Our life with mr gurdjieff pdf

She herself died in The present edition has been fully revised and expanded by Thomas C. Daly from unpublished parts of the Russian text and from memoirs of Olga de Hartmann. Thomas C. Daly to continue her work there. Daly and T. Daly and Thomas A. In each case Gurdjieff worked with one particular pupil who had a special capacity to receive, absorb and transmit to others the material given.

In relation to the ideas it was P. All three of them and their spouses have been major transmitters of Gurdjieffs teaching, and they figure closely in this book, which spans twelve years beginning in There Gurdjieff chose Olga de Hartmann to be his secretary, assistant and manager of the household.

They did not go back to Gurdjieff again, but they never wavered in their devotion to his teaching. And when Gurdjieff died in , they joined forces with Jeanne de Salzmann, who inherited responsibility for all Gurdjieff s Work. In Thomas de Hartmann died unexpectedly, leaving the book unfinished. The same edition was republished in the Penguin Metaphysical Library in To work with the music we had to learn Russian, a slow but rewarding process, Ltj which my elder son, Tom, joined me, fascinated.

It also showed that Thomas de Hartmann had a greater flair for character description, sense of storytelling, and clarity of time and place than had been apparent before. It was clear that a new and further expanded edition was called for, this time a much more ambitious and all-absorbing work. Tom now fully shared the editorial jobs and responsibilities, while Ruth, with equal devotion, began the long task of typing the many stages of, and corrections to, the text.

These selected additions have increased the book by about one-third. We have updated the introductory material on Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann, and added a new section on Olga de Hartmann. All three sections are designed mainly to give some impression of the background and character of each person. For those who like to experience the sound of their reading, it would be well to consult the note on pronunciation of Russian names on page xii before starting the book.

We can never know what more he intended to write about that, but, happily, the world will now be able to know, experience and work with the music itself. The last of the four volumes is due for release by Those who wish to hear how de Hartmann himself played some of this music and, in one case, to hear the sound of his voice speaking about it, can obtain cassettes or compact discs through Triangle Editions Inc.

Certain Russian terms - burka, lineika, verst - have been retained and explained as they appear. Corrections in translation have been made as required. Place-names are given as de Hartmann wrote them according to Russian usage at the onset of World War I. Since then, many of these names have changed and cannot be found on more recent maps.

Both types of change are listed on the next page in parentheses beside the name used in this book. In some cases the names were changed for political reasons; these names are listed, with the official dates of change.

Any attempt to alter the name to fit each historical context became ludicrous and confusing. He was often invited to evening gatherings to which many people who knew him came in order to hear his stories and songs. At these gatherings he would recite one of the many legends or poems he knew, according to the choice of those present, or he would render in song the dialogues between the different characters. The whole night would sometimes not be long enough for finishing a story and the audience would meet again on the following evening.

GurdjiefP Georgi Ivanovich Gurdjieff was bom of a Greek father and an Armenian mother in a region of Asia Minor that was a meltingpot of nationalities and religions. He was the eldest of six children, with a brother and four sisters, one of whom died while still in her youth. During his childhood the family lived in Alexandropol and Kars, both then in Armenia, but the date and even the place of his birth remain uncertain.

Gurdjieff, worth, Arkana, , pp. At such events, lasting weeks or even months, the contestants would improvise questions and answers in verse and song on religious and philosophical themes or on the meaning and origin of some well-known legend. Wishing him to grow up free from squeamishness, repulsion, timidity and fear, GurdjiefPs father took every opportunity during his childhood to inculcate in him an attitude of indifference to them.

He would sometimes slip a frog, a worm, a mouse, or some other animal likely to evoke such impulses, into my bed, and would make me take non-poisonous snakes in my hands and even play with them. He always forced me to get up early in the morning and go to the fountain and splash myself all over with cold spring water, and afterwards to run about naked; and if I tried to resist he would never yield, and although he was very kind and loved me, he would punish me without mercy.

I often remembered him for this in later years and in these moments thanked him with all my being. If it had not been for this I would never have been able to overcome all the obstacles and difficulties that I had to encounter later during my travels.

There Gurdjieff was chosen to sing in the choir of the Russian Orthodox cathedral. For this he had to find and gain access to many, sometimes secret, schools of ancient wisdom throughout the Near East and beyond, as far as India and Tibet. Among the most notable of these was an Essene school reputed to have existed in the days of Jesus Christ. In the Islamic world he studied the methods of many orders of dervishes and penetrated to Mecca itself.

To perfea their roles, they spent a whole year letting their hair grow long and learning the necessary sacred chants, practices and instructive sayings of former times. Little by little, through the teachings and practices of different schools, Gurdjieff found living answers to the questions that so deeply concerned him. After some twenty years of search and the collecting of ancient wisdom from living sources, Gurdjieff began to shape a teaching of his own, designed to make such understanding more accessible to peoples of the West.

In he appeared in Moscow and organized his own school there, later establishing it also in St Petersburg and dividing his time between the two. All the ideas are concentrated around a central one: the most complete evolution possible for humankind and for the individual. The universe is presented as an orderly organism, whose functioning is based on the interplay of two fundamental laws: the Law of Seven or the Law of Octaves and the Law of Three or the Law of Triads.

This universal image is not derived as a simile from music, but rather the reverse: music is one form and expression of the basic universal laws.

Such was the breadth and range of ideas and related practices that Thomas de Hartmann and his wife were confronted with when they met Gurdjieff in the winter of What it did for them they tell in their own words. In Z Gurdjieff closed the Institute he had developed near Fontainebleau in France and travelled again for some time. Without this seed in which the magic part of life is hidden and from which a work of art can be born.. Thomas de Hartmann Thomas Alexandrovich de Hartmann was bom in on the family estate, which bordered on the village of Khoruzhevka, east of Kiev in the Ukraine.

He showed his inclination for music at the age of four and liked to express himself by musical improvisations. Fairy-tales haunted him from his childhood and were to become a recurring theme in his work. His early memories were of growing up among cultured people, close to the land and surrounded by the peasants and craftsmen of Old Russia. There his special talent was soon recognized and he was permitted to spend all his spare time on musical studies.

He also worked with Anna Esipova-Leschetizky on piano technique. In Thomas received his diploma from the St Petersburg conservatory, then under the direction of Rimsky-Korsakov.

In the same year he graduated from military school as a junior Guards officer, with years of active service ahead of him. None the less, he found time to compose and to enter into the musical and theatrical life of St Petersburg. He also wrote piano preludes and settings for songs of Russian poets, which were published by Jurgenson and Zimmerman. A year or two later, when Arensky was writing to Taneiev about de Hartmann, he commented: Take note that at the end of his very first composition, a prelude in A-flat major, published by Jurgenson, there are five or six notes that do not exist on any piano whatever.

The keyboard would need to be extended about seven inches to accommodate them. Now he knows his instrument better, and plays it very well, but his attention is still inclined to wander. This enabled him to fulfil his great wish to study conducting in Munich with Felix Mottl, a personal pupil of Wagner and musical director of the Opera. At that moment, two events took place in Munich, and it was these which left a trace on my artistic path. The first was a great exhibition of paintings by van Gogh, Gauguin and Cezanne, at that time still completely unknown, and the second, soon afterward, was my meeting with the Russian painters Yavlensky, Verevkina and especially Kandinsky, with whom I remained friends until his death.

The intensity and depth of this relationship, and its meaning for tiis life, is hinted at in a remark about Kandinsky by his wife.

Nina, in later years: As far as I can remember, among all his circle of friends, there was only one whom he ever addressed by the familiar second person singular, and only one who addressed him likewise: the Russian composer Thomas von Hartmann.

