing food, somebody is cleaning the floor.
All kinds of activities are going on, with the one condition that when he says "Stop!" then wherever
you are, in whatsoever posture you are, you stop dead. You are not to be cunning, because then
the whole point of the exercise is lost.

For example, if your mouth is open and you see that Gurdjieff is not there to notice, and you just
close your mouth and rest, you have missed the point. One of your legs was up ― you were just
moving ― and one leg was down; now suddenly the "Stop!" call comes. You have to stop, knowing
perfectly well that soon you will fall down; you cannot stand on one foot for long. But that is the
whole point of the exercise: whatever the consequence you simply stop as you are, you just
become a statue.

You will be surprised that such a simple exercise gives you so much release of awareness. Neither
Buddha, nor Patanjali, nor Mahavira was aware of it, that such a simple exercise...it is not complex
at all. When you become just a statue, you are not even allowed to blink an eye; you stay exactly as
you are at the moment you hear the word "Stop!" It simply means stop and nothing else.

You will be surprised that you suddenly become a frozen statue ― and in that state you can see
yourself transparently. You are constantly engaged in activity ― and with the activity of the body,
the mind's activity is associated. You cannot separate them, so when the body completely stops, of
course, immediately the mind also stops then and there.

You can see the body, frozen, as if it is somebody else's body; you can see the mind, suddenly
unmoving, because it has lost its association with the body in movement. It is a simple
psychological law of association that was discovered by another Russian, Pavlov. Gurdjieff knew it
long before Pavlov, but he was not interested in psychology so he never worked it out that way.

Pavlov also got the idea from the same nomads, but he moved in a different direction ― he was a
psychologist. He started working on the lines of the law of association. Pavlov would give food to
his dog, and while he was giving the food, he would just go on ringing a bell. Now the bell and the
bread had nothing to do with each other, but to the dog they were becoming associated. Whenever
Pavlov gave the dog some bread, he would ring the bell too.

After fifteen days he would simply ring the bell and the dog's tongue would start hanging out ready
for the bread. Now, somewhere in the dog's mind, the bell and the bread were no longer two
separate things. Gurdjieff was doing far higher work. He found a simple way of stopping the mind.
In the East people have been trying for centuries to concentrate the mind, to visualize it, to stop it
― and Gurdjieff found a way through physiology.

But it was not his discovery, he had just found what those nomads had been doing all along.
Gurdjieff would shout "Stop!" and everybody would freeze. And when the body suddenly freezes,
the mind feels a little weird: What happened? ― because the mind has no association with the
frozen body, it is just shocked. They are in cooperation, in a deep harmony, moving together. Now
the body has completely frozen, what is the mind supposed to do? Where can it go?

For a moment there is a complete silence; and even a single moment of complete silence is enough
to give you the taste of meditation. Gurdjieff had developed dances, and during those dances
suddenly he would say "Stop!" Now, while dancing you never know in what posture you are going
to be. People would simply fall on the floor. But even if you fall, the exercise continues.

If your hand is in an uncomfortable position under your body, you are not to make it comfortable
because that means you have not given a chance for the mind to stop. You are still listening to the
mind. The mind says, "It is uncomfortable, make it comfortable." No, you are not to do anything.

In New York when he was giving his demonstration of the dance, Gurdjieff chose a very strange
situation. All the dancers were standing in a line, and at a certain stage in the dance when they
came dancing forwards and were just standing in a queue with the first person just at the edge of
the stage, Gurdjieff said "Stop!" The first person fell, the second fell, the third fell ― the whole line
fell on each other. But there was dead silence, no movement.

One man in the audience just seeing this got his first experience of meditation. He was not doing it,
he was just seeing it. But seeing so many people suddenly stop and then fall, but falling as if
frozen, with no effort on their own to change their position or anything.... It was as if suddenly they
had all become paralyzed. The man was just sitting in the front row, and without knowing he just
stopped, froze in the position he was in: his eyes stopped blinking, his breath had stopped.

Seeing this scene ― he had come to see the dance, but what kind of dance was this? ― suddenly
he felt a new kind of energy arising within him. And it was so silent and he was so full of
awareness, that he became a disciple. That very night he reached Gurdjieff and said, "I can't wait."
It was very difficult to be a disciple of Gurdjieff; he made it almost impossible. And he was really a
hard taskmaster.

And one can tolerate things if one can see some meaning in them, but with Gurdjieff the problem
was that there was no obvious meaning. This man's name was Nicoll. Gurdjieff said, "It is not so
easy to become my disciple." Nicoll said, "It is not so easy to refuse me either. I have come to
become a disciple, and I will become a disciple. You may be a hard Master, I know; I am a hard
disciple!"

Both men looked into each other's eyes and understood that they belonged to the same tribe. This
man was not going to leave. Nicoll said, "I am not going. I will be just sitting here my whole life until
you accept me as a disciple" and Nicoll's case is the only case in which Gurdjieff accepted him
without bitching; otherwise, he used to be so difficult. Even for a man like P.D. Ouspensky, who
made Gurdjieff world-famous ― even with him Gurdjieff was difficult.

Ouspensky remembers that they were traveling from New York to San Francisco in a train, and
Gurdjieff started making a nuisance of himself in the middle of the night. He was not drunk, he had
not even drunk water, but he was behaving like a drunkard ― moving from one compartment to
another compartment, waking people and throwing people's things about. And Ouspensky, just
following him, said, "What are you doing?" but Gurdjieff wouldn't listen.

Somebody pulled the train's emergency chain, "This man seems to be mad!" ― so the ticket-
checker came in and the guard came in. Ouspensky apologized and said, "He is not mad and he is
not drunk, but what to do? It is very difficult for me to explain what he is doing because I don't
know myself." And right in front of the guard and ticket-checker, Gurdjieff threw somebody's
suitcase out of the window."

The guard and the ticket-checker said, "This is too much. Keep him in your compartment and we
will give you the key. Lock it from within, otherwise we will have to throw you both out at the next
station." Naturally Ouspensky was feeling embarrassed on the one hand and enraged on the other
hand that this man was creating such a nuisance. He thought, "I know he is not mad, I know he is
not drunk, but." Gurdjieff was behaving wildly, shouting in Russian, screaming in Russian,
Caucasian he knew so many languages and the moment the door was locked, he sat silently and
smiled.

He said to Ouspensky, "How are you?"

Ouspensky said, "You are asking me, 'How are you?'! You would have forced them to put you in
jail, and me too because I couldn't leave you in such a condition. What was the purpose of all this?"

Gurdjieff said, "That is for you to understand. I am doing everything for you, and you are asking me
the purpose? The purpose is not to react, not to be embarrassed, not to be enraged. What is the
point of feeling embarrassed? What are you going to get out of it? You are simply losing your cool
and gaining nothing."

"But," Ouspensky said, "You threw that suitcase out of the window. Now what about the man
whose suitcase it is?"

Gurdjieff said, "Don't be worried it was yours!"

Ouspensky looked down and saw that his was missing. What to do with this master! Ouspensky
writes: "l felt like getting down at the next station and going back to Europe... because what else
would Gurdjieff do?"

