The Fourth Way and Esoteric Traditions
At eighteen, I hitchhiked through Scotland and England, with a friend I met while visiting the Scottish Findhorn commune. My interest in mysticism was all-consuming. Some of those who offered rides wanted to know more about who we were. I described the high states I was after. One driver asked a question, and I paused, and […]
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A dear companion died after a long illness, a year ago, in my home. Finally he was free of the pain and suffering, the many I’s, the illusion of a body. In the days before he left us, he was wry, wise, and strangely light-hearted. Seeing my cell phone in my hand as I sat by […]
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The fifth dimension is an endless line or loop of time, and the sixth a cube or sphere of all moments. This sixth dimension contains all choices, spreading out and infinitely repeating in eternity. This may be the true meaning of free will. All that we can conceive and do is contained in the sixth dimension. Any choice we make is valid, and any choice we did not make, any line we did not take, exists also. Extending into infinity.
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As articles in this issue show, students of the Fourth Way rarely find stillness possible among the lower centers, our thoughts, emotions, movements, instincts.
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Do we know more than we can use? “If knowledge outweighs being a man knows but has no power to do. It is useless knowledge. On the other hand if being outweighs knowledge a man has the power to do, [but] the being he has acquired becomes aimless.” “And knowledge and being must not diverge […]
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In this work to awaken fully, we experience a changing sense of ‘I’. First, our sense of ‘I’ develops in childhood, as we grow away from the simple essence with which we are born. We develop personality, trying on aspects of new personas into adulthood. When we begin to seek a way out of the […]
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What does the medieval Christian concept of uncreated light show us about reaching higher states? Efforts are the “work” of the Fourth Way, but “uncreated light” comes when it will.
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Objective Reality – Beyond World Twelve to World Six The natural world is more clearly inviting us into its mysteries, these days. I’m spending an hour each morning raking leaves. The distractions of ordinary life seem muted by the pandemic. Energies more rare, more refined, appear outdoors. And this natural world speaks to something higher […]
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Plato’s principles of the ideal state apply to our inner world as well. Are we able to form a deputy steward to govern the city? To recognize the true ruler, to enable higher states to visit us?
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In the Fourth Way, separation of oneself from oneself is a key step to inner development. If we are at the mercy of our own thoughts, impulses, and emotions, we cannot step onto the path of awakening for very long. Seeing the real and unreal in ourselves requires discrimination born of this separation. Gurdjieff, 1923: As long as […]
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