But this is about an ordinary woman. Even a man like Ouspensky, one of the greatest mathematician of all the ages…. He was already world-famous before he met Gurdjieff. He was teaching in London. And Gurdjieff was in Tiflis* in a faraway land of Caucasus in Russia. And the days were very dangerous. Everywhere there was no government. Nobody’s life was safe. Trains were being burned, looted. There was nobody in control. The czar and his government has fallen, the revolutionaries have come into power. But a vast country like Russia, which spreads from one corner of Europe to the other corner of Asia, covers two continents, it is not easy to manage it. Just in Moscow you can come into power, that does not mean that….

All over Russia all kinds of crimes were being committed, and there was no government, no police, no army. Even army and police were looting, cheating, killing. They had weapons and it was very easy, they were raping women, and in such a bloody moment of history, Gurdjieff called Ouspensky from London that, “Sell everything and come immediately.” He resigned from his well-salaried post. He was a professor of mathematics in the University of London. Sold everything, rushed into that dangerous country where there was every chance that he may never reach Gurdjieff with all this money that he was taking with him. But he somehow managed to reach Tiflis*. He entered the room where Gurdjieff was sitting. Gurdjieff looked at him and said, “That’s good. Now you can go back.”

This is too much. And even Ouspensky, who has written the best books on Gurdjieff, could not forgive him. He disconnected himself. But this was the moment to know whether it was just intellectual conviction or trust. It was not trust, although he was intellectually convinced that Gurdjieff is one of the most remarkable men who has walked on the earth and there is nobody comparable to him alive. But this experience shut him completely against Gurdjieff. From that moment, Gurdjieff never mentioned Ouspensky’s name. Ouspensky started calling him simply “G”. He dropped his full name in his books, as if Gurdjieff died on that day, the Gurdjieff that he had known, that he had loved, that he had trusted.

But in fact Gurdjieff did not die. Ouspensky died on that date. He could not understand the distinction that a intellectual conviction, howsoever great, is not comparable to trust. Trust is a totally different phenomenon. It has nothing to do with intellect or with feeling. It is neither intellectual nor emotional, neither of the heart nor of the mind. It is of the being. And for that the only way is to be available to the master’s presence, to let his aura enter in you, let his fragrance penetrate to the every nook and corner of your being.

In the East we call it darshan. Darshan simply means seeing. When somebody goes to a master, what can you expect just sit silently and see, drink, listen to the music of his heart?

Bayazid, one of the most significant Sufis, remained with his master for twelve years, coming every day early in the morning, leaving last in the evening, waiting for the master to inquire, “What do you want? What is your question? What is your problem?” After twelve years the master laughed. He said, “You have succeeded. Now there is no need to ask and there is no need to answer. But you are simply unique and rare. Twelve years! What a waiting! What courage! What guts! You have experienced me. You have loved me. And you have come to trust me without asking a single question, without getting a single answer. Now you are free, you can go into the world and help people in the same way.”