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TheFourth Way is spiritual teacherGeorge Gurdjieff's approach to human spiritual growth, developed by him over years of travel in theEast (c. 1890 – 1912), and taught to followers in subsequent years. Gurdjieff's students often refer to the Fourth Way as "The Work" or "Work on oneself". The exact source of his teaching is unknown, but Gurdjieff indicated that the knowledge was known to man in the past and he had gathered it from attending various monasteries and from meetings with remarkable men.[1]The term "Fourth Way" was used by his pupilP. D. Ouspensky in his bookIn Search of the Miraculous, which provides a detailed account of Gurdjieff's teaching as it was conveyed directly to him; and also in his own lectures and writings. After Ouspensky's death, his students published a book entitledThe Fourth Way based on his lectures. According to Ouspensky, the three traditional schools, or ways, "are permanent forms which have survived throughout history mostly unchanged. Where schools ofFakirs,Monks andYogis 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."[2]
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 and in its given form and continues 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.[3]
The Fourth Way addresses the question of humanity's place in the Universe and the possibilities of inner development. It emphasises that people ordinarily live in a state referred to as a semi-hypnotic "waking sleep," while higher levels of consciousness are possible.
The Fourth Way teaches how to develop and focus attention and energy in various ways, so as to help a person awake and to minimizedaydreaming andabsent-mindedness. 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."
Gurdjieff said, "The teaching whose theory is here being set out is completely self supporting and independent of other lines and has been completely unknown up to the present time."[4]
The Fourth Way teaches that the potential for developing the seed of asoul that a person is born with becomes stifled by personality and remains dormant, leaving one not really awake to oneself, despitebelieving that one is. A person can however wake up and sense the reality of their existence and live as a human being ought to be so as to develop a soul in the course of time - or alternatively remain asleep until their death. People are bornasleep, live insleep, and die insleep, only imagining that they are awake.[5] 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 asGurdjieff movements, which were performed together as a group.[6]
Ouspensky documented Gurdjieff as saying that "two or three thousand years ago there were yet other ways which no longer exist and the ways then 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."[7] 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."[8]
Gurdjieff's followers believed he was a spiritual master,[9] a human being who is fully awake orenlightened. He was also seen as anesotericist .[10] 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.[11]
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 byJeanne de Salzmann in cooperation with other direct pupils.[12]
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.[13]
The Fourth way was influenced byTibetan Buddhism, according to Jose Tirado,[14] andChatral Rinpoche alleged that Gurdjieff spent several years in a Buddhist monastery in theSwat valley.[15]
Gurdjieff classified plants as having one center, animals two and humans three. Centers refer to apparatuses within a being that dictate specific organic functions. There are three main centers in a man:intellectual,emotional andphysical, and two higher centers:higher emotional andhigher intellectual.
Body, Essence and Personality
Gurdjieff divided people's being intoEssence andPersonality.
Cosmic Laws
Gurdjieff focused on two main cosmic laws, theLaw of Three and theLaw of Seven[citation needed].
How theLaw of Seven andLaw of Three function together is said to be illustrated on theFourth Way Enneagram, a nine-pointed symbol which is the central glyph of Gurdjieff's system.
In his explanations Gurdjieff often used different symbols such as theEnneagram and theRay 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."[21] The Enneagram is often studied incontexts that do not include other elements of Fourth Way teaching.
Having migrated for four years after escaping theRussian 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.[22] 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 writingAll and Everything. From 1930, Gurdjieff made visits to North America where he resumed his teachings.
Ouspensky relates that in the early work with Gurdjieff inMoscow andSaint Petersburg, Gurdjieff initially forbade students from writing down or publishing anything connected with Gurdjieff and his ideas.[2] 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.[2]
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