And Gurdjieff said, "I know what you are thinking you are thinking of getting down at the next
station. Keep cool!"

"But," Ouspensky said, "how can I keep cool now that my suitcase is gone and my clothes are
gone?"

Gurdjieff said, "Don't be worried your suitcase was empty. Your clothes I've put in my suitcase.
Now just cool down."

But later, when he was in the Caucasus and Ouspensky was in London, Gurdjieff sent Ouspensky a
telegram: "Come immediately!" ― and when Gurdjieff says "Immediately," it means immediately!
Ouspensky was involved in some work, but he had to leave his job, pack immediately, finish
everything and go to the Caucasus. And in those days, when Russia was in revolution, to go to the
Caucasus was dangerous, absolutely dangerous.

People were rushing out of Russia to save their lives, so to enter Russia and for a well-known
person like Ouspensky, well-known as a mathematician, world famous.... It was also well-known
that he was anti-communist, and he was not for the revolution. Now, to call him back into Russia,
and that too, to the faraway Caucasus.... He would have to pass through the whole of Russia to
reach to Gurdjieff who was in a small place, Tiflis, but if Gurdjieff calls.... Ouspensky went.

When he arrived there he was really boiling, because he had passed by burning trains, stations,
butchered people and corpses on the platforms. And how he had managed ― he himself could not
believe that he was going to reach Gurdjieff, but somehow he managed to. And what did Gurdjieff
say? He said, "You have come, now you can go: the purpose is fulfilled. I will see you later on in
London."

Now this kind of man.... He has his purpose ― there is no doubt about it ― but has strange ways of
working. Ouspensky, even Ouspensky, missed. He got so angry that he dropped all his
connections with Gurdjieff after this incident, because this man had pulled him into the very mouth
of death for nothing! But Ouspensky missed the point. If he had gone back as silently as he had
come, he may have become enlightened by the time he reached London ― but he missed the point.

A man like Gurdjieff ― may not always do something that is apparently meaningful, but it is always
meaningful. Nicoll became his disciple, and he had to make it through so many strange tasks,
strange in every possible way. No Master before Gurdjieff had tried such strange ways. For
example, he would force you to eat, to go on eating; he would go on forcing you, "Eat!" ― and you
could not say no to the Master. While tears were coming to you he was saying "Eat!"... and those
spices, Caucasian spices ― Indian spices are nothing!

Your whole throat was burning, you could feel the fire even in your stomach, in your intestines, and
he was saying "Eat! Go on eating until I say stop." But he had some hidden meaning in it. There is a
point for the body.... I said just the other day to you that a point comes for the body, if you fast,
when after five days it changes its system. That is, the body starts absorbing its own fat, and then
there is no more hunger.

That is one method that has been used. This is also a similar method ― in the opposite direction.
There is a point beyond which you cannot eat, but the master says, "Go on." He is trying to bring
you to the brink of the capacity of your whole physiology, and you have never touched that. We are
always in the middle. Neither are we fasting, nor are we feasting like Gurdjieff; we are always in the
middle.

The body is in a settled routine; hence, the mind is also settled in its way of movement. Fasting
destroys that. That's why fasting became so important in all religions. It brings you to a moment
after fifteen days when you simply start forgetting thoughts. Bigger gaps start appearing: for hours
there is not a single thought, and after twenty-one days your mind is empty. It's strange that when
the stomach is totally empty it creates a synchronicity in the mind ― the mind becomes totally
empty.

Fasting is not a goal in itself. Only idiots have followed it as a goal in itself It is simply a technique
to bring you to a stage where you can experience a state of no-mind. Once that is experienced, you
can go back to food. Then there is no problem, you know the track. And then, eating normally also
you can go into that state any time you want. Gurdjieff was doing just the opposite because that's
what he had learned from the nomads.

Those are a totally different kind of people. They don't have any scriptures. They don't have any
people like Buddha, Mahavira, or any others, but they have passed on by word of mouth, from
generation to generation, certain techniques that were given by the father to the son. This
technique Gurdjieff learned from those nomads. They eat too much, and go on eating, and go on
eating, and go on eating.

A moment comes when it is not possible to eat anymore ― and that is the point when Gurdjieff
would force you to eat. If you say yes even then, suddenly there is an immediate state of no-mind
because you have broken the whole rhythm of body and mind.
Now it is inconceivable for the mind to grasp what is happening. It cannot work any longer in this
situation. It has not known it before because ― always remember ― mind is exactly like a
computer.

It is a bio-computer, it functions according to its program. You may be aware of it, you may not be
aware of it, but it functions according to a program. Break the program somewhere.... And you can
break the program only at the ends, only at the boundary, where you are facing an abyss. Gurdjieff
would force people to drink so much alcohol ― and all kinds of alcoholic beverages ― that they
would go almost crazy; so drunk that they would forget completely who they were.

And he would go on giving it to them. If they fell he would shake them, sit them up and pour them
some more, because there is a moment when the person has come to a point where his whole
body, his whole consciousness is completely overtaken by the intoxicant. In that moment his
unconscious starts speaking. Freud took three years, four years, five years of psychoanalysis to do
this.

Gurdjieff did it in a single night! Your unconscious would start speaking, would give all the clues
about you of which you have not even been aware. And you would not know that you had given
those clues to Gurdjieff ― but he would know. And then he would work according to those clues:
what exercises would be right for you, what dances would be suitable for you, what music was
needed for you.

All the clues have been given by your unconscious. You were not aware of it because you were
completely intoxicated. You were not present when he worked on the unconscious and persuaded
it to give all the clues about you. Those were the secrets about you ― then he had the keys in his
hands. So if somebody refused, "Now I cannot drink any more," he would throw him out. He would
say, "Then this is not the place for you." - Osho

Gurdjieff and Gurdjieff Disciple Nicoll

Question: Beloved Osho, You have been critical of most of the masters, but i don’t recall hearing Your
criticism of Gurdjieff. Is that significant? He talked about the sly man Who stole his Enlightenment from the
Master. I’m puzzled about how to do It. How can i steal your silence, your bliss, your grace?

Osho: Gurdjieff was really a remarkable Mystic, one of the most remarkable who has ever walked on the
earth. But to understand him is more difficult than to understand anybody else. With Gurdjieff it was true –
he was very secretive. If anybody wanted to get anything from him, it was not an easy job. Even if you read
his book, you cannot read more than ten pages. It is a one-thousand-page book. All And Everything is the
name of the book, but you cannot go on more than ten pages, for the simple reason that he writes in such
a way that to find out what he is saying is difficult. One sentence goes on running over the whole page.
By the time you end the sentence you have forgotten the beginning. And what happened in the middle,
nobody knows. He was inventing words of his own, so you cannot consult any dictionary. Those words
belonged to no language, he simply invented them. And they are long words – sometimes half the
sentence is only one word. Even to read it is difficult, to pronounce it is difficult. In that book of one
thousand pages, perhaps there are ten sentences at the most which are really profound.

