P. D. Ouspensky
He visited Theosophists in Adyar in Tamil Nadu, India, but was forced to return to Moscow after the beginning of the Great War.
[9][10] Ouspensky treats time as a fourth dimension only indirectly in a novel he wrote titled Strange Life of Ivan Osokin[11] where he also explores the theory of eternal recurrence.
[14] Tertium Organum was rendered into English by Bragdon, who had incorporated his own design of the hypercube[15][16] into the Rochester Chamber of Commerce building.
Ouspensky traveled in Europe and the East — India, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Egypt — in his search for knowledge.
In 1917, he updated these articles to include "recent developments in physics" and republished them as a book in Russian entitled A New Model of the Universe.
[18] The work, as reflected in its title, shows the influence of Francis Bacon and Max Müller, and has been interpreted as an attempt to reconcile ideas from natural science and religious studies with esoteric teachings in the tradition of Gurdjieff and Theosophy.
[citation needed] Ouspensky sought to exceed the limits of metaphysics with his "psychological method", which he defined as "a calibration of the tools of human understanding to derive the actual meaning of the thing itself" (paraphrasing p. 75.).
The book also provided an original discussion on the nature and expression of sexuality; among other things, he draws a distinction between erotica and pornography.
[citation needed] Ouspensky's lectures in London were attended by such literary figures as Aldous Huxley, T. S. Eliot, Gerald Heard and other writers, journalists and doctors.
Gurdjieff eventually went to France with a considerable sum of money raised by Ouspensky and his friends, and settled down near Paris at the Prieuré in Fontainebleau-Avon.
[21] It was during this time, after Gurdjieff founded his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in France, that Ouspensky came to the conclusion that he was no longer able to understand his former teacher and made a decision to discontinue association with him.
While this volume has been criticized by some of those who have followed Gurdjieff's teachings as only a partial representation of the totality of his ideas, it provides what is probably the most concise explanation of the material that was included.
Transcripts of some of his lectures were published under the title of The Fourth Way in 1957; largely a collection of question and answer sessions, the book details important concepts, both introductory and advanced, for students of these teachings.
Gurdjieff called his system a school of the Fourth Way in which a person learns to work in harmony with his physical body, emotions and mind.
Among his students were Rodney Collin, Maurice Nicoll, Robert S. de Ropp, Kenneth Walker, and Remedios Varo.
[25] Ouspensky personally confessed the difficulties he was experiencing with 'self-remembering' - the practice of a deep state of mindfulness, rooting one in the present moment, whatever one is doing.
While in Russia, Ouspensky experimented with the technique with a certain degree of success, and in his lectures in London and America he emphasized the importance of its practice.
