Gurdjieff International Review
John Pentland
1907–1984
Lord Pentland (Henry John Sinclair) was a pupil of Ouspensky for many years during the 1930s and 1940s. He began to study intensely with Gurdjieff in 1948. Gurdjieff then appointed him to lead the Work in North America. He became president of the Gurdjieff Foundation when it was established in New York in 1953 and remained in that position until his death.
Lord Pentland was a director and vice president of the American British Electric Corporation and served as president of the Gurdjieff Foundation of New York from its establishment in 1953 until his death.
Working under Lord Pentland’s guidance for almost 30 years, Don Hoyt shares some of his experiences with Pentland, “not only in the context of group exchanges with him, but also in what can only be described as ‘teaching moments’.”
In these exchanges from group meetings, John Pentland responds to observations and questions from his pupils regarding their inner work and does so in ways that called them—and us—to a state of attention, to a state of vibrant attentiveness, of inner alignment and attunement, which, when we are sufficiently still inside, possesses a potency reminding us that the real inner work is a response to a higher and deeper calling.
First published in The Encyclopedia of Religion edited by Mircea Eliade (1987) New York: Macmillan, Volume 11, pp. 143–144, Pentland’s sketch offers a succinct and original synopsis of Ouspensky’s contributions as an independent thinker and writer and as a leading exponent of Gurdjieff’s teaching.
“What I need is the ability to hear what comes to me alongside myself, as it were, rather than what comes to me either from above or below.”
“To be attentive, I have to free my attention. What a work that is. My attention clings to things. But work is a question of freeing my attention again and again from what it is sitting on and bringing it back to myself.”
|
This webpage © 1998-2020 Gurdjieff Electronic Publishing Revision: March 1, 2020 |