John G. Bennett: Experiment

“Structure is a primary element of experience and not something that is added by the mind. In this respect, it can be said that the techniques of understanding call for a drastic revision of the usual modes of thought that treat being and understanding as independent or at least as separable from one another.”

John G. Bennett

Source: The Dramatic Universe: Man and his nature (1966), p. 9

Understanding

“The systematic principle is based upon the hypothesis that there is a structure in the real world that transcends the distinctions of subjective and objective experience.”

John G. Bennett

J.G. Bennett (1963) " Geo-physics and Human History: New Light on Plato's Atlantis and the Exodus http://www.systematics.org/journal/vol1-2/geophysics/systematics-vol1-no2-127-156.htm." Systematics vol 1, no 2 (1963): p. 127–156.

World

“Gurdjieff said, “Change depends on you, and it will not come about through study. You can know everything and yet remain where you are. It is like a man who knows all about money and the laws of banking, but has no money of his own in the bank. What does all his knowledge do for him?”

Here Gurdjieff suddenly changed his manner of speaking, and looking at me very directly he said: “You have the possibility of changing, but I must warn you that it will not be easy. You are still full of the idea that you can do what you like. In spite of all your study of free will and determinism, you have not yet understood that so long as you remain in this place, you can do nothing at all. Within this sphere there is no freedom. Neither your knowledge nor all your activity will give you freedom. This is because you have no …” Gurdjieff found it difficult to express what he wanted in Turkish. He used the word varlik, which means roughly the quality of being present. I thought he was referring to the experience of being separated from one’s body.

Neither I nor the Prince [Sabaheddin] could understand what Gurdjieff wished to convey. I felt sad, because his manner of speaking left me in no doubt that he was telling me something of great importance. I answered, rather lamely, that I knew that knowledge was not enough, but what else was there to do but study?…”

John G. Bennett

Source: Witness: the Story of a Search (1962), p. 46–48 cited in: "Gurdjieff’s Temple Dances by John G. Bennett", Gurdjieff International Review, on gurdjieff.org; About Constantinople 1920

Money , Sadness , Law , Idea

“True sensitivity is the beginning of what Gurdjieff calls Objective Reason and which he says, cannot be in this body and can only belong to the Second, or Kesdjanian Body, and when it is formed it can begin to acquire this direct perception of how things are, combined with experience that gives this vision a practical and realistic application. Out of this comes what he calls Objective Reason”

John G. Bennett

J.G. Bennett (1973) "REACTIONS", Second Basic Course at Sherborne House, March 5th, 1973; cited on jgbennett.net, 2009