The Fourth Way and Esoteric Traditions
Balance and imbalance From one point of view, the work is a play between balance and imbalance. If we were in balance, would we still need to search for the meaning behind our lives? If the machine is very much out of balance, the foundation for our work would be unstable. It requires presence to […]
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How do we learn to work with both the lower and the higher impressions that surround us? At the beginning of the work, we hear that man is a machine. The work begins with the study of this machine. We study the lower and the higher within us. We learn of our four lower centers […]
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The more experience we gain in using the work ‘I’s, the more we follow their direction to the present, the more often they will come. They create an inner circle of identity that is more interested in the work than in the subject of identification of the many ‘I’s. Even if this identity collapses and needs to be recreated, it represents a more permanent state.
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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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All work for development has two sides—something old in man has to be killed and something quite new has to be born. Preparation for the one and the other must go side by side, and they require quite different work. – Rodney Collin
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Self-remembering is awareness of the presence of God. – Rodney Collin This may be a surprising statement for some people that are involved in the Fourth Way. Some feel that the power of Fourth Way is that it stays away from religion and focuses on the psychological and spiritual aspects of awakening. One reason that people who became […]
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The very idea of finding one’s self is problematic because we are the never the same. If you think you have found yourself—a solid, unchanging self—wouldn’t that imply that you’ve stopped growing?
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How does self-observation develop our sense of I? A Sequence of Work ‘I’s Once, during an elementary school break, as I now remember, I started playing hide and seek with children from all six grades in the school. Then an older girl yelled at me: “What are you doing in the game? Cockroach! Eh, cockroach! […]
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Work in the Fourth Way requires efforts–but sometimes higher states come of themselves. We can term our efforts ‘Created Light,’ and those of presence coming on its own—‘Uncreated Light.’
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How do our patterns of movement and sleep interact? Seminal Fourth Way authors G. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky describe how unnecessary movement and sleep–our old patterns–pose obstacles for one seeking consciousness. P.D. Ouspensky, from A Record of Meetings: The Role of the Moon in Mechanical Movement and Sleep At present all our movements depend on […]
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