Fourth Way

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For P. D. Ouspensky's book see Fourth Way (book). For the jazz group see The Fourth Way (band). For the political schema see Pluralism (political philosophy).

The Fourth Way is an approach to self-development described by George Gurdjieff which he developed over years of travel in the East. It combines what he saw as three established traditional "ways" or "schools", those of the mind, emotions and body, or of yogis, monks and fakirs respectively, and is sometimes referred to as "The Work", "Work on oneself" or "The System". The exact origins of Gurdjieff's teachings are unknown, but people have offered various sources.[1]

The term was further used by his disciple P. D. Ouspensky in his lectures and writings. After Ouspensky's death his students published a book entitled The Fourth Way based on his lectures.

According to this system, the three traditional schools, or ways, "are permanent forms which have survived throughout history mostly unchanged, and are based on religion. Where schools of yogis, monks or fakirs exist, they are barely distinguishable from religious schools. The fourth way differs in that it is not a permanent way. It has no specific forms or institutions and comes and goes controlled by some particular laws of its own."[citation needed]

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When this work is finished, that is to say, when the aim set before it has been accomplished, the fourth way disappears, that is, it disappears from the given place, disappears in its given form, continuing perhaps in another place in another form. Schools of the fourth way exist for the needs of the work which is being carried out in connection with the proposed undertaking. They never exist by themselves as schools for the purpose of education and instruction.[2]

The Fourth Way addresses the question of people's place in the Universe, their possibilities of inner development, and emphasizes that people ordinarily live in a state referred to as "waking sleep", while higher levels of being are possible.

The Fourth Way teaches how to increase and focus attention and energy in various ways, and to minimize daydreaming and absentmindedness. This inner development in oneself is the beginning of a possible further process of change, whose aim is to transform man into "what he ought to be".

Overview

Gurdjieff's followers believed he was a spiritual master,[3] a human being who is fully awake or enlightened. He was also seen as an esotericist or occultist.[4] He agreed that the teaching was esoteric but claimed that none of it was veiled in secrecy but that many people lack the interest or the capability to understand it.[5] Gurdjieff said, "The teaching whose theory is here being set out is completely self supporting and independent of other lines and it has been completely unknown up to the present time."[citation needed]

The Fourth Way teaches that humans are not born with a soul and are not really conscious but only believe they are. A person must create a soul by following a teaching which can lead to this aim, or else "die like a dog". Humans are born asleep, live in sleep and die in sleep, only imagining that they are awake.[6] The ordinary waking "consciousness" of human beings is not consciousness at all but merely a form of sleep.

Gurdjieff taught "sacred dances" or "movements", now known as Gurdjieff movements, which they performed together as a group.[7] He left a body of music, inspired by that which he had heard in remote monasteries and other places, which was written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas de Hartmann.[8]

Three ways

Gurdjieff taught that traditional paths to spiritual enlightenment followed one of three ways:

The fakir works to obtain mastery of the attention (self-mastery) through struggles with [controlling] the physical body involving difficult physical exercises and postures.
  • The Way of the monk
The monk works to obtain the same mastery of the attention (self-mastery) through struggle with [controlling] the affections, in the domain, as we say, of the heart, which has been emphasized in the west, and come to be known as the way of faith due to its practice particularly by Catholic religious.
  • The Way of the yogi
The yogi works to obtain the same mastery of the attention (as before: 'self mastery') through struggle with [controlling] mental habits and capabilities.

Gurdjieff insisted that these paths - although they may intend to seek to produce a fully developed human being - tend to cultivate certain faculties at the expense of others. The goal of religion or spirituality was, in fact, to produce a well-balanced, responsive and sane human being capable of dealing with all eventualities that life may present. Gurdjieff therefore made it clear that it was necessary to cultivate a way that integrated and combined the traditional three ways.

Fourth Way

Gurdjieff said that his Fourth Way was a quicker means than the first three ways because it simultaneously combined work on all three centers rather than focusing on one. It could be followed by ordinary people in everyday life, requiring no retirement into the desert. The Fourth Way does involve certain conditions imposed by a teacher, but blind acceptance of them is discouraged. Each student is advised to do only what they understand and to verify for themselves the teaching's ideas.

