Of the Life Aligned: Reflections on the Teaching of G.I. Gurdjieff and the Perennial Order

By Frank R. Sinclair

Frank Sinclair, author of Without Benefit of Clergy: Some Personal Footnotes to the Gurdjieff Teaching, has written a searching sequel to his earlier account of a life devoted to the exploration of the perennial wisdom. Drawn as a young man to the Greek-Armenian esotericist G.I. Gurdjieffs ideas about the Great Knowledgethe powerful ancient stream of true knowledge of beingSinclair has spent half a century in this vocation. The present book recounts his ponderings on the unfolding reality of the perennialist vision following a near-fatal brush with the outer darkness and the passing of his wife of almost 50 years. In the process, he delves into the timeless mysteries of life and death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 16, 2009
• ISBN: 9781450002653

Frank R. Sinclair

Frank Sinclair grew up in the shadow of Table Mountain, in Cape Town, South Africa, at “the fairest cape in all the circumference of the world,” as the circumnavigator Sir Francis Drake described it. After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Cape Town, he joined the editorial staff of the Cape Times in 1950. During his eight years at the Cape Times, he was a witness to many of the momentous changes taking place under the apartheid regime. In his late 20s, he settled in the United States to pursue his interest in the teaching of G.I. Gurdjieff. While becoming increasingly engaged in the activities of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York—he was named co-president in 2000 and president in 2005—he also had a successful career in the business world. He has made his home on the waterfront in Grand View on Hudson, some 20 miles north of Manhattan, since 1967.

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Copyright © 2009, 2011, 2014 by Frank R. Sinclair.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2009912551

ISBN:        Hardcover                                    978-1-4500-0472-5

            Softcover                                     978-1-4500-0471-8

            Ebook                                          978-1-4500-0265-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Cover: Symbolism of the Cross. Painting by Beatrice Sinclair

Rev. date: 08/05/2014

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CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 Who Is the Teacher?

Chapter 2 A Return to Tradition

Chapter 3 A Glimpse of the Outer Darkness

Chapter 4 Instruments of the Spirit—1

Chapter 5 Instruments of the Spirit—2

Chapter 6 Instruments of the Spirit—3

Chapter 7 Instruments of the Spirit—4

Chapter 8 Intimations of Grace

Epilogue—1 G.I. Gurdjieff’s Teaching in the Modern World

Epilogue—2 Some Principles of the Return

Epilogue—3 Memorial Program for Beatrice Sinclair

PHOTO%201.jpg

The author.

Photo by Ross Grant

For Beatrice

Who shed light on the path

PREFACE

I HAVE WRITTEN this book, not as a proselytizer for the teaching brought by George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, but as a simple seeker of truth.

This book has come into being largely because of certain extraordinary events of the past two years—events that included a brush with the outer darkness, as well as the painful loss of my wife, the person who for almost 50 years had been the closest to me in my life. I found myself catapulted, as a result, into a deep inquiry into the sense and aim of existence, and the meaning of life and death.

Ever since discovering the teaching, to which I have devoted more than 50 years of my adult life, I have sought this meaning through Gurdjieff’s work. But my short list of key sources also includes a number of other wellsprings, each of whom attests to the apophatic unanimity¹ that exists at the center of what Gurdjieff himself called the Great Knowledge, the powerful ancient stream of knowledge of being, or what is more commonly known as the perennial wisdom.

If there is one discernible and overriding idea that emerges through all of the ferment and questioning and searching—one idea that survives the manifold and varied experiencings and insights that I have touched on in the following pages—I believe it is still the Eckhartian understanding that all mediation must be alien to God, or better yet, alien to the Supreme Principle, the Absolute. Inextricably related to this is Eckhart’s profound understanding that the ground of things is nothingness, the abyss of the Godhead. This is the unfolding reality that informs what I have written.

So the ultimate understanding that I have been seeking and now am trying to convey is built on the perennialist foundation of that Great Knowledge. It has been bolstered by my serendipitous discovery of the non-dualistic vision of an extraordinary self-styled Monk of the West, Alphonse Levée or Elie Lemoine (Elias the Monk), as elaborated in his searching study, Christianity and the Doctrine of Non-Dualism ²

Even more, much of this esoteric underpinning is carefully elaborated in Reza Shah-Kazemi’s more recent and seminal study, Paths to Transcendence According to Shankara, Ibn Arabi, and Meister Eckhart.³

And not the least, I have found—serendipitously too—some of the profoundest corroboration of my experiencings and discoveries in Alvin Moore, Jr.’s masterful study, Meaning and Goal of the Christian Vocation, an article in The Essential Sophia: The Journal of Traditional Studies, World Wisdom, 2006.

