also commonly referred to as Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff and G. I. Gurdjieff , was an influential spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century who taught that most humans do posses a unified conciousness and thus live their lives in a state of hypnotic `` waking sleep '' , but that it is possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential .
George Gurdjieff 's teachings included the theory that human beings posses a unified consciousness .