Ouspensky documented Gurdjieff as saying that "two or three thousand years ago there were yet other ways which no longer exist and the ways now in existence were not so divided, they stood much closer to one another. The fourth way differs from the old and the new ways by the fact that it is never a permanent way. It has no definite forms and there are no institutions connected with it.[9]

Ouspensky quotes Gurdjieff that there are fake schools and that "It is impossible to recognize a wrong way without knowing the right way. This means that it is no use troubling oneself how to recognize a wrong way. One must think of how to find the right way."[10]

Origins

In his works, Gurdjieff credits his teachings to a number of more or less mysterious sources:[11]-

  • Various small sects of 'real' Christians in Asia and the Middle East. Gurdjieff believed that mainstream Christian teachings had become corrupted.
  • Various dervishes (he did not use the term 'Sufi')
  • Gurdjieff mentions practicing Yoga in his youth but his later comments about Indian fakirs and yogis are dismissive.
  • The mysterious Sarmoung monastery in a remote area of central Asia, to which Gurdjieff was led blindfold.
  • The non-denominational "Universal Brotherhood".

Attempts to fill out his account have featured:

Teachings and teaching methods

Basis of teachings

The Fourth Way focuses on "conscious labor" and "intentional suffering."

Conscious Labor is an action where the person who is performing the act is present to what he is doing; not absentminded. At the same time he is striving to perform the act more efficiently.

Intentional suffering is the act of struggling against automatism such as daydreaming, pleasure, food (eating for reasons other than real hunger), etc... In Gurdjieff's book Beelzebub's Tales he states that "the greatest 'intentional suffering' can be obtained in our presences by compelling ourselves to endure the displeasing manifestations of others toward ourselves"[18]

To Gurdjieff these two were the basis of all evolution of man.

Self-Observation

This is to strive to observe in oneself behavior and habits usually only observed in others, and as dispassionately as one may observe them in others, to observe thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judging or analyzing what is observed.[19]

The Need for Effort

Gurdjieff emphasized that awakening results from consistent, prolonged effort. Such efforts may be made as an act of will after one is already exhausted.

The Many 'I's

This indicates fragmentation of the psyche, the different feelings and thoughts of ‘I’ in a person: I think, I want, I know best, I prefer, I am happy, I am hungry, I am tired, etc. These have nothing in common with one another and are unaware of each other, arising and vanishing for short periods of time. Hence man usually has no unity in himself, wanting one thing now and another, perhaps contradictory, thing later.

Centers

Main article Centers (Fourth Way)

Gurdjieff classified plants as having one center, animals two and humans three. Centers refer to apparati within a being that dictate specific organic functions. There are three main centers in a man: intellectual, emotional and physical, and two higher centers: higher emotional and higher intellectual.

Body, Essence and Personality

Gurdjieff divided people's being into Essence and Personality.

  • Essence - is a "natural part of a person" or "what he is born with"; this is the part of a being which is said to have the ability to evolve.
  • Personality - is everything artificial that he has "learned" and "seen".

Cosmic Laws

Gurdjieff focused on two main cosmic laws, the Law of Three and the Law of Seven[citation needed].

  • The Law of Seven is described by Gurdjieff as "the first fundamental cosmic law". This law is used to explain processes. The basic use of the law of seven is to explain why nothing in nature and in life constantly occurs in a straight line, that is to say that there are always ups and downs in life which occur lawfully. Examples of this can be noticed in athletic performances, where a high ranked athlete always has periodic downfalls, as well as in nearly all graphs that plot topics that occur over time, such as the economic graphs, population graphs, death-rate graphs and so on. All show parabolic periods that keep rising and falling. Gurdjieff claimed that since these periods occur lawfully based on the law of seven that it is possible to keep a process in a straight line if the necessary shocks were introduced at the right time. A piano keyboard is an example of the law of seven, as the seven notes of the major scale correspond exactly to it.
  • The Law of Three is described by Gurdjieff as "the second fundamental cosmic law". This law states that every whole phenomenon is composed of three separate sources, which are Active, Passive and Reconciling or Neutral. This law applies to everything in the universe and humanity, as well as all the structures and processes. The Three Centers in a human, which Gurdjieff said were the Intellectual Centre, the Emotional Centre and the Moving Centre, are an expression of the law of three. Gurdjieff taught his students to think of the law of three forces as essential to transforming the energy of the human being. The process of transformation requires the three actions of affirmation, denial and reconciliation.

How the Law of Seven and Law of Three function together is said to be illustrated on the Fourth Way Enneagram, a nine-pointed symbol which is the central glyph of Gurdjieff's system.

Use of symbols

In his explanations Gurdjieff often used different symbols such as the Enneagram and the Ray of Creation. Gurdjieff said that "the enneagram is a universal symbol. All knowledge can be included in the enneagram and with the help of the enneagram it can be interpreted ... A man may be quite alone in the desert and he can trace the enneagram in the sand and in it read the eternal laws of the universe. And every time he can learn something new, something he did not know before."[20] The ray of creation is a diagram which represents the Earth's place in the Universe. The diagram has eight levels, each corresponding to Gurdjieff's laws of octaves.

