Snag All And Everything: Beelzebubs Tales To His Grandson: First Series Executed By G.I. Gurdjieff Format Kindle

Tales is a massivepage epic which is equivalent to de Toqueville's Democracy in America in scope and practice.
Gurdjeiff writes Beelzebub as an extraterrestrial astronaut who describes his experience with the strange and illogical inhabitants on the planet Earth.
He describes every facet of human life and even details the odd beliefs held by specific cultures, Written in a style which prevents passive reading, it is a difficult volume to read through but truly rewarding and worth the effort.


One example which stood out was Beelzebub's description of the need of every American to go to Europe and how they romanticize over Paris and other European cities.
The most hilarious portion of this example is Beelzebub's conversation with an American in Paris who is teaching American tourists how to dance the foxtrot.
This particular American was unable to be successful in his business teaching Americans how to dance the foxtrot in New York.
. . but because everyone wanted to go back to the US after traveling in Paris and tell their friends that they learned the foxtrot in France, this entrepreneur was making tons of money.


There are more tidbits of wisdom, humor, insightfulness and advice throughout the epic than can ever be divulged in a short review.
In fact, Gurdjeiff's closest pilgrims do not initiate discussion about Beelzebub's Tales because the experience that each individual has with the book is considered beyond language, and it truly is.


The first book in Gurdjeiff's All and Everything series, his goal in the writing of this book was to remove all the many years of false experiences and hardened opinions of potential readers.
I can definitely exclaim that his goal was actualized in this work, Gurdjieff's work is some of the most valuable among the entire western "occult" tradition, This is a man who sold sparrows, painted yellow, as American Canaries, after all,

Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson is structured, from the ground up, to break habitual patterns of thought, especially with regard to how we read text.
It is, in a very rea"l way, one of the first truly 'postmodern' works of art,

"Once upon a time a certain Russian, who in external appearance was to those around him a simple merchant, had to go from his provincial town on some business or other to this second capital of Russia, the city of Moscow, and his son, his favorite one because he resembled only his mother asked him to bring back a certain book.


When this great unconscious author of the "alluniversal principle of living" arrived in Moscow, he together with a friend of his became as was and still is usual there "blind drunk" on genuine "Russian vodka.
"

And when these two inhabitants of this most great contemporary grouping of biped breathing creatures had drunk the proper number of glasses of this "Russian blessing" and were discussing what is called "public education," with which question it has long been customary always to begin one's conversation, then our merchant suddenly remembered by association his dear son's request, and decided to set off at once to a bookshop with his friend to buy the book.


In the shop, the merchant, looking through the book he had asked for and which the salesman handed him, asked its price.
The salesman replied that the book was sixty kopecks,

Noticing that the price marked on the cover of the book was only fortyfive kopecks, our merchant first began pondering in a strange manner, in general unusual for Russians, and afterwards, making a certain movement with his shoulders, straightening himself up almost like a pillar and throwing out his chest like an officer of the guards, said after a little pause, very quietly but with an intonation in his voice expressing great authority:

"But it is marked here fortyfive kopecks.
Why do you ask sixty"

Thereupon the salesman, making as is said the "oleaginous" face proper to all salesmen, replied that the book indeed cost only fortyfive kopecks, but had to be sold at sixty because fifteen kopecks were added for postage.


After this reply to our Russian merchant who was perplexed by these two quite contradictory but obviously clearly reconcilable facts, it was visible that something began to proceed in him, and gazing up at the ceiling, he again pondered, this time like an English professor who has invented a capsule for castor oil, and then suddenly turned to his friend and delivered himself for the first time on Earth of the verbal formulation which, expressing in its essence an indubitable objective truth, has since assumed the character of a saying.


And he then put it to his friend as follows:
"Never mind, old fellow, we'll take the book.
Anyway we're on a spree today, and if you go on a spree then go the whole hog including the postage.
" "
This is a very easy book to read, Anyyear old immorally imbibing too much hashish could read this, Have you ever not understood a word of a hip hop artist then suddenly you catch his rhythm and hear his every word Once you get the rhythm it is easy.


