Past Teaching Present
Peter Ouspensky – Translator of the Ancient into the Modern
Peter Demianovitch Ouspensky was a pupil of George Gurdjieff in Russia during the first quarter of the twentieth century. A journalist by training, Ouspensky naturally received his teacher’s wisdom with an eye of re-expressing it literally, which he did in his book In Search of the Miraculous. The book documents his fie years of intense work with Gurdjieff, discussions on ancient wisdom and its wide misinterpretation, as well as emerging buds of a modern Fourth Way expression.
The Russian Revolution and World War I disrupted Gurdjieff’s ability to teach in Russia. Furthermore, Gurdjieff seemed to adjust his methods in a way disagreeable to Ouspensky, forcing the student to sever his connection with the teacher and attempt to build his own groups. Ouspensky founded Fourth Way groups in London and New York, in which he would lecture for the rest of his life.
In retrospect, Ouspensky proved to have played a significant part in formalizing Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way expression. The “Fourth Way” – as Gurdjieff’s wisdom has come to be known in our age – draws its name and fame largely from Ouspensky’s literary efforts. His books remain to this day the most authoritative and detailed accounts of Gurdjieff’s message and work. Ouspensky died a year before Gurdjieff, and despite the rift between teacher and student, Gurdjieff was the first to see Ouspensky’s literary account of his teaching, and approved it with much satisfaction.
Below are listed posts on ancient wisdom as expressed by Peter Ouspensky:
