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Meetings with Remarkable Men (1963)

by G. I. Gurdjieff

Series: All and Everything (Second Series)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
8551025,269 (3.91)9
Meetings with Remarkable Men, G. I. Gurdjieff's autobiographical account of his youth and early travels, has become something of a legend since it was first published in 1963. A compulsive "read" in the tradition of adventure narratives, but suffused with Gurdjieff's unique perspective on life, it is organized around portraits of remarkable men and women who aided Gurdjieff's search for hidden knowledge or accompanied him on his journeys in remote parts of the Near East and Central Asia.             This is a book of lives, not doctrines, although readers will long value Gurdjieff's accounts of conversations with sages. Meetings conveys a haunting sense of what it means to live fully--with conscience, with purpose, and with heart. Among the remarkable individuals whom the reader will come to know are Gurdjieff's father (a traditional bard), a Russian prince dedicated to the search for Truth, a Christian missionary who entered a World Brotherhood deep in Asia, and a woman who escaped white slavery to become a trusted member of Gurdjieff's group of fellow seekers. Gurdjieff's account of their attitudes in the face of external challenges and in the search to understand the mysteries of life is the real substance of this classic work.… (more)
  1. 10
    In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of an Unknown Teaching by P. D. Ouspensky (Joop-le-philosophe)
    Joop-le-philosophe: « ... l'œuvre de [...], et en particulier Fragments d'un enseignement inconnu est de loin la plus sûre. » --Jacob Needleman
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English (7)  Spanish (1)  Italian (1)  French (1)  All languages (10)
Showing 1-5 of 7 (next | show all)
Awhile back this was considered to be one of THE books to read about mysticism. I have not read it in quite a long time so I'm not sure how it holds up, but at the time I recall being tremendously impressed. This was one of the first books I read that encouraged me to look beyond the surface of things. The set/setting in which we meet people can have so much influence on us, and it's often not until much later that we realize that that meeting has transformed our lives. And yes, many of us do spend way too much of our lives "asleep." Gurdjieff encourages us to wake up. ( )
  dbsovereign | Jan 26, 2016 |
I read this book many years ago, and was absolutely captivated by the book. I read it again after I bought it on the Kindle, and was a bit less captivated by the book. The section that I liked the most, was the one about his father. The four commandments of his father captured the crux of what we should all be about, as people. The next section that I liked, was the one about his teacher.

The rest of the sections are fantastic tales in themselves, and are very well told. This is why I give the book a four star rating. The writing style is much more accessible than the way that he wrote about Beelzebub's tales, and this is something that I like. I think that he made Beelzebub a bit too complex, that he made it complex for the sake of complexity.

I cannot say that I learned much from the book, barring the section on his father and teacher. But, the book is a joyous ride indeed. It is the story of a life fully lived. ( )
1 vote RajivC | Dec 7, 2013 |
After a lengthy ("Gurdjeffian") Introduction, the author introduces "My Father" as the first of the remarkable men. He was "widely known" in the Transcaucasian Asia Minor as an "ashokh": This name is given those bards who composed, recited or sang and told all sorts of stories. Although for the most part illiterate, they knew innumerable and lengthy narratives and sang various melodies all from memory or instant improvisation. [32]

Gurdjieff notes the Gilgamesh epic discovered among this inventory, with its pre-Biblical flood. [33-36] He introduces and describes "kastousilia", the procedure of inventing questions and answers with logical plausibility but fanciful basis. "Where is God"? He is in Kamish. "What is he doing there?" He is making double latters so that on the tops of the tall pines he can fasten happiness, so that whole nations might ascend and reach it. [38]

As for his father's business acumen -- "every business that my father carried on...always went wrong." There was a tendency in his nature: "an instinctive aversion to deriving personal advantage for himself from the naivete and bad luck of others". [47]
  keylawk | Dec 29, 2012 |
Great intro to Gurdjieff ( )
  sfisk | Sep 4, 2008 |
Interesting insights into Gurdjieff's experiences travelling around Asia (and, to a lesser extent, Europe and America). Disappointingly short on distilled wisdom though, and in that sense it's a bit of a tease. ( )
  stancarey | Oct 7, 2006 |
Showing 1-5 of 7 (next | show all)
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This is the work for Meetings with Remarkable Men, the Second Book/Second Series of the All and Everything series. Please do not combine with the First and/or Third Book/Series, being respectively Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson: An Objectively Impartial Criticism of the Life of Man and Life is Real Only Then, When "I Am".
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Meetings with Remarkable Men, G. I. Gurdjieff's autobiographical account of his youth and early travels, has become something of a legend since it was first published in 1963. A compulsive "read" in the tradition of adventure narratives, but suffused with Gurdjieff's unique perspective on life, it is organized around portraits of remarkable men and women who aided Gurdjieff's search for hidden knowledge or accompanied him on his journeys in remote parts of the Near East and Central Asia.             This is a book of lives, not doctrines, although readers will long value Gurdjieff's accounts of conversations with sages. Meetings conveys a haunting sense of what it means to live fully--with conscience, with purpose, and with heart. Among the remarkable individuals whom the reader will come to know are Gurdjieff's father (a traditional bard), a Russian prince dedicated to the search for Truth, a Christian missionary who entered a World Brotherhood deep in Asia, and a woman who escaped white slavery to become a trusted member of Gurdjieff's group of fellow seekers. Gurdjieff's account of their attitudes in the face of external challenges and in the search to understand the mysteries of life is the real substance of this classic work.

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