Love is not a phenomenon of this world, and it does not belong to men but is infinity itself. – Ouspensky
For all the intellectual brilliance of Ouspensky’s efforts to define a objective vocabulary for students of the Fourth Way, he made few direct references to the word love. Perhaps no other term is so attached to the personal subjective identifications and imagination of our lower centres.
Is a single universal definition beyond us?
Muslims talk of the 99 names of Allah. The Fourth Way uses terms such as self-remembering, essence presence, self-consciousness. Other traditions name uncreated light, or the Ideal State, to indicate different aspects of the higher state that is love. It takes the application of psychological rather than logical thinking to see these as not contradictory. They are all facets of something beyond our normal experience.
Then the use of the word love can indicate an eternal energy beyond the transient emotional or instinctive attachments of lower centres and their attachment to things, places, and people and the extremes of lust and religious ecstasy that they label as love.
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. – Rumi
The work for us therefore lies mostly in minimising that which is not love. For example, negative emotions, inner considering, judgement, and unconscious speech and movement. These separate and isolate us from the higher state that is love. On the Fourth Way, efforts in go hand in hand with the refinement of impressions in our outer and inner world. We work to assist our receptivity to love as we recognise and grow closer to it.
A sincere student of the Fourth Way attempts to move from the habitual heavy transient aspects of one’s mechanics. Living with the experience of eternal higher state of Love (constantly available if not limited by our personal psychology) can be both a joy and friction.
It can take the intervention of shocks from a higher level that may seem magical or miraculous to our lower centres. Such shocks deepen our understanding and acceptance so that we may swallow the sly man’s pill of acceptance.
Being in a real Fourth Way School such as the Fellowship of Friends gives one a unique advantage. One has the support and example of others walking the same path. This energises our efforts. In a school, the presence of a teacher can consistently channel the higher energy of love to his students.
So why not start today, with a small step? Spend 30 minutes intentionally experiencing something that brings love into your day. You will see what helps and hinders your efforts if you look clearly.
Great love comes from the great awareness of what one loves and, if you don’t know it, you will be able to love it little or nothing. – Leonardo
Walter Scott has practiced the Fourth Way for decades and lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. He runs a Facebook group for those interested in the Fourth Way: https://www.facebook.com/groups/229759281572325