In those years in Munich Thomas wrote a choreographic suite, Daphnis, Narcissus, Orpheus and Dionysus, which was presented at the Odeon. The Yellow Sound, which did not find a producer before war intervened. He recognized at once in Gurdjieff the teacher who could bring him what he had long been searching for, a search shared by his wife. The two of them gave up their life of comfort and luxury to work with Gurdjieff, and followed him wherever life took them for the next twelve years.

In , as with numerous other senior pupils, Gurdjieff made it necessary for the de Hartmanns to leave his Institute and become completely self-dependent. Thomas made a living writing scores for commercial films under a pseudonym while he continued to compose his own works. They lived in a deserted house because the Germans had occupied their own, but a piano was there and, inspired by Verlaine, Proust and James Joyce, Thomas set their works to music and also worked on his opera, Esther.

Gurdjieff died on 2. The decision was taken with Jeanne de Salzmann that the de Hartmanns would move to America to support the Work there. Then in the autumn of he told me that he had met a teacher, a real teacher, but he did not reveal his name nor how he had met him.

One day when I was taking Zakharov to the station, he began to speak about this teaching, which, he said, could be an answer to our great question. You see, it is generally supposed that higher knowledge is given gratuitously; but in this case, if you and your wife should wish to join this Work, you would have to pay a certain amount.

Although it was quite large 2, roubles it was possible at that time for us to pay it. As I had often been disillusioned, and noticed that my wife was not listening closely or seriously to what he was saying, I began to speak with Zakharov alone.

And as she did not know about the teacher whom Zakharov had met, I decided not to tell her about him until I had seen him myself. This was a very large restaurant on the Nevsky Prospect, the main street of St Petersburg, where the Liteiny Prospect joins it, but it was one to which no Guards officer would ever go.

Zakharov would come there to take me to see Mr Gurdjieff. I went. Zakharov finally appeared and we started towards the big Nikolayevsky station, on the same Nevsky Prospect. Suddenly lie stopped before a building and led the way to the second floor, where there was a cafe. To say the least, it was a cafe for an extremely mixed crowd, which walked the Nevsky day and night; ind if anyone were to find out that I had been there, I would have liad to leave my regiment.

We went in, ordered coffee and waited. After a while I saw coming towards us Dr Lieonid Robertovich Stjernvall, whom I had met before socially, and two men in black sealskin coats, both very typical Caucasians, with black eyes and black moustaches. They were very well dressed, but so Caucasian! I wondered which one was he. And I must say that my first reaction was anything but one of rapture or veneration.

All three approached and we shook hands. Which one of the two was he? My uncertainty was quickly dispelled by the eyes of one of the men. There was a moment of heavy silence. My eyes could not avoid noticing the detachable cuffs, which were not very clean. Then I thought: You have to speak. I made a great effort and forced myself to say to him that I wished K be admitted to his Work.

Mr Gurdjieff asked the reason for my request. Perhaps I was not happy in life? Or was there some other special reason? I answered rhat I was perfectly happy, happily married, that I had enough money to live on without having to earn my living, and that I had my music, which was the centre of my life. But, I added, all this was not enough. Mr Gurdjieff listened and then said that we would speak later about the question that interested me.

But for the time being, nothing is necessary. For a long time I could not speak. And certainly you will never see such eyes again. Or if not to repel him, at least to make him hurdle the difficulties, holding fast to his aim in spite of everything. After this meeting, my life became a sort of fairy-tale. Also, it seems that if you keep striving for one great purpose, you will win things you never dreamed of in addition, but woe to you if you allow yourself to be diverted, if you are tempted by something cheap.

Ordinary life, which had been reality, continued, but it seemed almost unreal. So I had taken the first step. After that meeting I had to find Ouspensky. He lived on Troitskaya Street, not far from the Nevsky. When I rang the bell, a soldier wearing a pince-nez opened the door. He had been mobilized by the army but was being released because of near-sightedness. Now he need wear his uniform only a little longer. From the start he made a very strong impression on me; he was simple, courteous, approachable and intelligent.

