To awaken means to realize one's nothingness, that is, to realize one's complete and absolute mechanicalness, and one's complete and absolute helplessness... So long as a man is not horrified at himself, he knows nothing about himself.

G.I. Gurdjieff
Also known as: George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, Георгий Иванович Гюрджиев
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About G.I. Gurdjieff

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (Russian: Георгий Иванович Гюрджиев, Georgij Ivanovich Gjurdzhiev; 13 January c. 1867 – 29 October 1949) was a Greco-Armenian mystic and spiritual teacher of what came to be called "the Work" or "The Fourth Way", in which he taught people how to increase and focus their attention and energy through various awareness exercises. According to his teachings, such inner development is the beginning of a possible further process of change, and spiritual evolution.

Biography information from Wikiquote

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Additional quotes by G.I. Gurdjieff

Namely, to learn why and in what manner my suffering in this instance could assist in the increase of my labor-ability. The beneficent result for me from this “Inner-World Revolution” occurring within me was that from that moment on I could freely, without influence of partial feelings, again think in my habitual way.

On the planet Earth also, three-brained beings are formed, and they too contain all the data for higher being-bodies to be coated in them. “But in ‘strength of spirit’ they do not begin to compare with the beings breeding on the little planet I just mentioned The external coating of the three-brained beings of that planet Earth closely resembles our own, except that their skin is a little slimier than ours Moreover, they have no tails, and their heads are without horns But the worst thing about them is their feet, for they have no hoofs