The Fourth Way and Esoteric Traditions
A Practical Choice How do we arrive at a ‘right location’ for our inner work in the Fourth Way? Horace, a Roman poet at the time of Augustus Caesar, said, “In adversity, remember to keep an even mind.” This is not just poetic or philosophical advice. It implies a practical choice to be made: where […]
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True earth arrests true lead;True lead controls true mercury.Lead and mercury return to true earth;Body and mind are tranquil and still.— Zhang Boduan, Four-Hundred Words on the Golden Elixir This little verse contains everything one needs to know to awaken. However, understanding the meaning is not an easy task and requires a conscious teacher. And […]
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Your own search may lead you to ask the question: what is our existence? You will have to find the answer yourself, feeling it by your own true sense within. Obstacles to understanding the meaning of life are many, and exist both in the external world and in our relationships to things. Further, our own identifications […]
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Who is this ‘I’ one calls oneself? My teacher recently said to us, “Remember, anything that says ‘I’ is not you.” When first reading about the division into ‘I’ and ‘David’, I did not understand it exactly. Fortunately, it was clear what we were to avoid. When we begin the work, the tendency is to […]
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When we talk about freedom, we’re speaking about the work an individual does to become free of unnecessary laws. Man as a Microcosmos of the Universe In order to understand this, it is first necessary to see man as a microcosmos. Man is a microcosmos because, like the universe, he has within him layers of […]
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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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Towards a More Real ‘I’ – the Changing Sense of Self through Work in the Fourth Way What is this changing sense of self that can come in the work, and how does it relate to a real ‘I’? Gurdjieff: Liberation is the aim of all schools, all religions, at all times. This liberation can indeed be […]
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Every effort to be present comes from essence and is an act of love. The conscious effort to be present The efforts we make to maintain the state of presence are sustained by a deep love. This love, like an uncomfortable and permanently-lit flame, maintains the necessary desire to self-remember, to be present. During the state of […]
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I quite enjoy one of Mahler’s songs, set to a poem by Friedrich Rückert, “Ich bin von die Welt abhanden gekommen,” or “I am lost to the world.” The piece begins with a beautiful and haunting English horn solo against a background of woodwind and harp, followed by strings. Lost to the world – an […]
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Presence and imagination – are they opposites? Sincere work on oneself is work on being, as well as knowledge. Thus a crucial point in the work is to recognize the difference between presence and imagination. Using these terms can help to understand each other when communicating about this subject. Imagination is the state where our focus is on things […]
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