Without wasting time he began to tell me what he later wrote in his book In Search of the Miraculous. I explained the reason - that we had already met so many people we did not like that this time I had decided to see for myself first to spare her a disappointment. Needless to say, her wish to meet this teacher was stronger than any other emotion, and we waited impatiently for the day when Mr Gurdjieff would return to St Petersburg so that we might go to see him together.

The revolution advanced slowly but surely. At last Mr Gurdjieff arrived. We were called to come to a meeting, which took place on 9 February in the apartment of Mr and Madame Ouspensky. There were comparatively few people at this meeting. They occupied chairs in front of a sofa on which, later, Mr Gurdjieff sat. Most of these people were already acquainted with the ideas now available from the book In Search of the Miraculous.

This meeting was not a lecture and very little was said, but my wife and I both felt a strong atmosphere of inner questioning. From time to time someone would break the silence with a brief inquiry.

The mood was not one of lukewarm people interested in the occult teachings fashionable at that time. To give you the impression that this meeting made on my wife, I pass the pen to her. Instead of being glad, I flared up, reproaching him for not having told me.

It was our first quarrel. Finally the day came. The meeting was arranged for half past eight in the evening in the apartment of Mr and Madame Ouspensky, whom I did not yet know. It also happened to be the birthday of my younger sister, Zoya, and my parents were giving a ball for her, which, of course, we had to attend.

So 1 put my fur coat over my ball dress and remained in it all evening. As we were at the meeting for the first time, we sat a little apart from the rest of the group. The room was not very large. In front of a Turkish sofa about fifteen people were sitting on chairs. The man we longed so much to see was not in the room. Everything seemed quite strange to me, and I was struck by the sincere and simple way in which the people spoke.

DrStjernvall, who appeared to be at the head of the group, asked the people what they could say in answer to the question that had been put to them last time.

One said it was money, another fame, yet another love, and so on. Quite unexpectedly - like a black panther - a man of oriental appearance, such as I had never seen before, came in. He went to the sofa and sat down with his legs crossed in the Eastern manner. He asked what they were speaking about, and Dr Stjernvall reported the question and the answers. When it is self-love, egoistical love, or temporary attraction, it hinders, because it ties a man down and he is not free. But if it is real love, with each one wishing to help the other, then it is different; arui I am always glad if husband and wife tire both interested in these ideas, because they can help each other.

Nevertheless, I had a distinct feeling that Mr Gurdjieff was looking at me. Today I am certain that he said this especially for me. I was in a very strange state, I was so happy.

Then we had to leave and go to the ball. I suddenly had a definite feeling as if something had hit me in the chest. The people who were dancing seemed to be puppets. Within a few days I had the opportunity of speaking with Mr Gurdjieff alone. I did not wish to very much, because people told me that Mr Gurdjieff would ask me what I expected from him; so I wavered, but finally decided to go.

Before I could even say anything, Mr Gurdjieff asked me how I had felt when I went home after the meeting. I do not really remember, except that he was satisfied and said that if we wished, my husband and I could always come to see him whenever he was in St Petersburg. I told him that my husband had to go to the front and that neither of us would remain in the city much longer, as I wanted to follow my husband as far as I would be allowed to go.

I also asked whether it was not possible for my husband to avoid going to the front. What do you expect? I will not laugh. Perhaps I can help you. In the corner stood a ladder. You have to go step by step and not imagine that you can he at the top of the ladder at once. But I know I will have no force, even no desire, 10 climb to the top. So 1 decided it was better to try to help my I'usband and you to reach the top of the ladder, by pushing you jrom behind, because I see that you and my husband wish it so much.

But, look, you can push Hi perhaps from the second step to the third, from the third to the loiirth, but then you cannot reach us. If he had told me to read books, make efforts or do ihf exercises that he gave to others, I surely would not have done anything or only have done it half-heartedly.

Now to continue my own story: we saw Mr Gurdjieff once more St Petersburg, a few days before I had to leave for the Austrian rout in the Ukraine. Before parting from Mr Gurdjieff, I asked liK advice about my military service.