Gurdjieff could have printed them on a postcard, but that man was a category in himself. He wants you to
find those ten sentences in that one-thousand-page book, which he has made as difficult as possible. No
book has been written the way Gurdjieff’s book was written. People go to silent places, holiday homes,
beaches, mountains, to write books. Gurdjieff used to go to restaurants, pubs. And sitting in the middle of
the restaurant where everything was going on – hundreds of people coming in and going out, all kinds of
talk – he was writing his book, his masterpiece.

Every day, in the evening, his disciples would gather in his house, and one disciple would read what he
had written that day. Gurdjieff would watch the faces of the other disciples, to see whether they were
understanding it or not. If they understood it, he would have to change it the next day. If nobody
understood it, it remained. It took ten years for him to write that book, and he has hidden the secrets in
those one thousand pages. He is right: you have to steal. It is almost like stealing.

You enter a house you have never been in. In the darkness of the night – when even the people who live in
the house cannot move, in case they stumble upon some table or some chair – the man who has come to
steal has a tremendous artfulness. In the darkness, in a strange house, he manages not to stumble, not to
make any noise. And miraculously, he finds the place where the treasure is. He has no map, he has no
way to find out where the treasure is. But the master thieves have an insight.

Gurdjieff’s sly man is the man who has a knack for finding the right door when there are thousands of
similar doors all around. It is true that Gurdjieff was a difficult man, almost impossible to cope with. One of
his disciples, Nicoll, was traveling with Gurdjieff in America. In the middle of the night, they went aboard a
train, and Gurdjieff, although not drunk, started behaving like a drunkard, utterly drunk.

The disciple said, ”What are you doing, Master?”

Gurdjieff hit Nicoll, and he said, ”Who are you? I have never seen you before.”
He woke up the whole train, because he was stumbling from one compartment to another compartment,
shouting
obscenities, waking people who were asleep, throwing their bags out of the train. Finally the train was
stopped; the driver and the conductor came in. But Gurdjieff was a very strong man, solid rock, and nobody
dared to catch hold of him; he might throw the man out of the window!

And Nicoll, poor man, was trying to tell the people that he is a great master! The people started looking at
Nicoll and they thought, ”You are mad. He is a drunkard and you are mad. He is a great master? – in the
middle of the night waking strangers, throwing their things around, shouting obscenities, speaking strange
languages!”

Somehow Nicoll persuaded the conductor and the driver, ”He is a famous master, but what to do? This is
his way.” They agreed to let him stay on board only if Gurdjieff and Nicoll went into the compartment and
they locked it from the outside. Then whatsoever they wanted to do inside they could do – the great master
and the great follower – ”But don’t disturb the whole train.” As the door was locked, Gurdjieff relaxed,
laughed, and he asked Nicoll, ”How was the scene?” Nicoll was perspiring in the air-conditioned
compartment.

He said, ”The scene? You almost killed me. They thought I was mad, and I knew perfectly well you were
not drunk, because up to then you were absolutely alright. And suddenly...?”

Gurdjieff said, ”It was a test for you, whether you can stay with me if I behave in such a manner. Can you
still see the master in me?” Nicoll said, ”I am ready to go to hell with you. Whatever you do, there is a deep
trust in me that it must be for something good. I knew it all the way, but what to do with the passengers, the
conductor, with the driver? The whole crowd was against me, and I am not so strong a man as you are.”

Gurdjieff was Caucasian, and the Caucasus is famous for producing really strong men. Another Caucasian
was Joseph Stalin. The word ‘stalin’ in Russian means man of steel. But Gurdjieff was far ahead of Joseph
Stalin. This was a test for the follower. Just think of yourself – you would have escaped. Seeing the
situation, that he is going to be caught and thrown into a jail.... That’s what the driver and the conductor
and the engineer were all saying: ”If you don’t stop, we are going to throw your master into jail. At the next
station the police will be there, we have already informed them.”

But to trust a man like me is very simple. I will not put you in any such situation. You need not steal
anything from me, because I am putting everything on the table before you. So Gurdjieff’s statement is
relevant only to him and to his disciples. It is absolutely irrelevant to me and you. I am not your master, I
am not hiding anything from you. You need not steal. I am trying to give you the gift and you go on running!

I am trying to present you the truth, as a gift. But truth – even to accept it as a gift – is a difficult
phenomenon, because if you accept the truth, then all the lies that you have been living up to now have to
be dropped. Gurdjieff was his type. I am my type. And I know there is no need for me to hide anything,
because you are hiding from me, and I am trying to push truth, love, compassion, meditation – everything –
into your pockets. And you go on running away from me because you know that I am a lazy man and I will
not run after you.

You have simply to receive with grace. There is no need to steal here. Why should you be reduced to
thieves? Why should you be made the sly man? I want you to be the innocent child, who is ready and open
and vulnerable. And I am so full of my ecstasy that I want to rain on anybody without asking his
qualifications, his characteristics. But you are so afraid seeing the rain cloud coming up, you rush into your
homes just to save your clothes, afraid that they will get wet. Yes, it is true you are dry, and if you allow me
to shower on you, you are going to become juicy.

People have asked, ”We see the women here in the commune are becoming juicier and juicier, and the
men are becoming more and more tight, straight, afraid.” The reason is simple: the woman is always ready
to open her heart. The man thinks a thousand times before opening his heart. He takes all precautions,
because ”Who knows what a man is going to do when you open your heart?” But the woman is more
trusting, more loving, more feeling. That’s why they are becoming juicier and juicier. Soon they will all be
rain clouds ready to shower.

Now, it is up to you, a great challenge to man. Are you going to save your clothes? Then you will remain
dry bones, straight, tight, but with no juice. I am available. You just drink out of me. The well cannot run
after you, you have to come to the well. But there is no need to steal, because the well is available, waiting
for you. This is one of the fundamental laws of spiritual life, that the more you give, the more you have. And
I can say from my own experience that the law is one hundred percent true. The more I have given,
suddenly I have found, from unknown sources of existence, more juices have flowed towards me.

Source: "From Death to Deathlessness" – Osho

on need of Masters
1. But the only possible way out of this mess is being in tune with somebody who is already awakened.
You are asleep; only somebody who is awake can shake you out of your sleep, can help you to come
out of it. Gurdjieff used to say: If you are in a jail, only somebody who is out of jail can manage it, can
arrange it so that you can escape from the jail; otherwise it is impossible.

And you are not only in a jail -- you have been hypnotized and told that this is not a jail, this is your
home. You are not only in a jail -- you have believed it to be your home and you are decorating it.
Your whole life is nothing but decorating the jail, and you are competing with other prisoners who are
decorating their dark cells.

Only somebody who is free, who has been in the jail once and is no longer in the jail, can manage to
wake you, to make you aware of the reality. He can manage to dehypnotize you, he can help you to be
unconditioned, and he can devise methods and means so that you can escape from the jail. He can
bribe the warden, the jailor; he can bring a ladder close to the wall, he can throw a rope inside. He can
make a hole in the wall from the outside...a thousand and one possibilities.

But the only hope for you is to be in deep contact with somebody who is awakened. The awakened one
is called the master -- Satguru. If you can find a master, don't miss the opportunity -- surrender, relax
into his being, imbibe his awareness, let his fragrance surround you. And the day is not far away when
you will also be awakened, you will also be a buddha. Keep on reminding yourself that unless you are
a buddha, your life is a wastage. Only by being a buddha does one's life have grace, beauty,
intelligence, significance, benediction.