But just then as Mike commented below about the rabbit holes you quite quickly see this is a truly “monumental journey of a legomonism” revealing in all directions and deeper than imaginable a so thorough summary of: near all religions, scientific discoveries, cosmologies, chronologies, histories, archaic geographies, etc.
, etc. , ever known to man.

And it is all wrapped up in a flowing conversational narrative of a few individuals floating inside a scifi story of time travel.


It is marvelous! And it is the way things will be wrote in the future as our consciousness expands hopefully to more than just sound bytes.


This book is in my topfor life,

By the way, if it has countless gems of deeper wisdom you notice enshrouded in it only after reading it several times in different states, then this is not because it is hard to read but only because of the level of being of the author and, as he mentions twice in MRM: there is an archaic manner of speaking he rediscovered though any of us who have read works beforeBC all know of it.
It is one where every sentence is a multivalent, multifauceted diamond that means several things in several fields of knowledge at once.
One sees this too in most the Hindu texts, It is a lost art and he is just one ofmaybe in this millenium who picked it back up.
Book by Gurdjieff, G. I. Part of Gurdjieff's spiritual philosophy was the importance of cultivating a clear, focused mind, staying psychically awake, and giving your undivided attention to whatever activity you happened to be undertaking.
That's why Gurdjieff wrote "Beelzebub's Tales" in the manner he did,

This is not light summer reading by any means, If you don't completely and intensely immerse yourself in this book and its utterly bizarre world, you'll get lost somewhere in the first paragraph.
And you'll probably give up in frustration after the first few pages,

I'm not kidding, Dense sentences bursting with clauses and asides go on for line after line after line, You'll stumble across invented words that aren't defined until several chapters later, Eventually, just getting through the book becomes a battle of wills against Gurdjieff, Will you prevail, or will the book

If you make it to the end, he probably would have welcomed you as a student of the Fourth Way.
If you don't, well, there are certainly other ways to achieve inner harmony that aren't so mentally draining.
I mean, I love a good challenge, and I tip my hat to Gurdjieff for creating such a dense thicket of a book, but this is truly only for a select few, with lots and lots of patience.
As indicated elsewhere, reading Colin Wilson's The Outsider when I waschanged my life or at least propelled me onto a spiritual path.
When I worked in Bradford ageI joined a Gurdjieff Group and we studied this book, If you read it as an 'ordinary' book it will probably not make much sense, It is a representive of 'esoteric' knowledge, If you are dissatisfied with the conventional avenues to self knowledge, the book may make sense, However, even then, it will appear frustrating unless you are open to completely reexamining your life,
Colin Wilson wrote a very readable book about Gurdieff, which is a good introduction to his ideas.
At the beginning of Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, Gurdjieff discloses his purpose in its writing: "To destroy, mercilessly, without any compromises whatsoever, in the mentation and
feelings of the reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him, about everything existing in the world.
"

To that end, Gurdjieff wrote one of the most baffling, infuriating, virtually unfathomable tomes on this or any other planet.
At the same time, this book is illuminating,revelatory, humorous, and, at times charged with emotional energy that transmits itself to the reader.
It is hard to remain merely curious about the Gurdjieff work, One tends to either

reject it after a superficial overview, or delve into its lifechanging depths,

Gurdjieff's ideas about the transformation of Man, the effects of that transformation upon the fate of this planet are just as vital as when he proposed them over half a century ago.
If anything, these ideas are more relevant in the face of our presentday reality in this constantly shifting, everchanging world.
The first/of the book were filled with fascinating insights that had me thinking about things in a different way.
Before I read this book I reread Meetings With Remarkable Men and I read Views From the Real World.
I have also studied the enneagram quite extensively, As I read Beelzebub I diligently compiled a dictionary of all his special terms for things which I had to refer to constantly.
Once he finished his version of the history of the world and commenced with a philosophical discussion in the last/of the book I got completely lost and could not understand it no matter what I did.
There are noth way groups in my area I am teaching in China and I don't know if I will ever be able to understand this part of the book.
If anyone has any suggestions please let me know

UPDATE
I just finished the last quarter of the book after taking a six month break and this time it made sense to me and I was able it read it.
At first I had to consult the dictionary I made of all his special terms but eventually I was able to read it without consulting it.
I loved the book and I am looking forward to reading it two more times as he suggests.




