Download Witness: The autobiography of John Bennett eBook

jg bennet great spiritual seeker and teacher. worth reading.

Mr. Bennett's life is a remarkable example of a man who engages on a lifetime quest for his own way to wisdom, always keeping a hopeful and open mind, regardless of disappointments, difficulties and mistakes. A must read for any seeker of truth.

Both blessed and cursed with prodigious mental gifts and a commanding stature, John Bennett is unsparingly self-critical of his journey from early adulthood until a few years before his demise in the early 1970s. So his account commences with his work as an intelligence officer in Istanbul, 1919, as part of Britain's occupational forces. The book is a linear progresssion in terms of his various achievements after the Near East years, a researcher in the coal industry, and work in the infant plastics business and so on. But his spiritual progress is the grist of the book. The battle to subdue his self-will, arrogance and impatience are rigorously charted. At times he seems unremittently hard on himself. To an average sloth, like myself, Bennett sets an insuperably high benchmark. Fate has him introduced to the Armenian thermatagurge, Georges Gurdjieff while they are both in Istanbul and their relationship is a turning point in his life. Bennett is no slouch in networking. He meets Arnold Toynbee, Krishnamurti, The Huxleys, Schoemaker, Montessori, just to mention some names still on the popular record. P D Ouspenski, a considerable force himself, is in here too. The lienage continues to this day with theatre people like Lincoln Kirsten, Dianne Cilento, John Cleese and Peter Brooke and musicians, Kate Bush, Rob. Fripp and Peter Gabriel. As Bennett's association with the Ouspenki's, sufis, Idries Shah, and Hassain Sushud, Pak Subud and the Shiva Puri Baba unfold, he recounts particular insights gained from each and how he is able to get out of his head, open his heart and marry conscience with consciousness. It's not a difficult read and is a great entry point to the Bennett, Ouspenski, Gurdjieff literature that abounds. An autobiography of such candour is refreshing. For all the assurances that his efforts were worthwhile, one is left wondering if such awesomely talented energies as he had at his disposal(initiatives in maths, liguistics, chemistry, business organisation, political nous and contact with top shelf gurus) found such confounding obstacles in 'work on one's self', how fares my small, flickering candle of low grade wax? An acquaintance recommended this book to me in 1971 at a small gathering dissecting Michael Gelvin's brilliant commentaries on Heidegger's, 'Being & Time'. I'm on my 5th re-read and have lent it, judiciously on a number of occasions. thanks, Sue Ford!

I found myself admiring Mr. Bennett more and more, as I approached the end of the book. Granted, I had only read the book at all because of its connection to Mr. Gurdjieff, but Mr. Bennett seems even more interesting to me than Gurdjieff. I have known, and I know, people who have this hunger for spiritual guidance, and don't have the self-confidence or ability to gain super-consciousness without hand-holding. As to the question of changing spiritual paths and teachers along the way, well, that is how it works for some people. There are lone wolves, such as I believe was the case with John G. Bennett, who want their teachers to work for them, rather than the converse. At least Bennett was wise enough to insist on validating his own plans and purpose, without establishing a survival dependancy on his teachers. Remarkably, Mr. Bennett actually had a life and significance which stood on its own. I don't think he needed Gurdjieff, Pak Subuh, or Ouspensky, except that they served him as imperfect tools to arrive at a certain intellectual mastery. I once used a sledge hammer to remove a wheel bearing on my car. It wasn't the right tool, but it is what I had available to me at the time, and it worked pretty well. Also, you can't underestimate the value of friendship and peer cohesion, just because. It's irrelevant where we spend our time, after all. The military, the Peace Corp, a religious order... what does it matter? Who can fault Mr. Bennett for making his life ever more interesting and colorful? He was certainly well traveled, and put his socialization skills to good use.

For such an intelligent guy, he did come off as pandering to this or that guru, and spends far too much time apologizing for, and overstating the importance of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. I think Witness could have been more interesting, had Mr. Bennett used 50% less Gurdjieff, and 50% more of himself. The problem is that Witness focuses on Bennett's involvement with the popular occult movements of his time, rather than his own life as a basis for the story. The cinch pin of my ascertainment is on the black and white cover of the paperback, where Gurdjieff's photo is prominently displayed. You may think that I'm spending too much time taking about G.I. Gurdjieff, but look- let's say you write your autobiography: would you want another guy's face on the cover of your autobiography to dominate your own? If this isn't riding on the coattails of another's fame, then what is? For my part, as reader, I bought Witness to learn more about Gurdjieff, and not Bennett. Along the way, though, it occured to me that Bennett had more going for him than Gurdjieff. His business dealings with high profile government and corporate entities; his spiritual school enterprises; his love life; and his several gurus.

There's a nagging part of me that has to wonder about a guy who marries a woman old enough to be his mother. I couldn't quite get over that part. I'm not supposed to judge, yet I do draw infererence, that John G. Bennett was a little quirky. Never vulgar or condescending, he was a likeable social butterfly. Also, Mr. Bennett recounts so honestly, and perhaps because of a childish naivete. He would have made an exemplary American: full of initiative, innovation, tireless work ethic, and risk taker- entrepreneur! I can see John Bennett becoming the basis for a modern "model" of eclectic spiritualism, more easily digestible by gnosticians such as myself. I wouldn't form a personality cult around him, of course. I would attend a couple of lectures, workshops, write a paper, and then evolve beyond him.