The Fourth Way and Esoteric Traditions
From Rodney Collin: We are connected with everyone we have met or talked to or felt, because we have given them part of ourselves. Whatever is strongest affects whatever is weakest. A crowd can be on the verge of panic and one strong person, by projecting confidence, can stop it. In a group of people […]
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An Apollo Walk Apollo is the name of the place my school has created. In almost fifty years, we have transformed a rude environment, adding roads, gardens, palm trees and roses, buildings and fountains—even a Greek-style theater. But all this is only external. More importantly, we have transformed ourselves and created a society worthy of […]
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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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Editors‘ note: In the Fourth Way today, understanding our lower centers and how they can work together in balance is key. This article describes the lower brains or centers in each person, and how balancing of these functions leads to experiencing higher states. The Seven Centers of the Human Machine The Fourth Way describes the […]
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Will, unity and the many I’s In the Fourth Way, a student learns to understand the difference between will and mechanicality. What is the unifying principle to overrule the many parts of our being? The work is upside down and backwards to life. To life, “freedom” means being able to follow the many ‘I’s the […]
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Bread and the Essence of Craftmanship – How does a master craftsman use bread-making for presence? Amidst these days of mass marketing and food production, one man here makes bread by hand for his community. Craftsmanship requires attention in the moment for a finished product to be both useful and beautiful. Presence to detail creates […]
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Little Firefly – To tell the story of Little Firefly, you must know that once upon a time, on the shores of a great lake, lived a hunter, a widower with three daughters. Every day when he went into the forest, the hunter would leave his daughters with instructions to clean the wigwam, repair his […]
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– Quotations on the necessity of inner simplicity, from writers, mystics, and artists. Leonardo da Vinci: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Michel de Montaigne: Others study how to elevate their minds and hoist them up tight; I, how to humble mine and lay it to rest. Goethe: This is the most difficult thing of all, though it […]
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Rilke’s poetry and letters dwell substantially on death and the transformation of suffering, as in these excerpts from his letters. From the Letters of Rilke We simply do not know what can be destroyed in a heart through suffering, or what suffering might achieve there. As a poet, one should not even take distress for a lover […]
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