Category: J.G. Bennett

Ben Bennett Presentation: All & Everything Conference 2019

Cynthia Bennett April 28, 2019

“To know means to know all. Not to know all means not to know. It is possible to know all, and, indeed, to know all it is needful to know very little. But in order to know this very little, it is necessary first to know pretty much.” (Bennett, “Dramatic Universe” Vol. 1, quoting Ouspensky, quoting Gurdjieff) Download the presentation using the link below: Article April 2019-3

Masters of Wisdom, chapter 4, “The Time of Christ” – read by: George Bennett

Cynthia Bennett December 21, 2018

In August 1974, near the end of the third Basic Course at Sherborne, and just a few months before his death, JG Bennett fulfilled a prophecy made by Gurdjieff at his table in 1949: “One day Mr. Bennett will give a conference on the Last Supper, and many people will be thankful to him.” This ‘conference’ formed the basis for Chapter Four in The Masters of Wisdom – now published as a sound file on this website – and I am fortunate to have been among the people who heard it. To understand the context of Bennett’s talk it may […]

Gurdjieff: Making a New World, Appendix II; The Great Laws

Cynthia Bennett October 14, 2018

Appendix IIThe Great Laws           Ben Bennett, with the assistance of Victor McSurely have made a recorded reading of “Appendix II – The Great Laws” Here is the link to the audio recording: You can download the audio file and download the text ,using the link above and below. Read along! “Our customary way of thinking and talking about the world is in terms of objects and events, both of which are abstractions. Gurdjieff saw the world as the universal process of transformation of energies, regulated by two fundamental laws and various ‘second-grade’ laws arising from their interaction. […]

New Edition of The Masters of Wisdom

Cynthia Bennett August 14, 2018

THE MASTERS OF WISDOMJ.G. Bennett In 1961, John Bennett travelled to Kathmandu to meet the 135-year-old sage known as the Shivapuri Baba, and the following year he made a second nine months before the old man’s final departure. At the conclusion of the second visit, the Shivapuri Baba reportedly said to him: “When you come to that Realization you will know God and enter into God and be one with God…. You will come to that before you die – that I can promise you.” Bennett goes on to write that “such a conversation could not fail to have a […]

The Masters of Wisdom: quote

Cynthia Bennett May 22, 2018

“ We human beings have a deep awareness, deeper than egoism itself, of our kinship with nature. We feel that creativity without love is daemonic, but we are forced to recognise that love has no power to overcome egoism. Life on earth is threatened today, not by man’s failure to love his fellow-man, but by his inability to love at all. Love untainted by egoism is to be found only in the rarest of the rare. ” The Masters of Wisdom J.G. Bennett Chapter 4 The time of Christ The Masters of Wisdom

Excerpt of a talk by John G Bennett May 16, 1970

Cynthia Bennett March 3, 2018

This is the last ten minutes of a recording made with Olga de Nottbeck on May 16, 1970 to be mailed to groups in New York and Finland. JGB proposes a group task that we can actually all work on right now!         Contextually – the shootings at Kent State University took place 10 days earlier. Thank you to Al Daggett for making this available LISTEN HERE: TRANSCRIPTION: (LINKED)   

Quote from the Dramatic Universe Vol I

Cynthia Bennett December 17, 2017

(click image for a larger view) “It is now possible to define three gradations of true individuality. The first is that in which the entity can be conscious of its own genetic constitution and direct its activity according to this awareness. This is the individuality which consists in ableness-to-be oneself. The second gradation is that in which there is awareness of the specific pattern. In this case the entity is able to direct his activity not only according to his own genetic constitution, but also according to the pattern of potentialities that belongs to the entire species of which he […]

The Hazards of Human Society

Cynthia Bennett September 11, 2017

JG Bennett Undated (Excerpts from a talk by J.G. Bennett – undated. Published in the Enneagram, #5, April 1976. This and related talks by J.G. Bennett will soon be published by Coombe Springs Press under the title “Hazard; Transformation of Man Series Number 6)   Human Societies are hazardous; they prosper and fall, degenerate and change into something different from how they began. First of all, there are the Hazards of power, which include the hazards of succession and of success. Societies are often established by a powerful person or group, or through the action, of powerful idea acting on […]

