born on 8 June 1897 by an American mother and English father, the eldest of three children. The mother belonged to an old pre-revolutionary family of New England and his father worked as a correspondent for Reuters, the international news agency. Although Bennett
face a few references to his childhood in his autobiography Witness, in other writings of having to recognize its mother for having instilled the work ethic and tolerance. Having trascorso i primi anni della sua infanzia in Italia, apprese a parlare l’italiano prima dell’inglese, il che pose le fondamenta di una straordinaria facilità all’apprendimento delle lingue che gli avrebbe poi permesso, nel corso degli anni, di conversare con molti maestri spirituali, tra i quali Gurdjieff stesso, nella loro lingua madre oltre che consentirgli di studiare i testi sacri indù, buddisti, islamici e cristiani nella versione originale.
Per Bennett l’educazione scolastica si concluse con il diploma; non sfruttò mai la borsa di studio in matematica che aveva ricevuto dall’Università di Oxford poiché gli avvenimenti della sua vita si succedettero così velocemente da non dargli no more time to go back. Excellent sports, was captain of his school rugby team and continued to play even in the army. He once broke his arm and collar bone twice, and had then stated that these experiences gave him, from an early age, a precious freedom and indifference to his body.
During the First World War, Bennett became a captain at the age of twenty-one in the body of British engineering. The war took him to one of the decisive experiences of his life, severely wounded in the head, lying in an unconscious state on an operating table when he had an extra-corporeal, which convinced him that there is something humans can exist independently from the body. During his convalescence after seeing that the army was looking for the secret service officers in the Near East, Bennett enrolled in a course of Turkish language, then found themselves occupying a very delicate position between the British and Turks in Constantinople. In 1921, following the Great War and the Russian Revolution, Constantinople became the obligatory passage point through which passed through many refugees headed to the West, and part of Bennett's work was to monitor their movements. Among these "refugees" there were two very special men: GI Gurdjieff and PD Ouspensky. Occasional meetings with Gurdjieff and Ouspensky in Constantinople marked the future direction of his spiritual quest, but when they moved to Europe, Bennett remained in Turkey.
On his return to England, Bennett was asked as an expert in Middle Eastern affairs. He could easily pursue a public career and was also invited to stand for Parliament, but it was clear that the spiritual would have priority in his life. In 1923 he renewed contact with the Gurdjieff Gurdjieff Institute and spent three months in France. Despite the brevity of his stay, he witnessed the events that convinced him of the ability of human spiritual transformation and the fact that Gurdjieff was in possession a deep knowledge and understanding of techniques to achieve it. Bennett was invited to spend two years at the Institute, a condition for receiving significant help in his spiritual progress. In hindsight, it seems odd that Bennett has felt compelled to leave anyway, but at that time was in financial difficulties and needed to put his affairs in order. Although it was his intention to return as soon as Gurdjieff, the two no longer had to meet until 1948! Back in England, Bennett joined Ouspensky's groups and led to him studying the "system" by those learned from Gurdjieff, Ouspensky remained with for fifteen years, beginning in 1941 to lead their groups e a tenere conferenze pubbliche.
Coloro che venivano ad ascoltarlo si trovavano davanti una figura alta, imponente, dagli occhi azzurri e dall’aspetto giovanile per la sua età. Uomo timido e di poche parole, possedeva un intelletto che in alcune persone incuteva timore. Le prime volte che iniziò a parlare in pubblico apparve insicuro, ma ben presto abbandonò l’uso di appunti e da quel momento in poi si espresse sempre liberamente. Col passare degli anni, le sue conferenze divennero uno dei modi principali attraverso i quali sviluppava le sue idee, e mentre parlava letteralmente andava elaborando concetti “su due piedi”. Nel 1946 Bennett acquistò Coombe Springs, una proprietà di sette acri a sud-ovest di London including the Edwardian villa, which for decades was a research center that will attract hundreds of people. Bennett continued to publicly expose the ideas of Gurdjieff, though privately his inner life was in turmoil. He had been rejected by Ouspensky in 1945 and had also lost touch with Gurdjieff, who had long believed his teacher, believing him dead.
The discovery in 1948 that Gurdjieff was alive and that he was in Paris was therefore highly significant. In the remaining eighteen months before Gurdjieff's death, which occurred October 29, 1949, Bennett lost no opportunity to travel to Paris despite the pressing professional commitments, and in the summer del 1949 vi trascorse un mese lavorando intensivamente con Gurdjieff, un’esperienza che fornì le basi per un’ulteriore significativa trasformazione nella sua vita. Fu un momento di svolta che doveva portarlo nei rimanenti venticinque anni della sua vita a divenire più aperto e compassionevole. Considerando quanto poco tempo avesse effettivamente trascorso con Gurdjieff è straordinario ciò che riuscì a ricavare da questa opportunità.