Remember yourself. You will see that revolution will break out totally one of these days and everything will be finished. Staying at the front then will make no sense from the military point of view.

Try to get away and come where I shall be. Entangle him. The teacher, while constantly directing and observing the pupil, at the same time changes his course, diverts him, even provokes him with apparent contradictions, in order to lead, him to find out for himself what is true.

This is possible only if the pupil has within him the strongest urge to persevere, a burning wish that will not permit him to be stopped by any obstacle. I was attached to the staff of our regiment and we were in the trenches. One day, about four in the afternoon, I was sent with a report to headquarters.

I got on my horse and rode along a flat highland from which the road descended into a valley. Soon I heard scattered artillery shots, repeated every three minutes.

It was impossible to turn back and not deliver my report, so I continued on my way. Although I had heard them only once and then without explanation, I understood their meaning in my own way and found myself in a new state of deep calm as soon as I began to repeat them and cling to them. I could see craters made by freshly exploded shells on the road before me. When an Austrian-type shell exploded on level ground, the itiicial angle of direction of the splinters was very high; that is why they did not hit anyone that close.

But my horse shied and fell Miro a shallow ditch. I was inwardly calm, but I had to decide quickly in which direction 10 run, since another shell would burst in less than three minutes. I here is a theory that shells never fall twice in the same place. Should I then go and lie down in the crater where the shell had iust landed?

Should I try to catch the horse? If I could, I would get away from this dangerous spot - and that is what I did. I'vents prevented us from seeing Mr Gurdjieff again until 28 August , this time in Essentuki in the Caucasus. After leaving liim in February, we went to Kiev for a last visit with my sister before going to the front.

The next morning there was a general »irike: no trains, no electricity, no newspapers, nothing! For six lays we lived in an unknown situation. There I could continue work on my military inventions, one of which had already been accepted by the army. But to be assigned to that particular place seemed unlikely. Then fate, or accident, helped me; it was like a fairy-tale. I met one of my relatives in the street. When he asked me what I was doing in St Petersburg, I told him my story and, as he was the adjutant of one of the Grand Dukes in charge of artillery, I had the necessary papers the very next morning.

We wished to take the first train going to the Caucasus. My five old Russian trunks were already packed. The station was in fearful confusion and disorder. Osip had to leave our trunks with the baggage men, but he managed to get a first-class compartment for us. Osip, with their two children, would get off the train at Moscow to place our most precious silverware in safe keeping at the Moscow Historical Museum, where the director was our friend.

We left at once, but instead of going to Rostov we went straight to Essentuki. To our great consternation only two of our five trunks had arrived. The others had somehow been stolen along he way, for we never did receive them.

But at the moment of our. We took what was left of the luggage in two carriages and drove with Marfousha 10 a little house, where we rang the bell at the gate. It was opened I'y a man dressed simply in a Russian belted shirt and a worn I oat, unshaven and smelling of sweat, like a labourer.

Mr Gurdjieff came out and greeted us. He told Zakharov to i. Then, in a very kind way, he invited us III come in. We found ourselves in a spacious room with men and women sitting around a dining-table, on which there was no Mhlccloth, only empty teacups and an oil-lamp - there was no riccrricity because of the war.

The women had scarves tied around ilicir heads like peasants. Mr Gurdjieff asked his wife, Julia Osipovna Ostrovsky, to give no something to eat, and she went and busied herself in the 11 lichen. She was tall of stature, exceedingly finely formed; a very iK-. But we came to see how deeply and seriously she valued the Work of Mr Gurdjieff. We grew to love her, deeply and sincerely, and she began to feel for us as present friends and future pupils of Mr Gurdjieff.

The little pieces of wood and coal that one puts underneath do not burn easily; one has to blow on them and, if one turns away for a moment, the flames go out and it is iiccessary to start all over. Kveryone burst out laughing. It turned out that this was an exercise specially devised by Mr Gurdjieff for Zakharov, who was by nature a particularly gentle and considerate man.