2. Gurdjieff used to say that unless you are cunning you cannot escape from the bondage of the world
-- because the bondage is so complex that you have to be very sly. Gurdjieff used to say that if you
want to learn from a master you have to be very sly, cunning. That's how he learned. He moved for at
least twenty years from one master to another master -- but masters take their own time, they are
not in a hurry. They don't live in time, they live in the eternal, so there is no hurry.

But Gurdjieff was in a hurry, so rather than waiting until whenever the master feels the time is right
and he will impart his knowledge, he will impart his wisdom, he started stealing wisdom from the
masters. Gurdjieff says he learned by stealing, by being cunning. It looks strange to use the words
'sly', 'cunning', in reference to spirituality, but Gurdjieff is a rare man. If you understand him rightly,
what he means simply is: be clever, be intelligent, be utterly alert, be wise.

Gurdjieff and Ouspensky

a. Ouspensky Introduced Gurdjieff to the World

In the End Ouspensky Left Gurdjieff

: Ouspensky Introduced Gurdjieff to the World

Ouspensky introduced Gurdjieff to the world, He started writing books on Gurdjieff. He wrote one of
his greatest contributions, IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS, then he wrote THE FOURTHWAY. And
these two books introduced Gurdjieff to the world; otherwise, he would have remained an absolutely
unknown Master. Maybe a few people would have come in personal contact with him and would have
been benefited, but Ouspensky made him available to millions.

But as those books spread all over the world and thousands of people started moving towards
Gurdjieff, Ouspensky also became very egoistic – naturally, because he was the cause of the whole
thing. In fact, he started thinking, ”Without me, what is Gurdjieff? Who is Gurdjieff without me? Who
was he? When I met him he was just a refugee living in a refugee camp in Constantinople, almost
starving. Nobody had ever heard about him. I have made him world famous; the whole credit goes to
me.” This idea went to his head – it became too much for him – and in subtle ways he started to
dominate the movement. And you cannot dominate a man like Gurdjieff, you cannot dictate to a man
like Gurdjieff. They had to part.

b: In the End Ouspensky Left Gurdjieff

I will tell a more recent incident. Ouspensky, the chief disciple of Gurdjieff, was working under
Gurdjieff for ten years. It was very difficult to work under Gurdjieff. He was a man of infinite
magnetism. Whosoever would come around him would be pulled.

With such people, either you are pulled or you become afraid and go against them, but you cannot
remain indifferent. You are either for or against; you cannot be indifferent to such people. And that
going against is just a safety measure. If you come around a person who is magnetic, either you will
become a slave to him or, just to protect yourself, you will become an enemy, because that is a
protection.

Ouspensky came to him, stayed with him, worked with him, and there was no theoretical knowledge to
be imparted. He was a man of action. He would give techniques, and one had to work. Then
Ouspensky achieved a certain crystallization. He became an integrated man; he was transformed. He
was not fully enlightened yet, but he was not fast asleep as we are. He was in between, just on the
verge.When you feel that the morning is near, when you start listening to the noises which indicate
morning is near, you are asleep, but not totally asleep.

The sleep is just on the verge of going. You are not yet awake, you may again fall into a sleep. You are
just on the surface, just near awakening. And when Ouspensky was just near awakening, he was
thinking that now Gurdjieff will help him more because this was the moment. But suddenly Gurdjieff
started behaving in such a strange way that Ouspensky had to leave. He started up in such strange
ways with him, did such absurd things, contradictory, nonsensical – on the surface – that Ouspensky
had to leave him on his own account.

Gurdjieff never told him to leave. On his own account he left him, went against him, said that he had
gone mad. He started teaching, and he always said, ”I am teaching according to Gurdjieff, my teacher,
but now he is mad.” He would say, ”According to the early Gurdjieff...” He would not talk about the
later Gurdjieff. But the basic reason why Gurdjieff did this is deep compassion. That was the moment
when Ouspensky had to be left alone; otherwise he would have become a constant dependent. The
moment came when he had to be thrown out, and in such a way that he would never become aware
that he had been thrown out consciously.

Such persons like Buddha or Gurdjieff will affect you without their conscious effort and you will be
pulled toward them. But they will try in every way that you are not pulled in that way: that you are
not attracted hypnotically, that you are not dominated by them. And they will help to make you
masters, standing on your own feet.

Those who are trying to dominate others, their eyes will be tense, evilish. You will not feel any
innocence in their eyes, you will not feel purity in their eyes. You will feel attraction, but the attraction
will be like alcohol. You will feel a magnetic pull, but the pull will be not to free you but to enslave you.

Remember, never use any energy to dominate anyone. Because of this, Buddha, Mahavir, Jesus, they
made it a point, and they went on hammering, that the moment you enter the spiritual search, be
filled with love for everyone, even for your enemy – because if you are filled with love you will not be
attracted to the inner violence which wants to dominate.

Only love can become an antidote. Otherwise when the energy comes to you and you are overfilled
with it, you will start dominating. This happens every day. I have come across many, many people...

I start helping them, they will grow a little, and the moment they feel that a certain energy is coming
to them they will start dominating others, they will try now to use it. Remember, never use spiritual
energy to dominate. You are wasting your efforts. Sooner or later you will be empty again, and you
will fall down suddenly. And this is pure wastage, but it is very difficult to control it because you
become aware that now you can do certain things.

If you touch someone who was ill and he becomes okay, how can you resist touching others now? How
can you resist?

If you cannot resist, you will waste your energy. Something has happened to you, but soon you will
throw it away unnecessarily. And really, the mind is so cunning that you may be thinking that you are
helping others by healing them. That may be just a cunning trick of the mind, because if you have no
love, how can you be so concerned with others’ diseases, their illnesses, their health? You are not
concerned.

Really, now this is a power. If you can heal, you can dominate them. You may say, ”I am just helping
them,” but even in your help you are simply trying to dominate them. Your ego will be fulfilled. This
will become a food for your ego. So all the old treatises say beware. They say beware because when
the energy comes to you, you are at a dangerous point. You can waste it, you can throw it away.
When you feel any energy, make it a secret; do not allow anyone to know about it.

Source: 1: “Ouspensky introduced Gurdjieff to the world” from Walking in Zen, Sitting in Zen by
Osho

2: “In the End Ouspensky Left Gurdjieff” from Vigyan Bhairav Tantra by Osho

Gurdjieff disciple de Hartmann and Gurdjieff Music

Question: Beloved Osho, In a book I read about Gurdjieff, it was said that two of his disciples, who
had been with him for a long time and in a very intimate way - for example, de Hartmann, who played
his music - suddenly left him. Can you explain why this seems to happen again and again in the
master-disciple relationship?

Osho: Turiya, the question is something of deep significance and with profound implications. It is
something in the very nature of things that this kind of thing happens again and again, and will
continue to happen again and again; it cannot be stopped. De Hartmann lived with George Gurdjieff
for perhaps the longest period of any of his other disciples, perhaps forty years or more. He was a
great genius as far as music is concerned, and he was playing music for special meditations, which
Gurdjieff had devised.

