The Fourth Way and Esoteric Traditions
When I was growing up, a friend once counseled me, “Beware of words that end in ‘-tion.’” We were both studying Latin and loved English. She became a filmmaker, and I a writer and teacher of music and literature. I have noticed in the word ‘verification’ a problem inherent in the endings that make nouns […]
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Faith of consciousness is freedom.Faith of feeling is slavery.Faith of body is stupidity. – Gurdjieff The soul, when it sees a trace of its kindred reality, is delighted and thrilled and returns to itself and remembers itself. – Plotinus I ask you to believe nothing that you cannot verify for yourself. – Gurdjieff Our faith […]
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The poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, speaks of a transcendent, inward ‘seeing.’ From one of Rilke’s letters to a friend: Though you may laugh if I tell you where my very greatest feeling, my world-feeling, my earthly bliss was, I must confess to you: it was, again and again, here and there, in such in-seeing […]
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Lying How do we achieve inner transformation? When people react negatively to the necessity of inner work, it is often because the ideas of conscious evolution threaten to expose the lies they tell themselves. The primary lies we all tell ourselves are that we are conscious. We tell ourselves that we have will, and that […]
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Deep within ourselves, frequent struggles arise among our multiple inner worlds. These produce questions like: Where do I come from? Why do I behave as I behave? And where am I going now? Often, I perceive the divine essence of my spirit emitting a cry, “Raise yourself!” The cellular body orders me to “Settle yourself!” The ethereal soul reminds me […]
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Follow your heart when you come in contact with a spiritual source. Do not judge too easily; give it some time to understand the concept and how it works. As you embark on the journey of inner evolution, independent of the body’s likes and dislikes, faith becomes your guiding light. You plant a seed of […]
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In every genuine encounter with art, we are invited into a dialogue between trust and verification: trust in the intuitive resonance that beauty awakens within us, and verification through the attentive discernment that reveals its inner coherence. Great works of art, like great spiritual experiences, ask us not to choose between faith and understanding, but […]
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The question of trust and verification is a fundamental, even critical, question in a person’s inner work. Since spiritual work aspires to reach a world beyond—beyond the senses, beyond the intellect, and beyond emotion—the question naturally arises: How can we verify and trust in a world that our senses, emotions, and intellect can never meet? […]
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I used to keep two diaries, one about my normal everyday life (college, friends, relationships, career) and one about the spiritual and mystical life (higher influences, awakening and understandings about it). Last month, while writing in my everyday diary I ended up writing about a spiritual understanding. And then I understood that I cannot keep […]
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“Die before you die, so that you do not die when you die.” – Sufi saying – Many spiritual traditions speak of abandoning one’s old life, to begin separating the real from the unreal. The Fourth Way does not require abandoning external situations. In the Fourth Way, we work to minimize personality in favor of […]
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