Nel 1950 Bennett abbandonò la vita professionale, si concentrò sul lavoro di gruppo, tenendo frequenti conferenze pubbliche per mantenere una promessa data a Gurdjieff di fare tutto quanto era in suo potere per diffonderne le idee e farle comprendere. Nel 1953 intraprese un lungo viaggio in the Middle East, which brought him in close contact with the religion of Islam and various Sufi orders. On his return to England, started the project for the construction of Djamichunatra, a large meeting room at Coombe Springs. The unusual architectural design was based on nine sides sull'enneagramma, an ancient symbol by Gurdjieff as an emblem of the fundamental laws of nature. The work took two years to complete and was opened in 1957, Bennett said that the real value of such a project was in creating a true community.
Since the mid-sixties work at Coombe Springs had gained momentum, but Bennett was ready to take another change, had come together with the groups he led, in contact with Idries Shah, now well known exponent of Sufism, but in those days was just beginning to assert itself, and to which Bennett offered his help. According to the Institute for Comparative Studies, proposed to sell the whole property of Coombe Springs to Shah and the donation was made in the spring of 1966. Soon after Shah Coombe Springs sold to those who wanted to make housing and Djamichunatra, with its beautiful stained glass windows, was razed to the ground. Many thought that Bennett had made a big mistake, but in truth Shah gave him a real help, allowing them to free themselves from one place to which he had devoted twenty years of sua vita. Senza quel sacrificio non è detto che Bennett sarebbe stato poi in grado di intraprendere l’ultimo e forse più significativo progetto della sua vita: l’inaugurazione di una “scuola” per la trasmissione di tecniche di trasformazione spirituale.
Ad ogni modo, questa scuola non venne fondata immediatamente; nei successivi quattro anni, Bennett visse una vita tranquilla in famiglia; aveva sposato Elizabeth Howard nel 1958 dopo la morte della sua seconda moglie, e aveva due figli maschi e due femmine. In seguito, nel 1969, dopo una grave malattia che lo aveva portato in punto di morte, egli intraprese un altro importante passo nella sua vita spirituale, passo che sembrò cambiarlo profondamente: infatti began to have a deep concern for the plight of young people, especially those who, as a result of social and cultural ferment of the sixties, were asking serious questions about the existence and fail to find satisfactory answers.
As part of his research on their thinking, Bennett attended a rock festival on the Isle of Wight. The result of this was the creation of an "Academy" to teach some of the lessons he learned during a lifetime devoted to the spiritual quest. The project to establish the Academy attracted an unexpected positive response, particularly in the United States, and in the autumn of 1971 the Academy Internazionale per l’Educazione Continua fu inaugurata nel villaggio di Sherborne, nella contea di Gloucester, Inghilterra. I corsi, della durata di dieci mesi, di cui cinque erano proposti “come esperimento”, si dimostrarono essere un terreno fertile, al punto che molte persone continuano tuttora a lavorare con le idee e i metodi da lui presentati, come egli aveva del resto auspicato. Il suo scopo iniziale, in modo alquanto caratteristico, era di condurre i corsi per poi intraprendere qualcosa di completamente diverso, ma morì il 13 dicembre 1974, poco dopo l’inizio del quarto corso. Quel corso, così come il quinto, furono completati sotto la guida di Elizabeth Bennett. Nei mesi prima della sua morte, Bennett iniziò to imagine a society that would give body to the experimental methods and the ideas it had received from Gurdjieff, and developed. Go to great lengths to overcome the divisions between the different groups formed by followers of Gurdjieff and, even more fascinating, foreshadowed the development of new forms of religion suited to the modern world, suggesting that the Gurdjieff Movements represent just one of these forms.
JG Bennett has left a legacy of values \u200b\u200bof the disinterested gift of oneself and a persistent search in mystery and meaning of existence. He published many works, inspired hundreds of people in search of reality, the costs of self, and spurred many to work with the ideas and methods he transmitted. Even today we continue to learn from his example: Who wants to follow a system of ideas of spiritual transformation and try to practice them in the first person to penetrate its meaning.
taken from: http://www.illibraiodellestelle.com/libri/luomo-superiore.php
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