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. 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 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.
A. H. Almaas
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.
In his works, Gurdjieff credits his teachings to a number of more or less mysterious sources: 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" [20].
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.
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Gurdjieff emphasized that awakening results from consistent, prolonged effort. Such efforts may be made as an act of will after one is already exhausted. 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. 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: Gurdjieff focused on two main cosmic laws, the Law of Three and the Law of Seven [ citation needed ].
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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. 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. 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.
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.
Fourth Way
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 After nearly dying in a car crash in , he recovered and closed down the Institute.
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He began writing All and Everything. From , 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's death in a variety of groups around the world have attempted to continue The Gurdjieff Work. 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.
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.
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Practical Methods taught in this course include: How and Why to Practice the Two Essential types of Meditation and why so many traditions teach just one type and not both.
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Exercises to Learn the Unique Structures of Your Energy Body and how this is essential to choosing spiritual practices which are beneficial to you instead of harmful. How to Perform Six of the Most Essential Spiritual Practices known by the European Rosicrucians to have the power to neutralize problems coming from other spiritual practices, or from our long term karmic patterns. Topics covered in this course include: Choosing your Spiritual Destiny: