The Fourth Way and Esoteric Traditions
The author describes how, in a school of awakening, one uses methods to develop a steward to empower ‘Real I.’ We may wonder each moment, where are we going? When this question touches on our need for divine guidance, it can be a moment of awakening. Gurdjieff writes that all phenomena in life arise from […]
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The author describes how the tools of scale and relativity help us awaken from sleep, to reach an awareness that is more in touch with reality. Our Changing Connection with Reality Our inner lives comprise moments of varying profundity or depth. Depending on the activity at hand, the mood we are in, or the influence […]
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A School Requires Special Efforts It is not necessary to awaken to satisfy all the demands of life on the planet earth. Consequently, awakening requires that one make efforts beyond those one would make in life. This is the idea of “super-effort.” Ouspensky describes, in In Search of the Miraculous (page 347), when a man, after […]
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Editor’s Note: Studying objective symbols such as the four heavenly gods in Buddhism, one can better understand the concept of the four “kings” of centers in the Fourth Way today. The Four Kings of Centers and the Four Heavenly Kings One of the basic concepts of the Fourth Way is the idea that man has […]
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Editor’s Note: In the Fourth Way today, how do we untie the Gordian knot of sleep? How can lower centers convey messages from higher states? And what role does objective art or music play in awakening? Objective Art, Beauty and the King of Hearts How does an artist use the various lower centers—instinctive, moving, emotional and […]
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Learning to play music: Does “raising up” the lower centers lead to higher centers? Some decades ago, after I began to work in a Fourth Way school, I returned to music. I needed to study the cello to play in a nascent community orchestra. I had stopped playing in my teens and my beautiful instrument […]
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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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Forging the Sword – Quotations A sword is something to protect the body; here it means the tool of wisdom to become enlightened and immortal, the means to become a sage. This is what is called the restored elixir; there is no “sword” other than the restored elixir. This means restoration of the original innate […]
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How to deal with contradictions on the path to awakening? The Fourth Way describes the lack of unity of man, and his many contradictions. What challenge does this fact pose on the path to awakening? “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself.” – Walt Whitman These words from Walt Whitman have long […]
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Essence and Presence – What is presence, and how does it relate to essence? How do the Fourth Way and other traditions use these terms? From the Sufi Tradition – Zikar In Sufism, the word zikar means “remembrance of the Presence of God while losing oneself in a sacred experience.” Truly, it is the remembrance of a […]
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