J.G. Bennett ~ 120th Anniversary ~ June 8, 1897

Cynthia Bennett June 8, 2017

The picture of JGB with his hand under his chin always makes me smile, as I remember where and when it was taken. Hodder & Stoughton the publishers wanted a dust jacket portrait for Vol. 3 of Dramatic Universe, but we were in North Wales for the summer in 1965, so JGB went to a High Street photography shop in Pwllheli. I think the result is a very honest picture, as the photographer knew nothing at all about his subject and just made a straight studio portrait. Today is the 120th anniversary of JGBs birth. I remembered recently that he […]

Suffering

Cynthia Bennett February 19, 2017

Excerpt: Intimations Talks with J.G. Bennett at Beshara Chapter: Suffering; page 59 “In the Sermon on the Mount we are told ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you and that persecute you’. This is ordinarily taken to be a requirement of humility, accepting injustice, of being compassionate and kind to people, and various virtues that are connected with this. But in reality, it is, like everything in the Sermon on the Mount, a practical counsel for living. Without enemies, we should have no chance.Perhaps the most important creation was the Devil. How […]

Meeting on September 9 1948 ~ Gurdjieff

Cynthia Bennett January 7, 2017

Meeting on September 9, 1948 GURDJIEFF Livingston Hall, London UK J.G. Bennett About sixty years ago a small group of people came together in the Caucasus to study two questions: firstly, to verify or disprove the reality of what are sometimes called supernatural or super- normal phenomena and, secondly, to enquire whether the traditional knowledge about such phenomena which were supposed to exist in the East still existed and could be found. Out of this gradually a society formed which took the name ‘Seekers of the Truth’. That group grew to something like forty members at its maximum and comprised […]

The Distinction Between Sensing and Feeling

Cynthia Bennett January 2, 2017

The Distinction Between Sensing and FeelingJ. G. BennettThursday, 17 March 1949 Livingstone Hall There is one thing I advise you all to work on persistently until you have mastered it, and that is the distinction between sensing and feeling. This is one of the foundations of the practical method which Mr. Gurdjieff is now giving people to help them in their work, and there are many things which cannot be done until you are able to make this distinction in your own immediate experience; he calls this the distinction between “je” and “moi”, between “me” and “myself”. By “je” we […]

December 13, 1974 ~ On The Death of Mr. Bennett

Cynthia Bennett December 13, 2016

On The Death of Mr. BennettFourth Year Sherborne StudentsFriday, December 13, 1974(Published in The Enneagram # 9 – January 1977) I wrote this three days after Mr. Bennett’s death and for the present article have translated it from the German. Mr. Bennett is dead. For many people this is a deep wound in their lives as it was for me.So far it was simple, nothing more was asked but to follow, since anything he said, anything one could perceive, felt right, deep inside. Love of consciousness evokes the same. His presence filled this house, without imperatives, without the use of […]

Extracts from a Seminar

Cynthia Bennett December 11, 2016

J.G. BennettUndated(Published in The Enneagram #9, January 1977)This is what really attracted me to Gurdjieff’s teaching years ago: From the beginning, it was plain that this was an account of a mutual need, of a need the spiritual has for the natural that is as great as the natural has for the spiritual. Of course, it is said by mystics that God would not be God without me, but there is something more than this, the awareness that we are a necessary part because we are so created that we can become a necessary part of the word because there […]

OTHER PEOPLE

Cynthia Bennett December 1, 2016

OTHER PEOPLE By J. G. Bennett(This is an excerpt from a talk J.G. Bennett gave on 17th November 1963. Published in the Enneagram #3, October 1975.) I want to direct your attention to some of the ways in which other people affect our own inner development. What happens inside us, the transformation that we hope and believe is going on within each one of us; we can think of as private and connected with other people only through our outward relations. The idea that our inner development is first of all a private matter and only in a second degree […]