Through the elaboration of the law of octaves and the meaning of the enneagram, Gurdjieff offered his students alternative means of conceptualizing the world and their place in it.

Working conditions and sacred dances

To provide conditions in which attention could be exercised more intensively, Gurdjieff also taught his pupils "sacred dances" or "movements" which they performed together as a group, and he left a body of music inspired by what he heard in visits to remote monasteries and other places, which was written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas de Hartmann.

Gurdjieff laid emphasis on the idea that the seeker must conduct his or her own search. The teacher cannot do the student's work for the student, but is more of a guide on the path to self-discovery. As a teacher, Gurdjieff specialized in creating conditions for students - conditions in which growth was possible, in which efficient progress could be made by the willing. To find oneself in a set of conditions that a gifted teacher has arranged has another benefit. As Gurdjieff put it, "You must realize that each man has a definite repertoire of roles which he plays in ordinary circumstances ... but put him into even only slightly different circumstances and he is unable to find a suitable role and for a short time he becomes himself."

Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man

Having migrated for four years after escaping the Russian Revolution with dozens of followers and family members, Gurdjieff settled in France and established his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Château Le Prieuré at Fontainebleau-Avon in October 1922.[21] The institute was an esoteric school based on Gurdjieff's Fourth Way teaching. After nearly dying in a car crash in 1924, he recovered and closed down the Institute. He began writing All and Everything. From 1930, Gurdjieff made visits to North America where he resumed his teachings.

Ouspensky relates that in the early work with Gurdjieff in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, Gurdjieff forbade students from writing down or publishing anything connected with Gurdjieff and his ideas. Gurdjieff said that students of his methods would find themselves unable to transmit correctly what was said in the groups. Later, Gurdjieff relaxed this rule, accepting students who subsequently published accounts of their experiences in the Gurdjieff work.

After Gurdjieff

After Gurdjieff's death in 1949 a variety of groups around the world have attempted to continue The Gurdjieff Work. The Gurdjieff Foundation, was established in 1953 in New York City by Jeanne de Salzmann in cooperation with other direct pupils.[22] J. G. Bennett ran groups and also made contact with the Subud and Sufi schools to develop The Work in different directions. Maurice Nicoll, a Jungian psychologist, also ran his own groups based on Gurdjieff and Ouspensky's ideas. The French institute was headed for many years by Madam de Salzmann - a direct pupil of Gurdjieff. Under her leadership, the Gurdjieff Societies of London and New York were founded and developed.

There is debate regarding the ability to use Gurdjieff's ideas through groups. Some critics believe that none of Gurdjieff's students were able to raise themselves to his level of understanding. Proponents of the continued viability of Gurdjieff's system, and its study through the use of groups, however, point to Gurdjieff's insistence on the training of initiates in interpreting and disseminating the ideas that he expressed cryptically in Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson. This, combined with Gurdjieff's almost fanatical dedication to the completion of this text (Beelzebub's Tales), suggest that Gurdjieff himself intended his ideas to continue to be practiced and taught long after his death. Other proponents of continuing the Work are not concerned with external factors, but focus on the inner results achieved through a sincere practice of Gurdjieff's system.

In contrast, some former Gurdjieffians joined other movements,[23][24] and there are a number of offshoots, and syntheses incorporating elements of the Fourth Way, such as:

The Enneagram is often studied in contexts that do not include other elements of Fourth Way teaching.

