The Fourth Way and Esoteric Traditions
“Eternity requires perseverance and endurance.” – Bernard of Clairvaux Once I heard a story regarding a teacher at the beginning of his school. He was asking students what they thought was needed to build a school. Students gave several answers, like making efforts, having aims, etc. The teacher listened to all of these answers, and at […]
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I remember, in my preschool years, a child in the neighborhood who had crafted a boomerang and threw it high. The boomerang, spinning on itself, traced an elliptical trajectory in the air and returned to its operator. The child would stretch high or gather low to successfully catch it again, and I wondered what forces brought about this […]
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“‘Know thyself.’ These words, ascribed to Socrates, actually lie at the basis of many systems and schools far more ancient than the Socratic.” – George I. Gurdjieff “Schools have the privilege of making the effort in the right place. They create space for the deity within, one’s own presence.” – Robert Burton “When I met this […]
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What are key elements of a school of awakening? A real school provides a doorway to an objective method of awakening. Methods for achieving higher consciousness have lasted in forms compatible with each age for all of recorded human history. One challenge of a real school is to develop a contemporary approach to its presentation. This can vary, […]
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… Come, come, Come swirling like snowflakes Into rain-darkened hills. Set your pristine footprints In Time’s well-trodden stream. Let your eyes be filled with white. Come where the singers who yearn to, With eyes skyward focused, Become the singers of light. – – Hurl, hurl, Hurl all you think is you Into crackling bonfires. Let […]
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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, […]
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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 […]
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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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