The Fourth Way and Esoteric Traditions
We embody what is higher by being present. We can learn to hear if our hearts are in the temple or in the bazaar. When we identify for ourselves the flavor of those virtues–courage, prudence, humility and moderation–which Plato associates with the Ideal State, our work with others will be stronger: more direct and more compassionate as required.
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In the faces of men and women I see God and in my own face in the Glass. ~ Walt Whitman
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It was as if everywhere he looked was illuminated by a bright light. Inexplicably, every impression he beheld glowed and seemed to present itself in its entirety. He was dazzled by how completely he perceived the minutest detail of all he saw. The world around him was no longer shrouded in mystery.
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Objective knowledge exists, diffused within us, in contact with our own higher centers. Such knowledge shakes us to leave behind the world of “I”, “me” and “mine”.
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We imagine “freedom” means being able to follow whatever ‘I’s the machine happens to have, and “will” a way to actualize any desire that comes into the machine. In reality, however, freedom and will begin from being able to separate from the machine, and this separation begins with the ability to do what it does not want to do.
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What do Fourth Way authors say about going beyond knowledge, going beyond the system, and changing the location of our sense of ‘I’? From Views from the Real World, Gurdjieff: Beyond this world, beyond the limits of our knowledge, there lies a world, incomprehensible for us, of noumena—a shadow, a reflection of which is the […]
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So often, the work on the Fourth Way stays at the level of the steward. However, at a certain point, this work does not lead any further. This kind of work can begin, in a subtle way, to strengthen our sense of ‘I’ in the four lower centers. In truth, Real ‘I’ can only belong to higher centers.
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When in a moment of intense suffering, the soul manifests through being present, the empty space that self-pity used to fill now emerges into a new kind of acceptance.
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Is it fate or sin, what the steward undergoes? Sin Distances Us from the Whole In ancient Greek, the verb “αμαρτάνω”- “amartano” (I sin) means that I do not have a share; I am apart from the whole, a non-participant. While the opposite verb “μείρομαι” – “meiromai” means that I have a share. I am […]
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Do we know more than we can use? “If knowledge outweighs being a man knows but has no power to do. It is useless knowledge. On the other hand if being outweighs knowledge a man has the power to do, [but] the being he has acquired becomes aimless.” “And knowledge and being must not diverge […]
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