The music was also devised by Gurdjieff; de Hartmann had to bring the device into reality. Gurdjieff
was a strange master, everything about him had the quality of strangeness. He himself was not a
musician, but he understood what kind of vibrations could create certain states in man. His
understanding was about man, his meditation, his mind, the possibility of his receiving certain
vibrations and being affected by them. He would explain his whole program to de Hartmann, and de
Hartmann had become such an expert that he would make it a reality.

But de Hartmann was not a disciple -- this was where the trouble arose. He had come to George
Gurdjieff to be a disciple, but his genius about music took him on a different route: rather than being a
disciple, he became an associate. He started working for Gurdjieff insofar as he needed music for his
special dances, and he forgot completely why he had come. Gurdjieff reminded him many times: "de
Hartmann, you are a perfect master as far as music is concerned, but you had not come here to play
music.

And now your ego is feeling so fulfilled and contented that you don't want to sit among the disciples.
You have forgotten that your basic motive was not to play music here." The separation was bound to
happen one day, because finally Gurdjieff became very hard. And he said to de Hartmann, "You have
to stop music completely, because music has become a barrier. Your music has helped others
tremendously, but for yourself it has become a barrier. You stop music completely! Burn all your
musical instruments." This was too much for de Hartmann.

He was not an ordinary musician. He left Gurdjieff rather than leave music. And because he had lived
for forty years with George Gurdjieff, and had remained in a very intimate relationship... but not as a
disciple, remember -- that was forgotten; that was why the problem arose. The intimacy was because
of the music; Gurdjieff needed a musician. He was taking his disciples around the world, showing
people the immense effect of vibrations. In New York, in one of his shows, the disciples were
dancing...

They have to dance intensely and totally; they have to forget the whole world. But if the music stops,
then they have to stop in whatever position they are in -- if the hand is up, it remains up; if their eyes
are open, they remain open, they don't blink -- a total stop. If one leg is up in dancing, it remains
where it is. And when the dance came to its climax, he gave the indication to de Hartmann to stop. As
the music stopped, every dancer had to stop -- just like statues, as if suddenly they had become
marble statues, no movement.

It is a tremendous experience. In that gap, when all movement has stopped, you simply feel your
existence, your isness. But when he said to de Hartmann to stop... the dancers were moving in a
certain round and they were so close to the edge of the stage that with the sudden stop, one dancer
fell from the stage. Because there was no way, you could not do anything -- whatever happened,
happened, you had to stop. On top of him, another dancer fell. A whole line of dancers went on falling
from the stage, as if they were dead bodies.

The people who had seen that show could not believe... the silence of the disciples, their becoming
centered, created a new vibration. Even the people in the audience who had no idea of any meditation
certainly felt a new breeze, a silence surrounding them, and a peacefulness. For years, the
intelligentsia of New York talked about the dance. They could not believe what had happened; it was
simply sheer magic. But nothing happened to de Hartmann. He was just a technician: he played the
music -- he was an expert -- and when the indication was given he stopped it.

But he remained in close proximity to Gurdjieff for forty years, and people naturally thought that he
was a disciple, and a very close disciple. And when he left Gurdjieff, he maintained the illusion --
perhaps he himself was in the illusion -- that he was a disciple, that he had learned everything that
Gurdjieff knows... forty years is enough. That's why he went to America to open his own school. A
desire to become a master is a simple ego number. His statement, Turiya, when he said to people,
"You are more important to me than Mr. Gurdjieff," is simply shameful -- but this is the category of
the Judas.

In every master's life there are bound to be Judases. It seems to be the law of nature that the people
who come to a master don't come with the same motivation. A few come to seek the truth, a few
come to learn how to be a master.

In the life of Basho, one of the great mystics of Japan, there is a beautiful incident.
He was sitting with his disciples and a man came and he said, "I also want to join."

Basho said, "There is no barrier; the doors are open, you can join. But let me tell you: disciplehood is
an arduous thing. Are you ready for it, or is it just curiosity? If it is just curiosity then don't waste your
time, because soon you will have to leave. If it is a sincere search that you are ready to stake
everything -- life included -- only then can you be a disciple."

The man said, "I am not prepared. I never thought that to be a disciple costs so much." And then he
said, "Then what about the master? -- I can become the master. If it is easier, then I can drop the
idea of being a disciple; I can become the master."

Basho said, "We will not prevent you from being a master, but unless one has passed through the
arduous path of disciplehood, one cannot be a master -- although it is very easy. If there was some
back door, I would have allowed you in. But there is no back door; you will have to come through the
right channel of being a disciple."

The man said, "Then I will think it over, and I will come again," and he never came again.

A few people simply come to the masters because they see a certain dimension of fulfillment for their
ego, their ambition. To them, it is the same: to have power, prestige, respectability, richness, or to be
a great master with thousands of disciples. They have no desire to know the truth, no search for
knowing oneself. To them, to be a master is just like any other ambitious project of the world -- to be
a rich man, to be a politician, to be a prime minister, to be a governor. And you cannot prevent them,
because sometimes when they come and they try to understand, they change. They see that when
they came they had come with a wrong motive, but now that motive has been dropped. So they
cannot be prevented from the very beginning... and one never knows when they will change; it may
take years.

The master has to be patient. But these people are in a hurry, because life is slipping out of their
hands.
Judas betrayed Jesus not for any other reason. It was not for thirty silver coins that he betrayed
Jesus; he betrayed Jesus because he was the only educated disciple. He was more educated and
cultured than Jesus himself. Moving with Jesus, seeing his teachings, he could easily visualize himself
as a great master, greater than Jesus: "Because this man is simply a carpenter's son, knows nothing
much; still he has created a great stir in the country."

It was a very simple arithmetic: Judas could see that if this man is removed, he can prove himself to
be a great master; but if this man is alive he will always remain a disciple. Either he had to revolt
against him and create a totally different following, which is more arduous... This was far better, if
Jesus could be removed in some way. And Judas was bound to be the leader, with an established
following. It is just like a shop with a credibility of hundreds of years -- rather than opening a new
shop... You may be offering better things to the world, but still, the old name has a credibility, an
established credibility.

The competition is going to be tough and very difficult. The best way is somehow get the name of the
old shop -- just old bottles filled with new wine. Nobody bothers about the wine, everybody looks at
the bottle -- but the bottle has to be old. The old bottle is the proof of old wine. Simple logic...

And to remove Jesus was easy, because the Jews were after him and things could be done in such a
way that nobody would ever know that Judas had done it. But he forgot one thing: nobody would ever
know that Judas had done it, but how can Judas forget it? That realization came only later on. That
realization came only when Jesus was crucified. Judas was in the crowd. He could not believe that he
had done this -- just to become a master, he had betrayed a friend, a master who loved him, trusted
him.

And now he forgot all about the old ego trip. Something new that he had never thought about, a great
repentance, a guilt... within twenty-four hours he committed suicide. De Hartmann was not a disciple
at all, but he knew certain techniques that Gurdjieff was practicing with disciples. He had become a
technician. Because he had to supply the music to every technique, he knew the techniques in every
detail -- but he had never practiced them; his work was to supply the music.

