Master Disciple Stories

Ouspensky and Gurdjieff

Ouspensky was a seeker of truth from childhood and wanted to discover the meaning of life despite its utter absurdities. As a school boy he was interested in miraculous and esoteric things and as he grows up to become a Journalist and author, his interest in esoteric science also increased many fold.

Eventually in 1912 Ouspensky published his ideas in book “Tertium Organum” which made him a world renowned author. But on the personal front Ouspensky was same person as before, still deprived from truth. By autumn 1913 Ouspensky left for Egypt, Ceylon, and India.

Ouspensky had imagined of making contact with schools of the distant past, with schools of Pythagoras, with schools of Egypt, with the schools of those who built Notre-Dame, and so on.

Report of Ouspensky's departure to east was published in newspapers. Gurdjieff who was staying very close to Ouspensky came to know about him through newspapers.

In 1914, Ouspensky came back to his country Russia without making any contact with any esoteric school but he had already made a tentative plan for next search of esoteric schools - but this time in Mohammedan East: chiefly Russian Central Asia and Persia.

Ouspensky was giving public lectures about his travels in India and suddenly one day Gurdjieff’s cousin and musician Vladimir Pohl approached him.

They urged him to meet Gurdjieff and spoke very highly about the Gurdjieff group which is engaged in various "occult" investigations and experiments.

After considerable hesitation Ouspensky agreed and the first meeting of Ouspensky with Gurdjieff happened in a small noisy Café. Their first meeting went very well. They met daily for one week.

Daily Talks with Gurdjieff and the unexpected turn Gurdjieff gave to every idea, interested Ouspensky more and more every day. Ouspensky writes his experiences with Gurdjieff in his book “In Search of the Miraculous” and referring to Gurdjieff says “It very soon became clear to me that he knew very much of what I wanted to know.”

During this first week Ouspensky told Gurdjieff about his desire to go to East again. Gurdjieff replied “It is good to go for a rest, for a holiday but it is not worth while going there for what you want. All that can be found here."

Ouspensky says “I understood that he was speaking of work with him”. After one week Gurdjieff and Ouspensky tacitly accepted the respective roles of teacher and pupil. Ouspensky became one of the closest pupils of Gurdjieff.