He was given this exercise nearly every day. This lasted quite a long time. Finally, he told them to rest. But his reason for my not eating them was to produce an inner struggle with a strong habit. Mr Gurdjieff often gave this exercise - to struggle with habits - to 1 those who were beginning to work on themselves. I Next day, tired from travelling, we got up late. In the evening Mr Gurdjieff took my wife and me for a walk. We went a long way into the town to buy a kulich - a cake. On our return Mr Gurdjieff began to accelerate his pace, increasing it all the time.

Finally he was practically running. We tried not to lag behind and ran some distance in this way. We knew he was testing us, to see what we could endure and how we would take it. Back at the house Mr Gurdjieff made us all repeat gestures and grimaces that he made. That put us into a state of anxiety. It would mean becoming a deserter. Not a word about how, nor any other details! We had come in order to be with Mr Gurdjieff, regardless of difficulties. Now anxiety, doubts, insecurity about the future brought us many questions.

What should we do? I had told Osip to join us in Essentuki after he had put our valuables into safe keeping - which we supposed was still possible - and had arranged with his mother to take care of their cliildren on our estate.

In a few hours, however, we discovered that Mr Gurdjieff, his wife and Zakharov were going the following morning only to 1 uapse, on the coast of the Black Sea. He told us that, if we wished, we could come along. Later, we realized this was the right thing to do. Gurdjieff By Thomas and Olga de Hartmann.

De Hartmann wrote Our Life with Mr. She also authenticated Gurdjieff's early talks in the book Views from the Real World. Daly and T. Daly, London: Penguin Arkana, p.

The de Hartmann's were devoted to Gurdjieff. Their poignant, account of the years to has become a classic of the. Thomas de Hartmann wrote the draft of Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff in Russian; he died unexpectedly in March before the book was completed. Olga de Hartmann finished the book and it was published in in English. Delving deeper into some of G.

Our life with Mr. Free shipping for many products. In Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff, Thomas and Olga de Hartmann write poignantly of their deep love for each other and the stress created by Gurdjieff on their marriage.

They reveal that despite emotional demands made by Gurdjieff that were so intense they felt like leaving, they remained with him because of the great value of his spiritual work File Size: KB. Sandpoint, Second printing of Definitive Edition.

New cloth bound in dust jacket. Item Attractive blue cloth edition with photograph laid on front cover, tipped in frontis photograph of Gurdjieff and photographs of the de Hartmanns' tipped in later in book and all other photographs which first appeared in the Definitive Edition reproduced on photographic plate Book Edition: Second Printing of Definitive Edition. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

Their book [Our Life with Mr Gurdjieff] picks up the story. Title Our Life with Mr Gurdjieff. Binding Paperback. Book Condition Very Good. Type Paperback. Edition Revised and Expanded Edition. Having given this short account of my first meeting with Mr Gurdjieff, I would now like to tell you something else about it - that surely it was planned by Mr Gurdjieff himself.

Original black cloth with gilt titling to upper board and spine, diagram, list of musical works. The wife of Dr. Leonid de Stjernvall, one of Gurdjieff's oldest and closest pupils, she gives a first-hand account of the harrowing exodus of Gurdjieff and his pupils through the Caucasus. The only other source we have of these events is Thomas and Olga de. The story of the journey and subsequent events is chronicled in Our Life With Mr. Gurdjieff, by Thomas and Olga de Hartmann, while P.

Gurdjieff Thomas Olga de Hartmann. ISBN: You can write a book review and share your experiences. Other readers will always be interested in your opinion of the books you've read. Whether you've loved the book or not, if you give your honest and detailed thoughts then people will find new books that are.

Main Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff Thomas de Hartmann, Olga de Whether you've loved the book or not, if you give your honest and detailed thoughts then people will find new books that are right for them. Gurdjieff was an unknown person, a mystery. De Hartmann was primarily a musician: his life in Russia prior to the Revolution was lived in the higher echelons of the society of that day, which included service in the Guards. Gurdjieff, Thomas and Olga de Hartmann.