/lit/ - Literature

Here’s a bit of trivia about how obscure Gurdjieff could be in this book.

In a late chapter in the book, it’s talked about the narrator, Beelzebub (a stand-in for Gurdjieff himself), meeting the dervish Bogga-Eddin as well as the dervish Bokhara (dervish is a term for an Islamic Sufi monk or mendicant). Bahauddin Naqshband (1318-1319) was was born in in the village of Qasr-i-Hinduvan (later renamed Qasr-i Arifan) near ***Bukhara***, in what is now Uzbekistan and it was there that he died in 1389. He was the ethnically Arabic, outwardly, apparently, externally, socially Muslim man who started the Naqshbandi Sufi order. Sufism is a term for a mystical movement of Islam, being the tradition luminaries like the poet Rumi (1207-1273) belonged to. Internally, personally, and privately, it was believed that he was not a Muslim at all, and only pretended to be a strict Muslim out of respect for the society around him and so as not to offend them.

In Arabic, the pronunciation of Bahauddin is actually closer to “Bogga-Eddin.” There’s a sort of -gh sound in Arabic that the transliteration into English can’t approximate exactly. Bogga-Eddin was born near the town of Bukhara, which has also been transliterated at times as Bokhara, and Beelzebub meets the dervishes Bogga-Eddin and Bokhara.

Not once does Gurdjieff mention the Naqshbandi order. To his disciple, PD Ouspensky, he was very evasive about the sources of his teaching, refusing to give a specific answer to, “What are you teaching?” or “What is the school that you came from?” Although, he DID admit that he was teaching some what-he-called “movements” of dervish dancing to his disciples in Ouspensky’s “In Search of the Miraculous.”

Is because Gurdjieff is real man. Is not your sissy monk or priest who say he learn exclusively from your so called “Christ,” “Muhammad,” “Buddha,” “Krishna,” or even “Padmasambhava,” founder of so-called tradition named “Tibetan Buddhism.” Is real man who learn from many real man how to be real man in teach with real “God,” not your-so called “Lord, Lord, Lord have mercy on us” you sing hymn to in Church without understanding what you do, like animal or piece of shit.

Dog make shit. You see shit dog make? He shit on carpet. No control. Is not what-you-call “house trained.” Maybe man has to be house-trained like dog, too. Man go everywhere he like, do whatever he want, he shit on carpet like dog. 99 man is like this, only doing what he like, what is pleasant to him. Only 1 is not. Man does not have “real being.” Real ability to control self, to really think, to really feel, really be. When “man” thinks, is not man thinking, is dog thinking. Is dog feeling. Is dog doing. Dog is “married”, but he see pretty woman walking by, and dog’s tongue hang out. He look at dog’s tail and hinderparts and go *pant* *pant* *pant*. Ees like dog — no, even worse, ees like dog’s shit, and die like dog.