Shvilim
Israeli Gurdjieff foundation
The study groups of practical teaching as handed by Mr. Gurdjieff's direct disciples
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What is the meaning of my life?
Is there something beyond my ordinary existence?
It is possible to truly comprehend the meaning of our existence…
The possibility to truly comprehend the meaning of our existence is present, although hidden. It is hidden under all of our mundane “objectives”, to which we often devote great efforts, hidden under all the ways suggested to us by various teachers and philosophies.
Who am I? Why am I here? What is the meaning of my life?
Is there something beyond my ordinary existence? Do I possess unknown capacities?
How can I choose my path correctly?
When these questions arise, they may carry a hidden direction and present unknown possibilities.
"Mr. Gurdjieff was a danger. A real threat. A threat for one's self-calming, a threat for the little regard one had of oneself, a threat to the comfortable repertoire where we generally live. But at the moment when this threat appeared, like a ditch to cross, a threshold to step over, one was helped to cross it by his presence itself."
- Dr. Michel de Salzmann -
George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff
George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff was born in 1877 in Alexandropol and trained in Kars as both a priest and a physician. For some twenty years, Gurdjieff traveled in the remotest regions of Central Asia and the Middle East. These years were crucial in the moulding of his thought. On his return, he began to gather pupils in Moscow before the First World War and continued his work with a small party of followers. During the years of the Russian revolution, he moved to Essentuki in the Caucasus and then through Tiflis, Constantinople, Berlin and London, to the Château du Prieuré near Paris, where he reopened his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in 1922 on a larger scale. He died in 1949.
The story of his unremitting search for a real and universal knowledge, and the expositions of his ideas, are unfolded in his major works: Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, Meetings with Remarkable Men, Life is Real Only Then, When ‘I am’ and Views from the Real World.
Mr. Gurdjieff was an extraordinary man, a master in the truest sense. His teaching speaks to our most essential questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is the purpose of life, and of human life in particular?
Through many years of searching and practice he discovered a Teaching and then set about putting what he had learned into a form understandable to the Western world. He presented his teaching and ideas in several forms that included work in groups, writing, music, and movements, which together offered a new possibility of "a work on oneself".
"Shvilim" Israel - Israeli Gourdjieff foundation'
