Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (c.1867 – 29 October 1949)[1] was a philosopher, mystic, spiritual teacher, composer, and "dance teacher".[2] Gurdjieff taught that people are not conscious of themselves and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic "waking sleep", but that it is possible to awaken to a higher state of consciousness and serve our purpose as human beings.

The practice of his teaching has become known as "The Work"[3] (connoting work on oneself) and is additional to the ways of the fakir, monk and yogi, so that his student P. D. Ouspensky referred to it as the "Fourth Way".[4]