higher centers Archives - Fourth Way Today

Like a Wheel in Perfect Balance Turning

‘Clarity. We just return over and over to this calm, unpressured Blue Sky Mind. We begin to see that it is always there, even when apparently obscured by passing clouds.” – Ta Hui As an experience, a state of perfect balance resonates closely with this vast, serene and simple state of the ‘Blue Sky Mind’. Like […]

by Elisa Eidner

Perfect Harmony – the Ideal State

When we make the movement to divide attention, the certainty of a state emerges—an ideal state of clarity. This is a perfect harmony.

by David Tuttle

Recognizing Our Sleep

Part of self-observation is coming to recognize sleep, first of all in ourselves. Sleep means living in our imagination and our day dreams – a subjective world. However, when we remember ourselves for a moment, we temporarily step out of sleep. “Man is a machine, everything with him happens: he cannot stop the flow of […]

by Girard Haven

The Color of Nothing

How can we describe a higher state of existence? The author describes how the third state of consciousness serves as a bridge to higher awareness. Expressing the Inexpressible Picture in your mind the most beautiful sunrise you have ever seen. Now imagine trying to explain that experience to someone who not only has been blind since birth […]

by Kevin Brown

External Consideration – An Aspect of School Work

Editors’ Note: A student in the Fourth Way today shares what it is like to work towards external considering, an aspect of treating others consciously, in the context of school work. Working with Others – Moving Past Mechanics Self‐remembering, the pursuit of presence, is a personal experience. A person cannot nurture and sustain presence entirely […]

by William Page

Memory and Higher States

Editor’s Note: How does our experience of memory expand in higher states? This writer explores the traces of higher states upon lower centers in the Fourth Way today. And here also is God!!! Again God!… I am man, and such as I am, in contrast to all other outer forms of animal life, created by […]

by Ruth Atkins

Solving the Gordian Knot of Sleep

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 […]

by Roger Kent

Playing Music: Do Lower Centers Lead to Higher Centers?

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 […]