But this is how the mind deceives you. Your own mind leads you astray. De Hartmann could not prove
himself to be a master -- without Gurdjieff, the music fell flat. He knew the technique, he knew the
music, but he was not aware that the technique, the music, all were alive because of the living
presence of a master. He was only a technician. That is the difference between a technician and a
master.

Now if something goes wrong with the electricity any technician can come and fix it, but that does not
mean that he is Edison who discovered electricity. Although he knows everything, he is not Edison.
That master touch will be missing. It took three years for Edison to discover electricity. He started
with many colleagues and students -- he was a professor. And by and by, because every experiment
went on failing, people started deserting him: "He seems to be mad, he is trying to do something
impossible. Hundreds of experiments have failed, but that man seems to be strange... every day, early
in the morning, he comes back to the lab with the same enthusiasm, the same zest."

All his colleagues were feeling that it would be better to do something else -- "We are wasting our
time." They were all frustrated. Except for Edison, nobody had any enthusiasm, and within three years
all his colleagues and students had left. But Edison continued, and one night at three o'clock... the
whole night he had been working, because he was coming so close. And that was his logic -- he was
saying to his colleagues, "Don't desert me; you are deserting at the wrong time. We have tried
hundreds of experiments and they have all failed.

That means that the one experiment which is going to succeed is coming closer. Finally we will sort it
out. We are dropping those which are going to fail, they are not on our list anymore. The list is
becoming shorter -- soon we will be able to find the right method." They said, "Three years have been
wasted, and we cannot imagine how long this `soon' is going to take." And that night he started to
feel from the very beginning of the evening that he was coming closer: "Things are fitting; the puzzle
is to be settled tonight." He went on and on and on, and by three o'clock he saw the first electric bulb.
It was so much light! No human eye had ever seen it before; people had seen only candles.

His wife was sleeping in the other room. She had been calling him again and again -- "It is time to go
to sleep."
He said, "Not tonight; you just go to sleep and don't disturb me. I am so close, and I don't want to
miss. Tomorrow things may be different, I may have forgotten something. Today I cannot leave it."
At three o'clock, suddenly the light... It was almost like lightning in the house. The wife said, "You
idiot, put that light out! Neither are you going to sleep nor will you allow me to sleep. And from where
did you get this light?"
And he was sitting with unblinking eyes in a state of awe... unbelievable! It has happened!

And the poor woman was saying, "Turn the light off."

He said, "This light is never going to be turned off. Now it is going to be on forever and ever." Now
every electrician knows -- but he is only a technician, he is not an Edison. He can fall into the illusion
that he is also as knowledgeable as Edison himself, but the charisma is not there, the genius is not
there. Those miracle-making hands are not there.

De Hartmann tried hard in America, because in America Gurdjieff had been such a success. He went
through the same cities giving the same shows, but everything fell flat. He could not figure out what
was wrong -- because the songs were the same, the dances were the same, the music was the same,
the musician was the same... "And that man Gurdjieff was not doing anything, he was simply standing
there. All that he used to do was to tell me, 'Stop!' Just that much, anybody can do. And I myself
know at what point he used to say stop, so I stop myself at those points, exactly at those points -- but
the magic is not there."

He forgot that he had never been a disciple -- and he had become a master! He forgot that he had
been only a musician. If he had remembered that he was only a musician -- and in that too, he was
brought to such refinement by Gurdjieff, not by himself -- things would have been different. Turiya,
the same thing happened with Ouspensky, who was really a disciple. De Hartmann can be simply
cancelled; he was never a disciple.

But Ouspensky was a disciple, and one of the foremost disciples. But again, something took him away,
and that something was similar to de Hartmann's music -- that was Ouspensky's intelligence. He was a
world-famous mathematician, a great writer. Even before meeting Gurdjieff he was known all over the
world. Nobody knew Gurdjieff. In fact, it was Ouspensky who made Gurdjieff's name known to the
world; the whole credit goes to Ouspensky. In this whole century there has not been another writer of
the same caliber.

He writes with such authority, with such beauty -- and that became his fall, because Gurdjieff became
famous through his books. Gurdjieff was not a writer; he had no special talent which is recognized by
the world. He was purely a master. He could transform human beings, their consciousness, but that is
not an art recognized by the world. And when Ouspensky saw that he had made Gurdjieff world-
famous, why should he bother? He knew everything about what Gurdjieff was teaching, he had written
everything; through him the whole world knew about the teaching of Gurdjieff... "I myself can teach."

He started a school in London. And such ungratefulness... he would not use Gurdjieff's full name; he
would simply call him "G". Just to avoid the full name, Gurdjieff, he would use only the first letter,
G. And he made it clear to his students, that "Gurdjieff was right as long as I was with him. I left him
because he started going wrong. So his teaching is valid till I left him -- beyond that, it has no
significance." But he was just a schoolteacher, a professor, with no aura of a master. It was really
ridiculous to see him pretending to be a master, because even in teaching higher principles of
consciousness he was using a blackboard.

Just the old habit of being a mathematician... So he would write on the blackboard, as if the people
who had gathered were students. He would not look into anybody's eyes. He was not an impressive
personality. He would have been perfectly good as a professor in a university, but to be a master, to
belong to the category of Gautam Buddha, Gurdjieff and Krishnamurti, is a totally different matter. He
tried hard, but he could not manage anything; nothing happened.

And you will be surprised to know that the whole world condemned Gurdjieff, nobody condemned
Ouspensky, nobody condemned de Hartmann. In fact, they had nothing worth condemning either.
Gurdjieff had a teaching, a methodology to transform humanity. But these persons wanted to be
masters. Seeing the power of Gurdjieff, they became power hungry. Seeing his influence, they started
feeling inferior; they wanted to move away and create their own sphere of influence. They all failed.

So it seems to be in the very nature of things that this will go on happening. Wherever there will be a
master, there will be Judases, Ouspenskys, de Hartmanns. With Mahavira there was Goshalak. With
each great teacher, these people have followed like shadows -- hungry for power. But to be a master
is not an ego game. The power of the master is not of the power of the ego; it is the power of his
humbleness, it is the power of his nothingness.
So these people will continue to happen, but they don't make even a dent in human evolution. They
simply spoil their own life and a great opportunity that was given to them.

Source: "Osho Upanishad" – Osho

Gurdjieff Meditations to
Disciples:

i. Remember in a Dream that it is a Dream

ii. Become Detach from your Acts

iii. Don’t act like a Robot

iv. "in Moods of extreme desire, Be undisturbed"

“Self-Remembering”

Remember in a Dream that it is a Dream

Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples that the most important thing is to remember in a dream that
"This is a dream." But how to do it? It seems almost impossible. How to remember in a dream that
"This is a dream"? But if you practice the Gurdjieffian method, one day you can remember it. The
method is simple. You have to go on remembering the whole day, whatsoever you see, that "This is a
dream." Walking on the street, "This is a dream"; the dog barking, "This is a dream." Go on
remembering the whole day, "This is a dream, this is a dream...." It takes three to nine month for the
idea to sink into your heart.

