May 2022 - Fourth Way Today

Philosophy, Theory, and Practice

If you study only the philosophical side of Gurdjieff’s ideas—its history, its cosmology, or its connection to the major religions—you may never connect to higher centers. This isn’t wrong. It’s fine to be a scholar. But the primary purpose of the system is to teach people to awaken. You cannot awaken unless you are willing to make inner efforts and take a practical approach to the knowledge.

by Girard Haven

Working Beyond the Machine

We imagine “freedom” means being able to follow whatever ‘I’s the machine happens to have, and “will” a way to actualize any desire that comes into the machine. In reality, however, freedom and will begin from being able to separate from the machine, and this separation begins with the ability to do what it does not want to do.

by Benjamin B

Change

We need to construct our lives around the effort to increase consciousness, or presence. We do this through working to deconstruct, transform, and transcend whatever within us resists or distracts us from acceleration into higher worlds. We come to realize, with time, that every moment of presence is a triumph, and a reason to be grateful.

by The Editors

Rodney Collin on Abandoning the System

Rodney Collin was a student of P.D. Ouspensky in the last decade of Ouspensky’s life. He was with Ouspensky at Lyne Place, England, at Franklin Farms, New Jersey, and lived with him until Ouspensky’s death in 1947. The following excerpts are from letters written by Rodney Collin to his friends and students in the Fourth […]

by The Editors

Gurdjieff and Ouspensky on Going Beyond Knowledge

What do Fourth Way authors say about going beyond knowledge, going beyond the system, and changing the location of our sense of ‘I’? From Views from the Real World, Gurdjieff: Beyond this world, beyond the limits of our knowledge, there lies a world, incomprehensible for us, of noumena—a shadow, a reflection of which is the […]

by David Tuttle

Transcending the System

So often, the work on the Fourth Way stays at the level of the steward. However, at a certain point, this work does not lead any further. This kind of work can begin, in a subtle way, to strengthen our sense of ‘I’ in the four lower centers. In truth, Real ‘I’ can only belong to higher centers.

by Elisa Eidner

Reaching the Point of Transcendence

When in a moment of intense suffering, the soul manifests through being present, the empty space that self-pity used to fill now emerges into a new kind of acceptance.

by Natassa Cavalli

Fate or Sin?

Is it fate or sin, what the steward undergoes? Sin Distances Us from the Whole In ancient Greek, the verb “αμαρτάνω”- “amartano” (I sin) means that I do not have a share; I am apart from the whole, a non-participant. While the opposite verb “μείρομαι” – “meiromai” means that I have a share. I am […]