Books

  • In Search of the Miraculous by P. D. Ouspensky, 1949 (numerous editions)
  • The Fourth Way by P. D. Ouspensky, 1957
  • Teachings of Gurdjieff: a Pupil's Journal by C. S. Nott, 1962
  • Our Life with Mr Gurdjieff by Thomas and Olga de Hartmann, definitive edition,1964, definitive [3rd] edition, 1992
  • The Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution by P. D. Ouspensky, 1978
  • The Harmonious Circle by James Webb, 1980
  • Gurdjieff: the Anatomy of a Myth by James Moore, 1991
  • Idiots in Paris by J.G. Bennett and Elizabeth Bennett, 1991
  • Gurdjieff and Orage: Brothers in Elysium, by Paul Beekman Taylor
  • Gurdjieff's America: Mediating the Miraculous by Paul Beekman Taylor, 2004
  • Gurdjieffian Confessions: a Self Rememberedby James Moore, 2005
  • G. I. Gurdjieff: a New Life by Paul Beekman Taylor, 2008
  • Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky by Maurice Nicoll (1952)
  • A Study of Gurdjieff's Teaching by Kenneth Walker (1957)
  • Teachings of Gurdjieff: A Pupil's Journal by C. S. Nott (1961)
  • The Unknowable Gurdjieff by Margaret Anderson (1962)
  • Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff by Thomas and Olga de Hartmann (1964)
  • Gurdjieff by Louis Pauwels (1964)
  • Boyhood with Gurdjieff by Fritz Peters (1964)
  • Gurdjieff Remembered by Fritz Peters (1965)
  • Undiscovered Country by Kathryn Hulme (1966)
  • Gurdjieff: A Very Great Enigma by J.G. Bennett (1969)
  • Views from the Real World gathered talks of G.I. Gurdjieff by his pupil Olga de Hartmann (1973)
  • Gurdjieff: Making a New World by J.G. Bennett (1973)
  • The Harmonious Circle: The Lives and Work of G. I. Gurdjieff, P. D. Ouspensky, and Their Followers by James Webb (1980)
  • Who Are You, Monsieur Gurdjieff? by René Zuber (1980)
  • Gurdjieff: An Approach to his Ideas by Michel Waldberg (1981)
  • The Gurdjieff Work by Kathleen Speeth (1988)
  • Gurdjieff: The anatomy of a Myth by James Moore (1991)
  • Eating The "I": An Account of The Fourth Way: The Way of Transformation in Ordinary Life by William Patrick Patterson (1992)
  • Struggle of the Magicians: Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship by William Patrick Patterson (1996)
  • Ladies of the Rope: Gurdjieff's Special Left Bank Women's Group by William Patrick Patterson (1999)
  • Taking with the Left Hand: Enneagram Craze, The Fellowship of Friends, and the Mouravieff Phenomenon by William Patrick Patterson (1998)
  • Gurdjieff: The Key Concepts by Sophia Wellbeloved (2003)
  • Gurdjieff: An Introduction To His Life and Ideas by John Shirley (2004)
  • Gurdjieff's America: Mediating the Miraculous by Paul Beekman Taylor (2004)
  • Gurdjieff Unveiled by Seymour Ginsburg (2005)
  • Gurdjieff: A Master in Life by Tcheslaw Tchekhovitch (2006)
  • G. I. Gurdjieff: A New Life by Paul Beekman Taylor (2008)
  • It's Up To Ourselves, A Mother, A Daughter and Gurdjieff, a Shared Memoir and Family Photoalbum by Jessmin and Dushka Howarth (2009)
  • Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study, by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (2009)
  • The Self and I: Identity and the question "Who am I" in the Gurdjieff Work by Dimitri Peretzi (2011)
  • The Gurdjieff Years 1929–1949: Recollections of Louise March by Annabeth McCorkle (2012)
  • Georgi Ivanovitch Gurdjieff — The Man, The Teaching, His Mission by William Patrick Patterson (2014)

Videos and DVDs

References

  1. Anthony Storr Feet of Clay, p. 26, Simon & Schuster, 1997 ISBN 978-0-684-83495-5
  2. P.D. Ouspensky (1949), In Search of the Miraculous, Chapter 15
  3. Meetings with Remarkable Men, translator's note
  4. Gurdjieff article in The Skeptic's dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll
  5. P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p.38.
  6. P. D. Ouspensky In Search of the Miraculous, p. 66, Harcourt Brace & Co., 1977 ISBN 0-15-644508-5
  7. Gurdjieff Heritage Society Book Excerpts
  8. Thomas de Hartmann: A Composer’s Life by John Mangan
  9. "In Search of the Miraculous" by P.D. Ouspensky p. 312
  10. In Search of The Miraculous (Chapter 10)
  11. [gurdjiefffourthway.org/pdf/source.pdf Sources of Gurjieff's Teachings]
  12. [1]
  13. Gurdjieff-internet
  14. Meetings with Three Tibetan Masters
  15. Idries Shah: The Way of the Sufi, Part 1, Notes and Bibliography, Note 35
  16. Omar Ali-Shah:The Rules or Secrets of the Naqshbandi Order. See also: Eleven Naqshbandi principles.
  17. "The Fourth Way" Bennett's last public lecture, available on CD from J. G. Bennet website).[2]
  18. G.I. Gurdjieff (1950). Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, pg 242
  19. Gurdjieff & the Further Reaches of Self-Observation, an article by Dennis Lewis
  20. A Lecture by G.I. Gurdjieff
  21. Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man
  22. The Gurdjieff Foundation
  23. Neo-Sufism: The Case of Idries Shah
  24. Gurdjieff and Bennett