9780525484981

I've been practicing self-observation, meditation and these sorts of things for years and so my level of being is high enough to grasp some of the 'inner content' of this work. If you are considering reading this without any internal preparation then I doubt you will feel the way I felt when I finished reading it: conscious of my ability to achieve anything! No book has ever done that to me. Gurdjieff actually wrote this book with the intention of giving the reader the material necessary to build a new world. That material to me was strength and with strength anything can be achieved, built. I looked over the 1 star reviews and noticed that the reviewers did not have the necessary level of being to not only understand this book but really feel it. Gurdjieff once advised his pupils to not take anything he says literally, and I noticed that the 'sense' of a phrase needs to be captured rather than the literal meaning of it. The quote about 'not listening to a woman's advice' is actually taken out of context, Gurdjieff referred to that quote as way to teach us that maps of unknown lands are good for nothing, that it is better to see what the map says and do the opposite. I laughed in parts of this book and I couldn't help but feel inspired by the powerful example that Gurdjieff was. Here are some of the things that you will learn from this book but again, this book will not teach you about how to become a spiritual person or anything like that, it is not a how-to book, but it may give you the feeling or taste for work, for effort, a taste for real life... - Conscious movement is always paid for, it is never wasted. Gurdjieff tells us about a man who was always deliberately moving his body, even in quiet moments. That man become one of the richest men in the world. It is believed that Nature paid him for all his 'work', even though the work itself had no real goal other than defeating laziness and accumulating invisible capital. - People without their soul mates run the risk of becoming irresponsible and leading irresponsible existences. - The gods help those who bring all of their manifestations into accordance with one clear goal. - One super-man can achieve the work of more than a hundred ordinary men. - Reading newspapers weakens the will. I tried reading Gurdjieff's first book but found it too difficult. This one is much more accessible. Keep in mind that this book is an advanced read, preparation with other advanced books might be necessary, like Samael Aun Weor's Revolutionary Psychology. I would recommend putting into practice Belzebuub's Peace of the Spirit Within before reading this book, because the techniques in that book will raise your level of being in such a way that you will become aware of your own inner world as well as the inner world of others and even the inner content of this book, which is probably more useful than the actual words themselves. To me, Meetings with Remarkable Men conveys the enormous value of work and our attitude to it. Perhaps Gurdjieff wanted people to develop a taste for work rather than be lazy. One of my favorite quotes which can sum up all of this is by Eliphas Levi, who said: "Pain is a work, work a struggle, struggle a progress, progress real life."

Lots of "wiseacring" here. Gurdjieff manages to prove himself a self-aggrandizing whack-job whose philosophy is stolen from Socrates. Socrates boiled down it down to "The unexamined life is not worth living" - Such a pity Mr. G was never so pithy.

The book can be hard to read at times as it was written in a foreign language and translated into English. Having studied the Fourth Way for 6 years and practiced in Fourth Way groups, I find this is still one of the best and most motivating books on the subject. Gurdjieff goes over his life as a kid and people who had influence over him as he was growing up as well as into his travels throughout Asia searching for Truth. It is a fascinating adventure book discussing his travels, triumphs, failures, and personal weaknesses along the way. I appreciate the honesty in the book, as he doesn't pretend like most religious figures to be all perfect and show no faults. He comes across as very human with a lot of street smarts. You really need a lot of street smarts to survive out there, be it in the business world or whenever you have to run your own business. A number of people call him a con man, however I would like for naysayers to name one human on this earth who has never done a wrong thing. Of course, it would be some President in their totally deluded minds. The point is everyone has done wrong things and Gurdjieff was very honest with his readers and it was good to see inside his psyche. Without this understanding, one can misinterpret his teachings in the wrong way.

Don't waste time reading the reviews on this book. If you have come this far you are supposed to read it.Mind Bomb

There is much autobiographical information here, but G.'s intentions are never straightforward. There is a deeper intention. That is to inculcate into the reader the need to search for the meaning of life. Along the way, he tells of many entertaining adventures in cultures and regions not familiar to the West and conveys the fascinating diversity and antiquity of this crossroads of religions, beliefs and ways of life. Predictably there are those who find one objection or another to this book, and have come to conclusions without much basis. It is a given that some will approach a book like this with skepticism and perhaps disapproval. Some of this is due to hearsay, concerning G.'s reputation as a "mystic" in the Rasputin/Crowley mold or some such nonsense. One of G.'s methods was in fact to APPEAR as a charlatan, in order to put off just those people who form opinions too quickly and fail to doubt the limitations of their own perspective. Those with a more open mind will be more receptive to more subtle intentions and sense a profound and urgent underlying teaching. For those people - those who sense a meaning behind the entertaining anecdotes and storyline - the next step is to read the book IN SEARCH OF THE MIRACULOUS by P.D. Ouspensky, which gives the best account of the man G. and his manner of teaching in the first half of the 20th c. But most of all, it is the best explication of the teachings themselves, and a book that to many people is the profoundest and most meaningful book they have ever read.