The school Gurdjieff founded still remains today, an alive oral tradition available to those who encounter it and are attracted to put themselves under its influence. To give an idea to the modern seeker how vast and maximally comprehensive his teaching is … consider the newest concepts in science, health, and spirituality. The modern influx into the West of the Eastern traditions of Buddhism, Vedanta, Sufism, the Jewish renewal, and contemplative Christianity all find their place within his system, and yet there is more. The integral psychology and integral spirituality of Ken Wilber is congruent with Gurdjieff’s teaching, and yet there is more. Gurdjieff also demonstrated an interest in and openness to modern technology, relativity of time and space, and scientific understanding (although he also at times had scathing words for “scientists of new formation,” who lacked the ability to integrate their findings in a way that was consistent with a greater reality).

With the help of composer Thomas de Hartmann, Gurdjieff left a repertoire of music which is an integral part of his teaching. Gurdjieff’s Movements and sacred dances were based on a science of movement. Consider holistic health: Gurdjieff was teaching about balancing, harmonizing, and regaining the intellectual, emotional, moving, and instinctive functions in the early 20th century, and yet he also showed the relationship of these to higher functions not yet recognized by Western medicine. Indeed, convinced as he was when he originally began his own search in his youth that ancient teachings existed that were not generally known to contemporary spiritual traditions, Gurdjieff is believed to have visited monasteries and spiritual schools across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to find and integrate this wisdom, bringing back and making it accessible not only physically but opening it in every sense, to modern Western individuals.