Meetings With Remarkable Men

by G. I. Gurdjieff

  ‘The conversation interrupted by my entrance was resumed. It was about horses. The old man also took part in the discussion, and it was evident that he was a connoisseur of horses and had once been a great lover of them. Then the conversation changed to politics. They talked of the neighbouring countries, of Russia, and England, and when they were speaking of Russia, the Aga Khan, indicating me, jokingly said, “Please, do not say anything bad about Russia. You might offend our Russian guest.”

  ‘Although this was said in jest, it was clear to me that the Khan desired to prevent the inevitable denunciation of the Russians. There was at that time a widespread hatred there of the Russians and the English.

  ‘Then the general conversation died down, and we began talking among ourselves in separate groups. I talked with the old man, to whom I felt more and more drawn. He spoke with me in the local language, asked where I came from and how long I had been in Kabul. Suddenly he started to speak Russian, very correctly, though with a pronounced accent, explaining that he had been in Russia, even in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and had also lived a long time in Bukhara, where he had met many Russians and had thus learned to speak Russian. He added that he was very glad of an opportunity to speak this language again, as for lack of practice he had already begun to forget it.

  ‘A little later he said, among other things, that if it were agreeable to me and if I wished to speak in my native language and honour an old man, we could leave together and go to a chaikhana to sit for a while and talk. He explained that sitting in cafés and chaikhanas had been a weakness and habit of his from his youth, and that now, whenever he came to the city, he could not deny himself the pleasure of spending his free time that way, because, in spite of the noise and bustle, nowhere else could he think so well, and he added, “Doubtless that very noise and bustle is just the reason why one can think so well there.”

  ‘I consented to go with him, with the greatest pleasure, not of course in order to speak Russian, but for some reason I myself could not explain. Though already old myself, I was beginning to feel towards this old man as a grandson feels towards his beloved grandfather.

  ‘Soon all the guests began to leave. The old man and I left together, talking on the way of one thing and another. When we reached the chaikhana we sat down on the open terrace where we were served green Bukharian tea. From the attention and deference paid to the old man it was evident that he was known and respected there.

  ‘He had been speaking of the Tadzhiks, but after the first cup of tea he suddenly broke off the conversation, saying: “But these are trifles we are speaking about; this is not the point,” and, after looking at me steadily, he glanced aside and became silent.

  ‘The way he had so unexpectedly cut short the conversation, how he had ended it and that piercing look, all seemed to me strange and I said to myself, “Poor fellow, doubtless his thinking faculty has already begun to weaken with age and his mind has begun to wander,” and I became painfully sorry for this dear old man.

  “The feeling of pity began little by little to pass to myself. I reflected that my mind also would soon begin to wander and that the day was not far off when I too would not be able to direct my thoughts, and so on. I was so lost in these heavy but fleeting thoughts that I even forgot the old man. Suddenly I again heard his voice. The words he spoke instantly dispelled my gloomy thoughts, and shook me out of my state. My pity changed to such an astonishment as I think I had never experienced in my life before.

  ‘ “Eh, Gogo, Gogo! Forty-five years you have worked, suffered and laboured incessantly, and not once did you decide for yourself or know how to work so that, if only for a few months, the desire of your mind should become the desire of your heart. If you had been able to attain this, you would not now in your old age be in such solitude as you are!”

  ‘The name “Gogo” which he had used made me start with amazement. How could this Hindu, who saw me for the first time somewhere in Central Asia, know the nickname by which I had been called in my childhood sixty years before, and then only by my mother and nurse, and which no one had ever repeated since then?

  ‘Can you imagine my astonishment? I instantly recalled an old man who had come to see me once in Moscow after the death of my wife, when I was still a young man. I wondered, could this be the same mysterious man? But no. Firstly, the other was tall and did not resemble this one, and secondly, the other had surely died long before, as more than forty years had passed since that time and he had then been quite old. I could not find any explanation of this old man’s obvious knowledge not only of me but also of my inner state, known to myself alone.

  ‘While various similar thoughts flowed within me, the old man sat deeply absorbed in thought, and he gave a start when I finally mustered the strength to exclaim: “But who are you, who know me so well?”

  “Is it not all the same to you, just now, who I am and what I am?” he replied. “Is there really still alive in you that curiosity which is one of the chief reasons why the labours of your whole life have been without result? And is it really still so strong in you that even at this moment you are ready to give yourself up with your whole being to an analysis of my knowledge of your personality—on!y in order to explain to yourself who I am and how I know you?”

  ‘The old man’s reproach hit me in my weakest spot. “Yes, father, you are right,” I said. “Is it not indeed all the same to me what is done and how it is done outside of me? Have I not witnessed many genuine miracles before this, and what understanding have I gained from them all? I only know that now I am empty within and I well know that I need not have been so empty if it had not been, as you say, for my inner enemy, and if, instead of wasting my time in being curious about what went on outside of me, I had struggled with this enemy.