I will spare myself from the deductive process of writing down my reflections, that is not what this work is intended for.

If you ever find this on your path, you will know what to do with it, I rate this book a "" for what it is not because it's a real page turner, To call it even readable would be misleading, Cormac McCarthy has nothing on Gurdjieff when it comes to exhaustingly long sentences, CMC could blur the line betwixt sentence and paragraph, GIG starts there. One would not pick up, for example, the Garland Flower Ornament Sutra, turn to page, and begin, "Grandson" is the spewing of one of the great minds of the modern age, It is unique. It is a spectacle. It is a/. And like the aforementioned Buddhist Sutra I can not say with any confidence, "Look elsewhere Seeker, Enlightenment is not to be found within these pages, " Hell, as a threebrained being afflicted by the Organ Kundabuffer, I can't say anything with confidence, . . The quote on the back of myvolume boxed edition says it best: "lumbering into space like some great, flying cathedral".

To read this you must forget everything you expect from a modern novel and just dive in.
A heady mix of "Paradise Lost", "Shikasta" and the Marx Brothers, The intro is tough, but once the Tales begin to work their magic you will see what Mr.
Gurdjieff is trying to do, Wake you up. Worth it for the lingo alone, Very difficult book to read, but very very interesting point of view on the problems of modern society.
This is a review of printings that remain faithful to theEdition,

Gurdjieff reveals candidly in the opening pages of Beelzebub's Tales that this First Series of his writings is for the real consciousness buried within us and is intended to "destroy without mercy" the conceptions and views that have become so firmly rooted because of centuries of people living abnormally.
He shows us with compelling exactness our place in the universe, our responsibility as human beings and why, despite the best efforts of sacred messengers sent to us from above, we remain tragically separated from what is most essential to the aim of human existence.


While helping us to see the harsh truth about ourselves, Gurdjieff does not leave us in the lurch.
He leads us back out of the darkness and, as a kind grandfather, guides us patiently toward the light, at every step carefully watering seeds of consciousness that lie buried deeply inside us.
On the long journey toward discovering Beelzebub's most subtle lessons, we are helped to feel our smallness and our partiality and to see that if we wish for real understanding, the mind alone, no matter how adroit, will never be enough.


Gurdjieff warned us in his introduction not to expect the kind of literature to which we are generally accustomed.
As we try our best to penetrate to the core of Beelzebub's Tales, it turns out that we, instead, are being penetrated.
The Great Beelzebub, telling stories to his grandson, leads us to rediscover in the depths of ourselves, God's quiet representative.


It became fashionable in some circles after the publication of Beelzebub's Tales, and has become even more popular of late among various people, to give commentaries, interpretations and explanations for everything Gurdjieff wrote in his book.
Perhaps it's more a disease than a fashion, Interpretations and explanations are for the ordinary mind, what Gurdjieff calls, in his introduction to Beelzebub's Tales, the "fictitious consciousness.
" In my view, explanations that purport to render the hidden meaning of Beelzebub's Tales are not at all what Gurdjieff intended for his writings.
He specifies that he was writing in a certain way to reach the subconcious, He did not explain the meaning of the book, If Gurdjieff had wanted his books explained for the benefit of the intellect, he certainly could have done that himself, and much better than anyone who has ever purported to render meanings.
But in fact Gurdjieff did the exact opposite of that, It has always seemed strange to me that people who have taken up the occupation of rendering commentaries and explanations of Beelzebub's Tales, have missed that obvious point.


Anyone who approaches Beelzebub's Tales with an attitude of openness is likely to receive substantial help, though the exact manner in which one is worked on by this remarkable influence may remain something of a mystery.
Familiarity with the Gurdjieff work is not necessarily a prerequisite to receiving the All and Everything's special gifts, If there is a preparation that may allow one to hear better, perhaps it is only the deep wish to be oneself, the wish to live as a normal human being.
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