‘Life Is Real Only Then, When “I Am’ by G.I. Gurdjieff

‘Life Is Real Only Then, When “I Am”‘ was first privately printed in 1974. It is the incomplete text of the third Series of All and Everything by G. I. Gurdjieff. The book comprises a prologue, Gurdjieff’s description of five of his lectures (delivered on five nights starting November 28 and ending December 19, 1930) and a final essay entitled “The Outer and Inner World of Man”. Gurdjieff himself noted the importance of reading his trilogy in correct sequence.

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Meetings with Remarkable Men by G.I. Gurdjieff

Meetings with Remarkable Men is the second volume of the All and Everything trilogy written by the Greek-Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff. It was published in 1963 and tells the tale of the young Gurdjieff growing up in a world torn between his unexplainable experiences and the developing modern sciences. The book takes the form of Gurdjieff’s reminiscences about various “remarkable men” that he has met, beginning with his father. They include the Armenian priest Pogossian; his friend Soloviev, Prince Lubovedsky, a Russian prince with metaphysical interests, and a couple of others.

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Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson or An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man by G. I. Gurdjieff

Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson or An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man is the first volume of the 'All and Everything' trilogy written by the Greek-Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff. The All and Everything trilogy also includes 'Meetings with Remarkable Men' (first published in 1963) and' Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am'' (first privately printed in 1974).

Because the book was intended to be the main study tool for his teachings, and because the idea of work is central to those teachings, Gurdjieff went to great lengths in order to increase the effort needed to read and understand it. Gurdjieff himself once said, “I bury the bone so deep that the dogs have to scratch for it." The book treats of an enormous number of subjects and questions. It is a vast allegorical myth structure in a literary form all its own.

From the foreword of G. I. Gurdjieffs “Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson”:

“All written according to entirely new principles of logical reasoning and directed toward the accomplishment of the following three fundamental tasks: FIRST SERIES To destroy, mercilessly and without any compromise whatever, in the mentation and feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him, about everything existing in the world. SECOND SERIES To acquaint the reader with the material required for a new creation and to prove the soundness and good quality of it. THIRD SERIES To assist the arising, in the mentation and in the feelings of the reader, of a veritable, nonfantastic representation not of that illusory world which he now perceives, but of the world existing in reality.”

Beelzebub’s Tales is included in Martin Seymour-Smith‘s 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written, with the comment that it is “…the most convincing fusion of Eastern and Western thought has yet been seen.

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Letters From Russia by P.D. Ouspensky

From 1907 until 1913 Ouspensky wrote for a Russian newspaper, mostly on foreign affairs. At the same time he was working on various books based on the idea that our consciousness is an incomplete state not far removed from sleep, and also that our three-dimensional view of the universe is inadequate and incomplete. Hoping that answers to some of the questions he had posed might have been found by more ancient civilisations, he made an extensive tour of Egypt, Ceylon and India. On his return Ouspensky learnt that Russia was at war. Very rare book.

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