  ‘“Yes ... now it is already too late! I ought to be indifferent to everything that goes on outside me, and therefore I do not wish to know what I just asked you nor do I wish to trouble you any further. I sincerely ask your pardon for the distress you have experienced on my account during these last few minutes.”

  ‘After this we sat for a long time, each occupied with his own thoughts. At last he broke the silence by saying:

  ‘“No, perhaps it is not yet too late. If you feel with all your being that you really are empty, then I advise you to try once more. If you quite clearly feel and recognize without any doubt that everything for which you have striven until now has been a mirage, and if you agree to one condition, I will try to help you. And this condition is that you consciously die to the life you have led until now, that is to say, break away at once from all the automatically established practices of your external life and go where I shall indicate.”

  ‘To tell the truth there was no longer anything for me to break away from. It was not even a condition for me, because, apart from my ties with a few people, no interests existed for me any longer and, as for these ties, for various reasons I had recently had to force myself to stop thinking of them.

  ‘I told him then and there that I was ready that very moment to go wherever necessary. He stood up, told me to liquidate all my affairs, and without another word disappeared in the crowd. The next day I settled all my affairs, gave certain instructions, wrote home several letters of a business character, and began to wait.

  ‘Three days later a young Tadzhik came to me and said simply and laconically: “I have been hired as a guide for you. The journey will last about a month. I have prepared for it such and such ...” and he enumerated what he had prepared. “Will you please tell me what else to order and when and where you wish the caravan to assemble?”

  ‘I had no need of anything else, as everything for the journey had been provided, and I replied that I was ready to start out the next morning if necessary; as for the place of departure I asked him to fix it himself. He then added, laconicallyas before, that I should meet him at six o’clock the following morning at the caravanserai Kalmatas, just outside the city in the direction of Ousun-Kerpi. The next day w
e set out with a caravan, which brought me here in two weeks. And what I found here you will see for yourself.

  ‘But now maybe you will tell me what you know about our mutual friends.’

  Seeing that his story had fatigued my dear old friend, I proposed that we postpone any further conversation, saying that later I would tell him with pleasure about everything, but that meanwhile he should rest and so recover sooner.

  As long as Prince Lubovedsky had to keep to his bed, we went to see him in the second court, but when he was better and could leave his cell, he used to come to us, and we talked every day for two or three hours.

  So it continued for about two weeks, until one day we were called into the third court, to the sheikh of the monastery, who spoke to us through an interpreter. He appointed as our guide one of the oldest monks, an aged man who looked like an icon and was said by the other brethren to be two hundred and seventy-five years old.

  After this we, so to say, entered into the life of the monastery, were allowed access almost everywhere, and began gradually to find out about everything.

  In the centre of the third court was a large building like a temple, where twice a day all those who lived in the second and third courts assembled to watch the sacred dances of the priestesses or to hear the sacred music.

  When Prince Lubovedsky completely recovered, he went everywhere with us and explained everything, and was thus, as it were, a second guide for us.

  The details of everything in this monastery, what it represented, and what was done there and how, I shall perhaps recount at some time in a special book. But meanwhile I find it necessary to describe in as much detail as possible one peculiar apparatus I saw there, the construction of which, when I had more or less grasped its significance, made a tremendous impression on me.

  When Prince Lubovedsky had become our second guide, one day on his own initiative he obtained permission to take us to a fourth court, at one side, called the Women’s Court, to the class of pupils directed by the priestess-dancers who, as I have said, daily performed sacred dances in the temple.

  The prince, well knowing my great and absorbing interest in the laws of movement of the human body and psyche, advised me to pay special attention, while watching this class, to the apparatuses with the aid of which the young candidates for priestess-dancers were taught their art.

  The external appearance of these peculiar apparatuses gave the impression, even at the first glance, that they were of very ancient workmanship. They were made of ebony inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. When they were not in use and stood grouped together, they reminded one of ‘Vesanelnian’ trees, with branches all alike. On close examination, we saw that each apparatus consisted of a smooth column, higher than a man, which was fixed on a tripod. From this column, in seven places, there projected specially designed branches, which in their turn were divided into seven parts of different dimensions, each successive part decreasing in length and width in proportion to its distance from the main column.

  Each part or segment of a branch was connected to the adjacent segment by means of two hollow ivory balls, one inside the other. The outer ball did not wholly cover the inner, so that one end of any segment of a branch could be fastened to the inner ball, and the end of the adjacent segment to the outer ball. In this way, these junctures were of the same type as the shoulder-joint of a man and allowed the seven segments of each branch to be moved in any desired direction. On the inner balls certain signs were inscribed.

