The Fourth Way and Esoteric Traditions
How do we work with sharing the light with others? The Wish to Prolong Presence The human machine is a wonderful invention. It is a machine that can produce consciousness. That consciousness has degrees. It can be closer or further away from what Gurdjieff and Ouspensky called the second state, or day-dream state. Some higher […]
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From Rodney Collin: We are connected with everyone we have met or talked to or felt, because we have given them part of ourselves. Whatever is strongest affects whatever is weakest. A crowd can be on the verge of panic and one strong person, by projecting confidence, can stop it. In a group of people […]
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Three Lines of Work in a School The following outline is from Ouspensky’s The Fourth Way: The first line is work on oneself: self-study, study of the system, and trying to change at least the most mechanical manifestations. This is the most important line. The second line is work with other people. One cannot work by […]
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Stuck in the First Line of Work You recently learned about the idea of self-remembering and tried it for the first time. You had a taste of awakening to higher states and realized that this was who you really wanted to be. But something is not quite right. The time that elapses between your efforts […]
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While Fourth Way authors rarely speak of the gods, Ouspensky and others wrote on the role of higher mind–‘C influence’–upon human life. Angels announced this mystery of eternal life, from the beginning of the human race, through certain signs and sacraments suitable to the times, to those capable of hearing it. St. Augustine A […]
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Quotations from Fourth Way authors Gurdjieff and Ouspensky on unity–and our innate multiplicity. Acknowledging Plurality Man has no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small I’s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each […]
Read More… These quotations chosen by the editors of the Fourth Way Today illustrate how our lower functions relate to our higher parts. Basically, the lower functions, or four lower centers, are part of our being. But how do they serve consciousness? Are they our servant or our master? Ouspensky and others on Using the Lower Functions […]
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Biblical Quotations What does it mean to possess unity or will? In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus speaks: Father, if it be thy will, take this cup from me. Yet not my will but thine be done. – Luke 22:42 And in Matthew 7:21: Not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom […]
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The Story of Pinocchio The tale of the puppet Pinocchio who becomes a real boy begins in Tuscany. A carpenter named Master Antonio has found a block of pinewood to carve into a leg for his table. When he begins, however, the log shouts out. Frightened by the talking log, he gives it to his […]
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Our Winter Issue – Our January 2018 issue is on simplicity, the essential part of our nature–essence. What steps can we take to return to it, from a Fourth Way perspective? Life requires many masks, but who are we, truly? Show me your original face, before your father or mother were born. – Zen master […]
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