Robert Earl Burton Archives - Fourth Way Today

Verification as a Foundation

One of the foundational pillars for work in the Fourth Way is verification. You are not to accept or reject anything until you can verify it for yourself. This is part of what makes the Fourth Way a journey to self-knowledge and conscious life. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the 18th century statesman, poet, and scientist, […]

by Benjamin B

Trust and Verifications—the Idea of a Play

Religions of all kinds inform us that there are celestial beings. There are men and women that became immortal, who may be called gods or angels. In the Fourth Way, this is C Influence, an influence connected with a conscious source. Spiritual aspirants may be sufficiently lucky to be in touch with C Influence. It […]

by The Editors

Quotations on Trust and Verification

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 […]

by Rowena Taylor

Seeing and Believing

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 […]

by William Page

Trauma and Transformation

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 […]

by Natassa Cavalli

Wings Remain Wings

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 […]

by Klaus Labuttis

Faith turns into Trust and Trust into Verifications

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 […]

by Stefania Maggini

Madonna of the Shadows – the Beato Angelico

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 […]

by Dhruvi Chavda

Where the Light Comes In

Scientifically, light doesn’t need matter to exist, though it often interacts with it. It’s the same with divine light. It exists and does not need anything to exist. But sometimes it interacts with us, our souls. Illumination literally means light, and here we are referring to illumination as the divine light or consciousness. It has […]

by Rowena Taylor

The Magnetic Center’s Path

Sensitivity to light distinguishes all forms of life: plant, animal, and human, too. Indeed, what the Fourth Way calls the “magnetic center” can be seen as a sensitivity to light, an impulse searching out higher energies, higher hydrogens. A way to live differently, as described by other authors featured in this issue on illumination. Over […]