The main part of the process of the Fourth Way is the slow work on Awakening and it seems to be the heaviest of the four phases. One first has to work with the physical manifest­ations of one’s features. For example, working on negative emotions includes work on relaxing one’s facial expressions and tensions in the muscles, which are the moving centre, as well as work on defusing intellectual I’s, and separating from instinctive sensations.

After much practice, the work does become a little easier, mainly because one has a more fully formed True Personality (see Part IV) with more strength and commitment. With successful work on the major obstacles (identifying, inner considering, expressing negative emotions, lying and being in imagination), one starts to encounter spontaneous moments of self-remembering. At that point one will naturally start to study and work on the next stages, ‘Dying’, and ‘being reborn’. But we are getting ahead of the game.

In general, awakening is a process with many setbacks. It is usual to experience times of real progress followed by dull periods where nothing seems to change or one seems to fall back in spite of efforts. One may even feel that one has “lost the work”. This is due to a law we shall not go into here, the law of octaves (called the law of seven by Gurdjieff), and it is quite normal, the dull periods being called intervals.

The ability to make and maintain efforts of self-remembering or self-control in many different circumstances, especially in an interval, is given the name: Level of Being. It is based on previous efforts to overcome the obstacles mentioned above. The apparent fallback at intervals, seems to make one’s level of being fluctuate – it goes up and down. This is normal and Gurdjieff spoke of going “three steps forward, then two steps back”.

It can be frustrating. But frustration is a useful emotion that can be turned into self-remembering. Who is it that is frustrated? And who wants to continue making efforts? It is clear that the part which wants to make efforts (true personality) will be that which is going to awaken.

Two important components of awakening are study, and experiment. The books of Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, and Rodney Collin and others are useful. Discussing these topics with fellow aspirants, and making experiments on oneself to see if all the things one has read or heard are true in one’s own case, is called verification and it is an entirely personal process. Nobody can prove to one what is true or not true. One has to find out for oneself.

Here we see the value of being in a school. For, other students can help one to understand what one sees, or point out some aspects of one’s behaviour that one does not see in oneself (and there will be many of them). The system calls this behaviour mechanics, and one’s ordinary psychology the machine. Seeing all these things strengthens one’s understanding of one’s work and one’s will to continue.

So,what does one get when one awakens? Ouspensky said that only one thing is guaranteed – one gets to see oneself. However, one can gain a lot more than just this. What one will see of oneself will horrify one at first: all the lies one thinks, says and believes in, particularly about oneself, all the antics one does to get admiration from others or even just their attention, and all the self-centered things one does. And more. But at least one is seeing the truth about oneself. This is why self-remembering is sometimes called self consciousness. But if one has made genuine efforts, one will have the strength to accept what one sees.

One last thing about Awakening: No work is wasted. Work in one area (for example, inner considering) will strengthen one’s work in other areas. For all the areas require self-remembering in order to succeed. Thus each effort strengthens self-remembering.

John Stubbs is the author of “Inner Connections”, available on Amazon.

Image: Rembrandt, Portrait of a Scholar, 1631, Hermitage collection