  There were three of these apparatuses in the room and beside each of them stood a little cupboard, filled with square plates of some metal, on which were also certain inscriptions. Prince Lubovedsky explained to us that these plates were copies and that the originals, made of pure gold, were kept by the sheikh. Experts had determined that the plates and the apparatuses themselves were at least four thousand five hundred years old. The prince further explained that, by making the signs on the inner balls correspond to those on the plates, these balls and the segments fastened to them could be placed in certain positions.

  When all the balls are placed as designated, the form and extent of the given posture are fully defined, and the young pupils stand for hours before the apparatuses, regulated in this way, and learn to sense and remember this posture.

  Many years pass before these young future priestesses are allowed to dance in the temple, where only elderly and experienced priestesses may dance.

  Everyone in the monastery knows the alphabet of these postures and when, in the evening in the main hall of the temple, the priestesses perform the dances indicated for the ritual of that day, the brethren may read in these dances one or another truth which men have placed there thousands of years before.

  These dances correspond precisely to our books. Just as is now done on paper, so, once, certain information about long past events was recorded in dances and transmitted from century to century to people of subsequent generations. And these dances are called sacred.

  Those who are to become priestesses are mostly young girls who by the vow of their parents or for some other reason are consecrated from an early age to the service of God, or of this or that saint. They are given to the temple in childhood, where they are taught and prepared for everything necessary, as for example, for the sacred dances.

  When several days after I first saw this class I went to see the performance of the genuine priestesses, I was astounded, not by the sense and meaning contained in their dances, which I did not as yet understand, but by the external precision and exactitude with which they performed them. Neither in Europe, nor in any other place where I have lived and have watched with conscious interest this sort of automatized human manifestation, have I seen anything to compare with this purity of execution.

  We had been living in this monastery about three months and were beginning to get used to the conditions existing there, when one day the prince came to me with a sorrowful face. He said that that morning he had been called to the sheikh, with whom were several of the older brethren.

  ‘The sheikh told me,’ continued the prince, ‘that I have only three years to live, and he advises me to spend this time in the Olman monastery, which is on the northern slopes of the Himalayas, in order to make a better use of these three years for what I have dreamed about all my life. The sheikh said that if I should consent to go he would give me the appropriate guiding instructions and would arrange everything so that my stay there would be productive. Without hesitating, I immediately consented and it was decided that in three days I should set out for the monastery with certain qualified persons.

  ‘I therefore wish to pass these last few days entirely with you, who happen to be the man nearest to me in this life.’

  The unexpectedness of it all dumbfounded me; and for a long time I was unable to say a word. When I had recovered a little, I could only ask him, ‘Is it really true?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the prince. ‘There is no better way to make use of this time; perhaps I shall be able to make up for the time which I uselessly and senselessly lost when I had at my disposal so many years of possibilities. We had better not speak of this any more, but let us spend these last days on something more essential to the present moment. And you, continue to think of me as if I had died along ago. Did not you yourself say recently that you had held requiems for me, and had gradually resigned yourself to the thought of having lost me? And now, as by chance we have met again, so by chance, and without grief, let us part.’

  Perhaps it was not difficult for the prince to speak of this so calmly, but for me it was very hard to realize the loss—this time for ever—of this man, dearest to me of all men.

  We spent almost the whole of those last three days together and talked of everything and anything. But all the time my heart was heavy, especially whenever the prince smiled. Seeing his smile, my heart was torn, because for me his smile was the sign of his goodness, love and patience.

  Finally, the three days were over and, on a morning sorrowf
ul for me, I myself helped to load the caravan which was to take away this good prince from me for ever. He asked me not to accompany him. The caravan began to move, and as it passed behind the mountain, the prince turned, looked at me, and three times blessed me.

  Peace be to thy soul, saintly man, Prince Yuri Lubovedsky!

  As a conclusion to this chapter devoted to Prince Lubovedsky, I will describe in detail the tragic death of Soloviev, which occurred in exceedingly peculiar circumstances.

  THE DEATH OF SOLOVIEV

  Soon after our sojourn at the chief monastery of the Sarmoung Brotherhood, Soloviev joined the group of persons I have already mentioned, the Seekers of Truth, the required guarantees being furnished by me. He became a full member of this group and from then on, thanks to his persistent and conscientious efforts, he not only worked for the attainment of his individual perfection but at the same time took a serious part in all our general activities and in the various expeditions for special purposes.

  During one of these expeditions, in the year 1898, he died from the bite of a wild camel in the Gobi Desert. I will describe the occurrence in as much detail as possible, because not only was the death of Soloviev very strange, but our method of crossing the desert was unprecedented and in itself highly instructive.

  I shall begin the description from the time when, having travelled with great difficulty from Tashkent up the course of the river Sharakshan and over several mountain passes, we arrived at F, a very small place on the edge of the Gobi Desert.