"In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching" by P. D. Ouspensky

I approached this book with skepticism, based on my previous knowledge and readings about Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, their lives and their (pitiful) deaths. However, after the first few dozen pages, I started to get more and more interested and involved in the material. It was something that you obviously deviates from the standard 'New Age' teaching, both in form and in function, and it actually sounded like something that could be true. Of course, there was plenty of borrowings from Theosophy, especially about the cosmology of the world and the organization of the 'higher planes' for which I couldn't care less. Things like 'The Ray of Creation' , the 'Law of Octaves', the angels and archangels that govern each plane did not interest me the least, since their practical value in modifying my life and everyday experience was next to none. Nowadays I judge the teachings by their fruits, not by how elegant and elaborate they are, but by how do the improve the quality of my life.

The teachings about 'self-remembering', self-observation, intentional suffering, about the fact that humans are machines, always under the Law of Accident, that they cannot do anything of their own free will, because they have none, they are asleep, constantly in a lucid dream where they only think they are free, but in fact all they do is caused by external influences and accident; these teachings resonate strongly, almost as if becoming aware of The Matrix. Also here we must mention the teachings about the complete mechanicalness of the human-machine, and the fact that no one is born with higher bodies, and they have to be earned by hard work, and the right kind of work, otherwise nothing outlast the death of the physical body, the dust returns to the dust from which it was created and the machine disappears, with no trace or any kind of entity outliving it. This discouraging view resonates much more truthfully than the fairytale teachings of most New Age groups, and is almost the same as the teachings found within Peter Carroll's Chaos Magick, i.e. humans are not born with a soul, they have to work hard all their lives to create a soul, which might have a fleeting chance of eternal life or even only outliving the death of the physical body for a certain period of time.

The teachings of Gurdjieff also bear close semblance to the teachings of Castaneda's Don Juan, especially in the parts about self-remembering, and the lack of self-consciousness or self-awareness in humans. Don Juan says that the human consciousness is eaten by creatures from other planes, which Gurdjieff is saying that it is being sucked by the Moon, which uses it to become a planet itself, while reducing the meaning of human existence to yet another parasite whose by-product is useful to the wider world in general, much like the oceanic fito-plancton which produces oxygen. While these claims might be classified as outrageous or bombastic by people who like to believe in their own special and privileged place in the universe the ladder of living beings (as all major religions teach), it does infuse a refreshing perspective that is not egocentric and megalomaniac, and while the exact metaphors used might not be extremely accurate, the significance might be.

Further similarities between Gurdjieff's system and Castanedas 'Tensegrity' can be found in both teacher's insistence on use of moves for achieving higher states of consciousness. Castaneda has his 'Magical Passes' while Gurdjieff has the 'Sacred Dances' both being used for raising one's awareness and focusing attention. Similarities to Osho's system have been pointed as well, though Osho places much more emphasis on traditional systems like Yoga, Tantra and Buddhism. However, while Osho had no problem revealing and describing his system in great detail and with minute explanations, so that the greatest number of people can understand and practice it, neither Castaneda, and even less Gurdjieff did this, but quite the opposite. Gurdjieff was especially cryptic, and always let the students know that he is not telling them everything, which some people have equated with insincerity, even sadism, to complement many methods that Gurdjieff recommended to his students, which would look like masochism to an outside observer. Gurdjieff even goes further by saying that it is neither possible nor desirable to initiate many people in his system and thus increase their awareness, since then the initial purpose of the human beings of being parasitic converters of energy for the moon would be damaged. This goes in stark contrast to all major religions which claim salvation is for everyone and that spiritual evolution is the ultimate goal for all human beings.

Critics point out that after the demise of the teachers, both Castaneda's and Gurdjieff's teachings have not produced new enlightened followers and teachers, but have mostly fallen into obscurity, which is true and disturbing, as no matter how truthful and powerful one teaching sounds , if it is being unable to enlighten the students and bring them to the level of the teacher eventually, then it is useless, and becomes just another exciting fairytale. It is questionable that even Gurdjieff's best student, Jean De Saltzman, who died in 1990 at an age of 101, has achieved the permanent 'objective consciousness' which Gurdjieff pointed out is the goal of his teaching on individual level. It is a pity that Gurdjieff never wrote a clear and complete explanation of his teachings, both theoretical and practical, but left it to the students to record and publish scraps, bits and pieces, and supplemented that with convoluted, unreadable books like 'The Tales of Belzebub to his Grandson'. He pointed many times that the teachings are 'out there' and people either have no interest or capability to understand them, but in the same time never published a single clearly written book of his own teachings that would be 'out there' for the people to try to understand, but fall back into the errors of the teachers and teachings of the time past, wrapping it with allegories and metaphors for the 'initiated'.

It is a pity that even in the modern day people still fall back to methods of secrecy and allegories, as did the Pythagoreans and alchemists, the latter having good reason, fearing the persecution of the Church, while the former doing it from pure egotism and vanity, thus retarding mathematics for hundreds of years, and even resorting to murder like in the case of Hippasus of Metapontum. This insistence on secrecy and 'veiled knowledge' serves only to increase the egos and sense of exclusivity for those who think they have it, and is just as ridiculous as the Theosophist's paralyzing fear of developing 'powers' that can be used for evil. Secrecy and allegories are, and should be things of the past. All knowledge should be exposed clearly and comprehensively for the evaluation, acceptance or rejection by all of the human community, and until all self-appointed teachers and self-righteous students accept this, we will all continue to live in our own squalid little matrices.