It is at this point that I must signal a special alert to something I shall try to return to with more precision as I approach the final chapter—that it was through the struggle and the need to come to terms with my wife’s passing that I came to a clearer understanding of the implications of non-dualism; the reality of the Godhead as distinct from the Creator; and the evident need in the great scheme of things for what I have come to understand as instruments of the spirit. Again, this echoes the great Meister Eckhart in his many declarations in support of his insight that a perfectly released man represents nothing, and that the return to the Source is to return to the unspeakable origin where the Godhead and I are one, where I am the nature of God.⁴

In addition to these central texts, I believe I have dutifully and gratefully acknowledged all of the many fine sources to whom I have referred, including that of a number of the perennialists, who bring such penetrating insights and such comprehensive thought to these timeless questions. Of course, Gurdjieff is still, to them, someone considered to be beyond the pale, but his extraordinary influence continues to grow—and to be acknowledged.

I especially need to express my indebtedness to David Appelbaum, professor of philosophy at SUNY, New Paltz, for his subtle and challenging exchanges with me about the great underlying issues. I am grateful, too, to theoretical physicist and transdisciplinarian Basarab Nicolescu—a man whom I have never met personally—for his insightful observations in response to my questioning.

I wish also to thank Jeff Zaleski, editor and publisher of Parabola, for permission to publish the interview titled, Return to Tradition, from the winter 2007 issue of that publication.

I am grateful to Tony Lahoud, webmaster of the Arabic website, GurdjieffArabic.org, for permission to publish our interview, which I have titled G.I. Gurdjieff in the Modern World. Perhaps this site could be the first of many bridges between seekers in the West and those of the Arab world, in which Gurdjieff had spent so much of his early life. I have excerpted some passages as an epilogue titled, Some Principles of the Return.

I wish also to thank David Myers and Barbara Dartley for their generosity in transcribing selected exchanges from which I have drawn.

Finally, and not the least, Mary C. Arendt once again provided invaluable help in preparing the manuscript for publication, and policing my grammar as needed.

Of course, I alone am responsible for the content, the judgments made, and the opinions so freely expressed.

Frank R. Sinclair

Grand View on Hudson, NY.

INTRODUCTION

G RANTED THAT THE personal, to the perennialist, is ultimately only a delusion of the intellect, I must warn the gentle reader that this is nevertheless a very personal book.

Although I speak as one who has immersed himself, as much as he is able, in the teaching of the dead Russian mystic, G. I. Gurdjieff, this is not an institutional statement or a communal declaration about the teaching, but an unashamedly personal report on my efforts to ponder the significance and meaning of being alive. In that, I am perhaps no different from countless others who have pursued this inner questioning since time immemorial.

When I enter into this questioning, I enter into a mystery. It is not to affirm myself as a personage, or to profess some extraordinary understanding, but to enter into the mystery of who I am. And in order to enter into this process by which I become more interiorized, I see the need to put aside all of the old, habitual methods and crutches that I tend to lean on. And for that I need to be still—in all the parts, not just in the head, but also in the body and in the feeling. It is only then that I can truly appreciate and acknowledge Gurdjieff’s essential directive, that When I am not collected, I am simply a piece of meat. I need to be reminded of this fact, not just once or even occasionally, but as often as I forget, because nothing is possible without my being collected. So I see that I need an attention that isn’t taken, isn’t captured, isn’t fragmented—an attention that is free. And of course I need to see all the ways in which I allow the attention to be taken.

So instead of resorting to some old trick, or leaning on some tired old hand-me-down axiom of the spiritual endeavor, I take in the impression of myself here now, in this place, in this moment, without comment, as impartially as I am able. This is the threshold, if I am to come to something real. I must begin to question all of my habits. But first, to see them. I have nothing to prove, nothing to achieve; rather, I allow this burden of my conditioning to ease, to lighten. I need to be emptied of me and mine, and for that I need to be still, not allowing the attention to be taken and taken too far.

And so, in a miniscule way, there is already a new movement in me—a movement towards unity. The body materializes without my doing, not only because there is space but primarily because there is someone there to observe it. It begins to take its place, almost tangibly. The mind has quietened, not totally, but it is quieter. And it is linked to the body as it registers the structure and this growing sense of verticality.

But nothing is possible without a sense of tranquility. I’m aware now that the feeling is drawn to this order, is drawn to this meeting between the head and the body. I’m aware, then, of another dimension to my being. I’m aware of this vertical current, this evidence of something higher—something from a higher part of the mind, as Meister Eckhart has expressed it. And I begin to sense that I’m here to be the link between this current of life and this other, unknown vertical dimension. I need to respect that, and respect that in my neighbor. Even now, I sense that I am being helped, supported, because of the presence of the others who are joined with me in this exploration.

And so, in re-initiating this process, I see anew that this is a work, not for me or mine, but for Presence—the presence of the higher. And I am here to enable that to appear, and to serve it.

If I have remained with this wish, I begin to see that without this new alignment between the head, the body, and the feeling, these higher energies are denied to me. They don’t enter, they can’t enter, into an unconscious piece of meat. I need to be collected in order to serve this possibility, in order to be available to this. I return again and again to this centering action of the attention. And I need to be emptied of me and mine, emptied of all acquisitiveness. So in moments, I have this taste, this fleeting taste of an attention that is free, an attention that is able to penetrate and reach the essence. And so I see the need to keep this inquiry