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 very great. All men desire it and strive after it. But it cannot be attained without the first liberation, a lesser liberation. The great liberation is liberation from influences outside us. The lesser liberation is liberation from influences within us. 

Rainer Maria Rilke: Immortality? I believe that nothing that is real can pass away. But I believe that many people are not real.  
(Letter to Ellen Key, 1904)

Rodney Collin: I think the sense of the complete unimportance of all one’s personal life and personal psychology is the key to entry into relation [with higher worlds]. 

Hermes Trismegistus: A soul that has gained no knowledge of the things that are is tossed among the passions. It carries the body as a burden, and is ruled by it instead of ruling it. On the other hand, he who has got knowledge is good and reverent; he is already divine.

Alex Horn: Plato makes it clear that when a man leaves the cave and achieves true contemplation, the vision of God, he must return to the cave and aid his fellow men.  

Dogen: If you stand beyond opinions, you bring forth awakening. If not, you take a wrong step and miss what’s there. 

Gurdjieff: Death must come before rebirth. But what must die? False confidence in one’s own knowledge, self- love and egoism.

Attar: If you destroy in yourself the ego for a single day, your darkness will be lit up. Never say the word ‘I.’

For more on Alex Horn, a student of Lord Pentland and of John G. Bennett, see http://robertearlburton.org/alexander-francis-horn/.