30 George Gurdjieff Quotes on Consciousness and Self Awareness
30 George Gurdjieff Quotes on Consciousness and Self Awareness
George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1866-1949) was a Armenian philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher. He was a fascinating and mysterious character and is considered to be one of the most influential spiritual teachers of the twentieth century.
He became interested in finding out what exactly the secret of the universe is. He started probing deeply into the mysteries of why things are the way they are.
He went on a search at a fairly young age to find out the truth. His quest for truth led him to travel to Central Asia, Egypt, Iran, India, Tibet, and Rome.
Gurdjieff is known for his strange and revolutionary methods of teachings, he introduced a concept of self-development called “The Fourth Way.”
According to him, “the world appears to be run by sleeping people.” Man has become a machine as humanity is getting more and more mechanical and automated. Everyone is sleeping and working unconsciously. To wake up from this deep sleep, a conscious effort is needed. Someone who is already awake can accelerate this waking process.
Gurdjieff was not a conventional teacher. He often used practices which used to give shock to the body-mind system and give you a glimpse of reality. He would go to any extent to bring inner centering in his disciple. Gurdjieff sacred dances became very famous in the West. He also taught self-remembrance. One of his key disciples, Ouspensky, shared his time with Gurdjieff in the book “In Search of Miraculous.”
Listed below are 30 Gurdjieff quotes on self awareness and consciousness:
1. Practice love first on animals, they are more sensitive.
2. Hope of consciousness is strength Hope of feelings is slavery Hope of body is disease.
3. Remember yourself always and everywhere.
4. Awakening begins when a man realizes that he is going nowhere and does not know where to go.
5. That which is easy is bad for your inner life.
6. Conscious faith is freedom. Emotional faith is slavery. Mechanical faith is foolishness.
7. Two things in life are infinite; the stupidity of man and the mercy of God.
8. Real love is a cosmic force which goes through us. If we crystallize it, it becomes the greatest power in the world.
9. What you need to know is very little, but to know that little takes very very much.
10. I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself.
11. He who has gotten rid of the disease of “tomorrow” has a chance of achieving what he is here for.
12. There is a cosmic law which says that every satisfaction must be paid for with dissatisfaction.
13. Patience is the mother of will.
14. Laughter relieves us of superfluous energy, which, if it remained unused, might become negative, that is, poison. Laughter is the antidote.
15. Remember yourself always and everywhere.
16. Life is real only then, when “I am.”
17. Those who have not sown anything during their responsible life will have nothing to reap in the future.
18. Love without knowledge is demonic.
19. A man may be born, but in order to be born he must first die, and in order to die he must first awake.
20. A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering.
21. If you want to lose your faith, make friends with a priest.
22. Don’t judge a man by the tales of others.
23. Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.
24. It is the greatest mistake to think that man is always one and the same. A man is never the same for long. He is continually changing. He seldom remains the same even for half an hour.
25. It is impossible to recognize a wrong way without knowing the right way. This means that it is no use troubling oneself how to recognize a wrong way. One must think of how to find the right way.
26. One of man’s important mistakes, one which must be remembered, is his illusion in regard to his I.
27. Better to die than live in sleep.
28. Awakening is possible only for those who seek it and want it, for those who are ready to struggle with themselves and work on themselves for a very long time and very persistently in order to attain it.
29. Patience is the mother of will.