Then one day, suddenly, in your dream you remember and you say, "This is a dream!" -- and that is a
moment of great illumination. Immediately, the dream disappears. The moment you say it is a dream,
it disappears and you are awake, fully awake, in the middle of the night. Of course, these trees and
the people on the road are not a dream so they don't disappear. You can go on saying, "This is a
dream." That was just a method to practice. But when you really remember in a dream that "This is a
dream," the dream disappears. The dream can exist only if believed; the dream disappears if you don't
believe in it. Our imagination is intoxicating.

2: Become Detach from your Acts

You will have to be a little separate from your acts; then you will be able to know what unawareness
is. Somebody insults you; immediately, instantly, anger arises. It is like pushing a button and the light
comes on. There is no gap: you push a button and the light comes on. The light has no time to think
whether to come on or not. Somebody insults you; he pushes a button and immediately you are
enraged. Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, "Wait at least for five minutes. What is the hurry? Let
him insult you, let him finish first. Then you close your eyes and wait for five minutes, and watch what
is happening inside you -- anger boiling."

Gurdjieff himself became enlightened through this simple procedure: that whatsoever is mechanical in
man he tried to make it non mechanical. And all is mechanical in you -- anger, lust, greed, jealousy --
all is mechanical. It simply is there whenever somebody pushes a button. You are functioning like a
robot. Become a man. That's what meditation is all about, that's what sannyas is all about. Create a
little distance. Next time somebody insults you, give it five minutes, sit silently for five minutes, and
then you can become angry. I am not saying "Don't become angry" -- because that will be too much. I
am saying that just for five minutes allow a gap, and you will be surprised: after five minutes it is not
the same anger that it would have been five minutes before.

3: Because you are not functioning according to the robot

Mind has two parts: one is the learning part, the other is the robot part. The learning part learns;
whenever you are learning something you are more aware. For example, if you are learning driving
you are more aware -- you have to be. The moment you have learned it, the learning part gives its
information to the robot part. Once you have learned driving, then you don't need any awareness; you
simply go on doing it mechanically. You turn towards your house, you arrive in your garage, you lock
the car. You are doing everything like a robot. And this is the story of your life, twenty-four hours a
day. Change it!

Gurdjieff's method was this: if some vegetarian had come to him as a disciple, the first thing he would
insist was, "Eat meat!" Now this is a very shocking thing for a vegetarian -- to be told to eat meat.
And Gurdjieff was a tough master; he would throw you out if you didn't listen to him, if you didn't
follow the command, if you didn't follow the discipline. He would force you to eat meat. Now, when a
vegetarian eats meat he becomes very conscious -- he has to. He has no idea in the past, no
experience in the past, of eating meat. Just think of Mahatma Gandhi eating meat... he will become
tremendously aware!

And if there was a meat-eater, then Gurdjieff would say, "For a few weeks you be just vegetarian.
Don't eat meat at all -- no eggs, no meat, no milk, no animal food of any kind. Just go on eating
vegetables." The whole body system had become accustomed to a certain pattern. He would change
people's eating hours. If you were eating every day at one o'clock, he would say, "Eat at nine." If you
were going to sleep every day at twelve, he would say to go at two or at ten. He would change
everything. A man who had never been drinking wine, he would force to drink wine just to change and
shatter his pattern. The man who had been a drunkard, he would stop him from drinking.

Gurdjieff was puzzling to people, but the method is simple: he was trying to de-automatize. He was
one of the greatest masters of this age, very much misunderstood. Naturally, everybody was against
him. Who has ever heard of religious masters forcing their disciples to drink? -- FORCING, actually
forcing. And he would sit there....

The greatest thing in his commune was the dinner. It used to last four, five, six, seven hours. Every
evening it would start... and it would end in the middle of the night. And he himself would take care of
everybody, of what was being eaten, of what was given to them -- and he would go on forcing. People
would become so drunk they would fall on the ground, and they would start saying things in their
drunkenness -- and he would sit by the side and listen. He also used to drink with them, but he had
worked hard on the way. He was a tantra master. He had been to India and to Tibet too, just to learn
tantra.

Tantra has special methods how to go on drinking and yet remain aware. YOU cannot be aware even
without drinking. Tantra has methods to slowly slowly drink, and keep awareness, not to lose track of
your awareness. Slowly slowly, the quantity of your drug has to be increased as you increase in your
awareness. A moment comes when -- you will be surprised to know, still there are people in the East
who practice it -- a moment comes, when no drug can affect your consciousness at all.

Then the last thing they try is this: they keep poisonous snakes and they allow the snake to bite them
on their tongue; that is the last method. Ordinarily a man will die.... These snakes are absolutely
poisonous. Three percent of the snakes in India are dangerous; you cannot survive their bite -- once
bitten you are gone. But these tantra masters will remain alert even in that moment and they will not
die. Their bodies have become accustomed to all kinds of poisons and they have become alert, so alert
that no drug can affect them.

Gurdjieff used to use that method with his disciples, simply to shatter your settled habits.

4: Sutra from Vigyan Bhairav Tantra "in Moods of extreme desire, Be undisturbed"

Gurdjieff used this technique very much. He created situations, but to create situations a school is
needed. You cannot do that alone. Gurdjieff had a small school in Fontainebleau, and he was a
taskmaster. He knew how to create situations. You would enter the room, and a group would be sitting
there. You would enter the room where a group was sitting, and something would be done so that you
would get angry. And it would be done so naturally that you could never imagine that some situation
was being created for you.
But it was a device. Someone would insult you by saying something, and you would get disturbed.
Then everyone would help the disturbance and you would become mad. And when you were right at
the point where you could explode, Gurdjieff would shout, ”Remember! Remain undisturbed!” A
situation can be created, but only in a school where many persons are working on themselves. And
when Gurdjieff would shout, ”Remember! Remain undisturbed,” now you would know that this was a
created situation. The disturbance cannot disappear so suddenly, so immediately, because it has
physical roots.

Your glands had thrown poison in the blood; your body had become affected. Anger cannot disappear
so immediately. Even now that you had come to know that you had been deceived, that no one was
insulting you and no one meant anything by it, it would be difficult to do anything. The anger is there,
your body is filled with it – but suddenly your temperature cools down. Only on the body, on the
periphery, does the anger remain. At the center you suddenly cool down, and you know that a point
exists within you which is undisturbed.

You start laughing. Your eyes are red with anger; your face is violent, animal-like, but you start
laughing. You know two things now – a point which is undisturbed and a periphery which is disturbed.
You can help. Your family can become a school; you can help each other. Friends can become a school
and they can help each other. You can decide with your family... the whole family can decide that now
a situation has to be created for the father or for the mother, and then the whole family works to
create the situation.

When the father or mother goes completely mad, then everyone starts laughing and says, ”Remain
completely undisturbed.” You can help each other, and the experience is simply wonderful. Once you
know a cool center within you in a hot situation, you cannot forget it, and then in any hot situation you
can remember it, reclaim it, regain it.

