Born in the Caucasus, crossroad of Asia and Europe, Gurdjieff travelled during a score of years India, Perse, Afghanistan, Turkestan and Tibet, with the Group of the "Truth Seekers" made up of archeologists, interpreters, doctors, engineers...
As a consequence, he had access to schools, monasteries, brotherhoods which preserved ignored or secret teachings.

His goal was to reconcile the alive spirituality of the East with the scientific knowledge of Occident, to develop a method of harmonious development of the human being, adapted to modern man.

He started teaching in Russia in 1913.  Driven out by the Bolshevik revolution, he set up in France and taught from 1922 until his death, in 1949.  His teaching attracted European and American artists, writers, psychologists, animated by a deep need to discover the true goal of their existence.