What is the Aim of a School?
The aim of a Fourth Way school is to help people to awaken from the state of sleep in which they spend their whole life. The first step is becoming more deeply aware of this sleep in one’s daily life.
Ouspensky said, “Schools exist only for those who need them, and who know that they need them.”
A School is Third Force for Awakening
The reason one needs a school to awaken is based on a concept that is part of all ancient systems of philosophy, which the Fourth Way calls ‘The Law of Three.’ According to this law, all phenomena on all scales, physical as well as psychological, are dependent on three forces coming together. In the triad of awakening, one’s interest and effort to awaken are the first force. One’s sleep, mechanicality, and habitual life are the second or denying force. Without a third force, these two forces cancel each other and no real change can occur. A school provides the third force.
A man’s readiness and commitment are not enough if he does not enjoy help from above as well. Equally, help from above is of no benefit unless there is also commitment and readiness on our part. Thus, I entreat you neither to entrust everything to God and then fall asleep, nor to think, when you are striving diligently, that you will achieve everything by your own efforts. — St. John Chrysostom, Philokalia
Practical Third Force
In the beginning, after joining a school, third force comes from spending time with people who have the same aim. In formal and informal settings, one learns from working with those who have more experience and following suggestions and exercises of the teacher. As a result, the work starts to affect one’s attitudes and ways of thinking.
Real Change Occurs in Essence
This change is superficial—only a change in one’s personality. The next step involves diminishing false personality and developing true personality. However, real change only comes when the work penetrates one’s essence, because then it changes one’s being. It is not easy to understand the difference. Changes in personality can easily be mistaken for changes in essence. We may not even know our essence, since it rarely manifests after childhood.
Essence is the truth in man; personality is the false. It happens very often that the essence of a grown-up man, even that of a very intellectual and, in the accepted meaning of the word, highly ‘educated’ man, stops on the level of a child of five or six. — Gurdjieff, In Search of the Miraculous
During puberty, teenagers experience a drastic change in essence caused by the release of hormones by the sex glands. The child has to learn to deal with this change in essence, which also causes new and intense emotions and changes his behavior towards family, friends, and the opposite sex. As a result, this strongly affects and shapes a child’s personality.
Joining a spiritual group usually also causes a drastic change in a person. However, since external stimuli caused this change, at first this only affects personality. After I joined the Fellowship of Friends, I took part in the annual ball. Being interested in pop and jazz music at that time, I wasn’t really interested in waltzing. Moreover, my false personality had the attitude that ‘waltzing is not cool,’ and ‘I don’t waltz.’
Imaginary Picture of Oneself
Because I understood that my attitude came from my imaginary picture of myself, I started to join these waltzes anyway. In the beginning, I felt very uncomfortable. I experienced strong inner considering, thinking everybody would think I was not ‘cool.’ However, after a few times, to my surprise I started to enjoy waltzing. This is an example of a change in personality.
Later, I also started to experience higher states during waltzing and it became evident to me that the idea that waltzing originated with the whirling Sufis is quite possible.
As said above, real change is change that affects essence. Such change can, but need not, create a change in behavior. What affects essence most is a higher state of consciousness. The higher the state, the stronger the influence.
False Personality Imitates the Work
The shock of joining a spiritual group has the possibility of creating higher states, in the beginning. However, soon the machine establishes its habitual patterns. By creating a new personality related to being in the group, it imitates the work. And then these states don’t appear anymore.
Although higher states can come through an external shock, they are not of value unless one learns how to create them from within. In addition, the experience of a higher state can also strengthen false personality. This occurs if one is not aware of the third force and mistakenly thinks it’s all one’s own doing.
For this reason, the work has two aspects. First, making efforts to remember oneself, and, second, making false personality passive. This is necessary because false personality will use experiences of higher states for its own purpose. Actually, the increased appearance of essence, at the expense of false personality, results from remembering oneself while accepting the ‘tailor-made friction’ one receives. Evolving into a conscious man is the result of these two forces combining with the abundant denying force of one’s sleep.
It is impossible for man to get to higher states by his own efforts alone. Some higher power must come down from above to help him. —Rodney Collin
Awareness of Higher Forces
Progress in the work goes parallel with becoming aware of higher forces. This implies that a real school needs to have a connection with C influence. Without a connection with C influence, one’s higher states are the result of accidental shocks and cannot lead to real awakening.
It requires effort to accumulate C influence. Efforts on both sides; the side that gives and the side that receives. — Peter Ouspensky
Verifying that higher forces play a role in one’s life depends on the ability to transform friction and negative emotions. At the same time, awareness of C influence enables one to transform friction and negative emotions. Transformation means, first, accepting friction. It means understanding that it is necessary to transform friction in order to awaken. By focusing attention on the present moment while experiencing suffering, one sees through one’s friction. Nearly all friction is the rehashing of the friction again and again in one’s mind. This occurs even when the event that caused the friction has already passed.
Sustaining awareness of the present moment, including awareness of oneself in the moment, awakens the higher self. This higher state is refined enough to feel or experience higher forces, if one is allowed by C influence.
Behind what we achieve is a god, who doesn’t take credit. — Montaigne
Walther Sell is the author of a website on Oriental esoteric teachings and the Fourth Way. For more, see his page, Inner Journey to the West.
See other articles by Walther for the FourthWayToday.org.