5: Sutra from Vigyan Bhairav Tantra “”BE AWARE YOU ARE AND DISCOVER THE EVER-LIVING”:

This technique is one of the most helpful, and it has been used for millennia by many teachers,
masters. Buddha used it, Mahavira used it, Jesus used it, and in modern times Gurdjieff used it.
Among all the techniques, this is one of the most potential. Try it. It will take time; months will pass.
When Ouspensky was learning with Gurdjieff, for three months he had to make much effort, arduous
effort, in order to have a glimpse of what self-remembering is. So continuously, for three months,
Ouspensky lived in a secluded house just doing only one thing – self-remembering.

Thirty persons started that experiment, and by the end of the first week twenty-seven had escaped;
only three remained. The whole day they were trying to remember – not doing anything else, just
remembering that ”I am.” Twenty-seven felt they were going crazy. They felt that now madness was
just near, so they escaped. They never turned back; they never met Gurdjieff again. Why? As we are,
really, we are mad. Not remembering who we are, what we are, we are mad, but this madness is
taken as sanity. Once you try to go back, once you try to contact the real, it will look like craziness, it
will look like madness. Compared to what we are, it is just the reverse, the opposite. If you feel that
this is sanity, that will look like madness.

But three persisted. One of the three was P. D. Ouspensky. For three months they persisted. Only
after the first month did they start having glimpses of simply being – of ”I am.” After the second
month, even the ”I” dropped, and they started having the glimpses of ”am-ness” – of just being, not
even of ”I”, because ”I” is also a label. The pure being is not ”I” and ”thou”; it just is. And by the third
month even the feeling of ”am-ness” dissolved because that feeling of am-ness is still a word. Even
that word dissolves. Then you are, and then you know what you are. Before that point comes you
cannot ask, ”Who am I?” Or you can go on asking continuously, ”Who am I?”, just continuously
inquiring, ”Who am I ? Who am I?”, and all the answers that will be provided by the mind will be found
false, irrelevant.

You go on asking, ”Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?” and a point comes where you can no more ask
the question. All the answers fall down, and then the question itself falls down and disappears. And
when even the question, ”Who am I?” disappears, you know who you are. Gurdjieff tried from one
corner: just try to remember you are. Raman Maharshi tried from another corner. He made it a
meditation to ask, to inquire, ”Who am I?” And don’t believe in any answers that the mind can supply.
The mind will say, ”What nonsense are you asking? You are this, you are that, you are a man, you are
a woman, you are educated or uneducated, rich or poor.”

The mind will supply answers, but go on asking. Don’t accept any answer because all the answers
given by the mind are false. They are from the unreal part of you. They are coming from words, they
are coming from scriptures, they are coming from conditioning, they are coming from society, they are
coming from others. Go on asking. Let this arrow of ”Who am I?” penetrate deeper and deeper. A
moment will come when no answer will come.

Gurdjieff's Wife Enlightenment

Question: Beloved Osho, Gurdjieff was accused of trying to keep his wife alive while she was dying. His
disciples seem shocked and didn’t understand. In what way was he trying to help her that he was
unable to do before she Was dying?

Osho: The 1917 revolution in Russia disturbed Gurdjieff’s whole work. His disciples got scattered. He
himself had to escape out of Russia because the communists, who were coming into power, were
materialists: they did not believe in any spiritual growth. They conceived of man just as a vegetable.
But Gurdjieff managed to take with him a small group of disciples who had developed and crystallized
very much. His wife happened to be one of them.

They remained in Constantinople waiting for some opportunity to settle somewhere. It was in
Constantinople that they were found by Bennett and brought to Europe. First he wanted to settle in
England, but it seems no country – because of its politicians’ mediocre minds – wants any giant to
settle there. They cannot accept anybody who knows more, who is more; and Gurdjieff was a very
strong, powerful, charismatic man – whoever came into contact with him was changed. England
refused. Country after country refused him.

It was just by chance that the prime minister of France had read a few of his books and was
immensely impressed. He invited him, and gave him a beautiful place near Paris, a few miles away,
where he established his commune. In that commune there were two sections. One was the old-guard
Russians who had come with him, who were far more developed than the new followers from the West
– particularly from America. The difficulty was double.

First, the Russian group knew only Russian, so communication was impossible. Second, they were
highly developed, and these new people were highly educated but spiritually not developed at all.
Those Russians were not very educated. So there was another barrier of communication –
intellectually they could not communicate, language prevented it, education prevented it, and on the
plane of being also, communication was difficult because the Russian group was far more developed –
Gurdjieff had been working for years with them.

The oldest disciple was his own wife. And it became troublesome to people, particularly the new group:
”Why should Gurdjieff be so interested in his own wife?” It was not a question of being his wife; that
was irrelevant. The question was that he had worked on the woman the most, and she was dying. And
it was only a question of a few days – if he could manage to keep her alive her crystallization will
happen. Otherwise one knows not into how many circles of birth and death she would have to move.

And he was capable of keeping her alive, because in his system, transfer of energy is one of the basic
methods. It can be used to the extreme – that the dying person can live as much as the person who is
transmitting his energy to him; if he transmits his whole energy he will die immediately, and the dying
person can live long. Gurdjieff was not trying to sacrifice anybody, but everybody could contribute a
little bit of energy to his wife. And it was only a question of a few more days of good health, so she
can continue the work.

She had almost reached, just a step more and she would not be coming back. But the Western group
could not understand why he was so interested: a man who is enlightened should look equally towards
everybody – whether one is his wife or not. But they were ignorant of the fact that he was not looking
after his wife, he was looking after a human being who happened to be his wife, but who was in such a
position that just a few days’ health would release her forever from every imprisonment. It was worth
doing.
And he managed it – his wife died enlightened. This is possible in a school. If we see that somebody
has developed so much that there is no harm if everybody else contributes a little energy... so that the
person can continue more in the body and come to fulfillment. Alone it is not possible: it is not the way
of the monk, it is the way of a mystery school. And Gurdjieff himself had learned all his techniques, all
his experiences, in Sufi schools. He was never a monk; that’s why no religious recognition has been
given to him.

And Sufi schools keep their techniques very secret. Gurdjieff was the first to bring them to light in the
Western world. Sufis were not happy, and the Western world was shocked because they were used to
thinking of religion in a totally different way: ”What he is talking about does not seem to be religion.
He’s talking almost as if it is a science” – and he was right, it is a science. Just because of religious
persecution, many mystery schools have kept themselves underground and have worked without
anybody’s knowledge.

Even if the husband is part of a mystery school, his wife does not know about it – because the church,
the orthodox religion, will immediately start persecuting him. So it is better to keep silent, and do
what you want to do in a secret way. Gurdjieff’s intention was to make all those secrets available to a
wider number of people – in which he failed, not because of himself but because of the masses. They
are deaf; they cannot listen to anything that is so new and goes against their well-trodden path.

Of this caring for the wife, trying to keep her alive, the ordinary mediocre mind will think, ”This is
attachment. He’s too much attached to his wife. And a man who is so much attached to his wife
cannot be enlightened.” These are the mediocre minds’ logical standpoints; and other mediocre minds
will agree perfectly all over the world. The wife has to be renounced! – but here it is something else.
He’s trying to keep her in the body, not letting her die.