Mr. Gurdjieff: The enneagram from Driscoll

 

N otes of Talks by G. I. Gurdjieff

w w w .Gurdjieff-Bibliography.com

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Symbolism and the Enneagram.

G. I. Gurd jieff

Variants of an Early Lecture Developed between 1915 and the 1920s

The first published account of Gurdjieff’s lecture on symbolism and the enneagram
takes the form of a synopsis, with paraphrases and quotes in C. S. Nott’s

“On several occasions Gurdjieff spoke about symbols and their use, among them the Enneagram, which contains among other things the working of the Law of Three, the Law of Seven, and the Law of Ninefoldness, the keys to which may be found in

Beelzebub’s Tales.

A great deal of material was put together in the form of ‘A Lecture on

Symbolism’. Briefly the idea is that every man has in him a desire for knowledge,

differing only in intensity, but the mind of a seeking man often comes up against a blank wall when he asks ‘Why?’—though usually the question is ‘How?’ not ‘Why?’ Man does not realize that under the surface of things is hidden the oneness of all that exists. Man has always sought this oneness in religions and philosophies, and has tried to define it in words—which become dead and empty. Words and ideas change according to time and place, but unity, oneness, is eternal and unchanging. Certain men of real

understanding, realizing the inadequacy of words, have, through the ages, constructed

symbols for the passing down of real knowledge. One who studies a symbol and arrives at an understanding of it, realizes that he has the symbol in himself. ‘Everything in the world is one and is governed by uniform laws.’ As in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus: ‘As above, so below.’ The laws of the cosmos may be found in the atom; but the nearest object for man to study is himself. In this respect the formula used by Socrates (though originating in Egypt), ‘Know thyself’, is full of meaning. By studying the laws of the universe man may see the working of the law in himself, and when he seriously struggles with his denying part, his negative part, he will be engaging in the struggle that goes on in the whole of the universe—‘the divine warfare’—and he will be constructing in himself the great symbol which issues from remote times and which we know as Solomon’s Seal. Solomon’s Seal is in every man who looks into himself’.