Chapter#02

Petersburg in 1915. The "fourth way." The "four bodies of man."
Almost Final Version

The main ideas in this chapter: (1)Very difficult time in Russia. (2)Gurdjieff making it difficult to have a meeting in Petersburg and why is that. (3)Reincarnation. (4) The struggle between Yes and No, and the meaning of sacrifice.
Sayings of Richard Liebow: "There's a window of opportunty. Try not to miss it! It may not come again - ever." Also ""Fear is when awareness is clouded." Objectives:(Celok)Make a change against a habit and observe the struggle if and when you fail is very important. That should be your shock!

Outline Points
Petersburg in 1915. G. in Petersburg. A talk about groups. Reference to "esoteric" work. "Prison" and "Escape from prison." What is necessary for this escape? Who can help and how? Beginning of meetings in Petersburg. A question of reincarnation and future life. How can immortality be attained? Struggle between "yes" and "no." Crystalization on a right, and on a wrong foundation. Necessity of sacrifice. Talks with G. and observations. A sale of carpets and talks about carpets. What G. said about himself. Question about ancient knowledge and why it is hidden. G's reply. Knowledge is not hidden. The materiality of knowledge and man's refusal of the knowledge given to him . A question on immortality. The "four bodies of man." Example of the retort filled with metalic powders. The way of the fakir, the way of the monk and the way of the yogi. The "fourth way." Do civilization and culture exist?

Notes:
Socrates(469-399 B.C.E.) From Internet Sources: In his use of critical reasoning, by his unwavering commitment to truth, and through the vivid example of his own life, fifth-century Athenian Socrates set the standard for all subsequent Western philosophy. Since he left no literary legacy of his own, we are dependent upon contemporary writers like Aristophanes and Xenophon for our information about his life and work. As a pupil of Archelaus during his youth, Socrates showed a great deal of interest in the scientific theories of Anaxagoras, but he later abandoned inquiries into the physical world for a dedicated investigation of the development of moral character. Having served with some distinction as a soldier at Delium and Amphipolis during the Peloponnesian War, Socrates dabbled in the political turmoil that consumed Athens after the War, then retired from active life to work as a stonemason and to raise his children with his wife, Xanthippe. After inheriting a modest fortune from his father, the sculptor Sophroniscus, Socrates used his marginal financial independence as an opportunity to give full-time attention to inventing the practice of philosophical dialogue.

Plato: Born in Athens in 427 BC. Died in Athens 347 BC. Symbol of the start of Western Systematic Philosophy. Student of Socrates -- until the death of Socrates in 399 B.C. Provider of the concept of Abstract Universals or Ideal Forms. Presenter, in his Republic, of the concept of a utopian intentional community. Serious student of mathematics and the ideas of Pythagorus. Traveled to Sicily to participate in a political experiment. Twenty years with his student Aristotle. Founder of an Academy -- which survived his death for several hundred years. Suggested that knowledge and learning may be a matter of remembering.

Aristotle (384-322 B.C) was born in Stagira in north Greece, the son of Nichomachus, the court physician to the Macedonian royal family. He was trained first in medicine, and then in 367 he was sent to Athens to study philosophy with Plato. He stayed at Plato's Academy until about 347 After leaving Athens, Aristotle spent some time traveling, and possibly studying biology, in Asia Minor (now Turkey) and its islands. He returned to Macedonia in 338 to tutor Alexander the Great; after Alexander conquered Athens, Aristotle returned to Athens and set up a school of his own, known as the Lyceum. After Alexander's death, Athens rebelled against Macedonian rule, and Aristotle's political situation became precarious. To avoid being put to death, he fled to the island of Euboea, where he died soon after.

Plotonius ( 204-270 C.E.) He wrote of being lifted out of his body on many occasions, Plotinus was born in Egypt, the exact location of which is unknown. In his mid-twenties Plotinus gravitated to Alexandria, where he attended the lectures of various philosophers, not finding satisfaction with any until he discovered the teacher Ammonius Saccas. He remained with Ammonius until 242, at which time he joined up with the Emperor Gordian on an expedition to Persia, for the purpose, it seems, of engaging the famed philosophers of that country in the pursuit of wisdom. The expedition never met its destination, for the Emperor was assassinated in Mesopotamia, and Plotinus returned to Rome to set up a school of philosophy. By this time, Plotinus had reached his fortieth year. He taught in Rome for twenty years before the arrival of Porphyry, who was destined to become his most famous pupil, as well as his biographer and editor. It was at this time that Plotinus, urged by Porphyry, began to collect his treatises into systematic form, and to compose new ones. These treatises were most likely composed from the material gathered from Plotinus' lectures and debates with his students. The students and attendants of Plotinus' lectures must have varied greatly in philosophical outlook and doctrine, for the Enneads are filled with refutations and corrections of the positions of Peripatetics, Stoics, Epicureans, Gnostics, and Astrologers. Although Plotinus appealed to Plato as the ultimate authority on all things philosophical, he was known to have criticized the master himself (cf. Ennead IV.8.1). We should not make the mistake of interpreting Plotinus as nothing more than a commentator on Plato, albeit a brilliant one. He was an original and profound thinker in his own right, who borrowed and re-worked all that he found useful from earlier thinkers, and even from his opponents, in order to construct the grand dialectical system presented (although in not quite systematic form) in his treatises. The great thinker died in solitude at Campania in 270 C.E. The Enneads are the complete treatises of Plotinus, edited by his student, Porphyry. Plotinus wrote these treatises in a crabbed and difficult Greek, and his failing eyesight rendered his penmanship oftentimes barely intelligible. We owe a great debt to Porphyry, for persisting in the patient and careful preservation of these writings. Porphyry divided the treatises of his master into six books of nine treatises each, sometimes arbitrarily dividing a longer work into several separate works in order to fulfill his numerical plan. The standard citation of the Enneads follows Porphyry's division into book, treatise, and chapter. Hence 'IV.8.1' refers to book (or Ennead) four, treatise eight, chapter one.
Metaphysics and Cosmology Plotinus is not a metaphysical thinker in the strict sense of the term. He is often referred to as a 'mystical' thinker, but even this designation fails to express the philosophical rigor of his thought. Jacques Derrida has remarked that the system of Plotinus represents the "closure of metaphysics" as well as the "transgression" of metaphysical thought itself (1973: p. 128 note). The cause for such a remark is that, in order to maintain the strict unity of his cosmology (which must be understood in the 'spiritual' or noetic sense, in addition to the traditional physical sense of 'cosmos') Plotinus emphasizes the displacement or deferral of presence, refusing to locate either the beginning (arkhe) or the end (telos) of existents at any determinate point in the 'chain of emanations' -- the One, the Intelligence, and the Soul -- that is the expression of his cosmological theory; for to predicate presence of his highest principle would imply, for Plotinus, that this principle is but another being among beings, even if it is superior to all beings by virtue of its status as their 'begetter'. Plotinus demands that the highest principle or existent be supremely self-sufficient, disinterested, impassive, etc. However, this highest principle must still, somehow, have a part in the generation of the Cosmos. It is this tension between Plotinus' somewhat religious demand that pure unity and self-presence be the highest form of existence in his cosmology, and the philosophical necessity of accounting for the multiplicity among existents, that animates and lends an excessive complexity and determined rigor to his thought. Since Being and Life itself, for Plotinus, is characterized by a dialectical return to origins, a process of overcoming the 'strictures' of multiplicity, a theory of the primacy of contemplation (theoria) over against any traditional theories of physically causal beginnings, like what is found in the Pre-Socratic thinkers, and especially in Aristotle's notion of the 'prime mover,' becomes necessary. Plotinus proceeds by setting himself in opposition to these earlier thinkers, and comes to align himself, more or less, with the thought of Plato. However, Plotinus employs allegory in his interpretation of Plato's Dialogues; and this leads him to a highly personal reading of the creation myth in the Timaeus (27c ff.), which serves to bolster his often excessively introspective philosophizing. Plotinus maintains that the power of the Demiurge ('craftsman' of the cosmos), in Plato's myth, is derived not from any inherent creative capacity, but rather from the power of contemplation, and the creative insight it provides (see Enneads IV.8.1-2; III.8.7-8). According to Plotinus, the Demiurge does not actually create anything; what he does is govern the purely passive nature of matter, which is pure passivity itself, by imposing a sensible form (an image of the intelligible forms contained as thoughts within the mind of the Demiurge) upon it. The form (eidos) which is the arkhe or generative or productive principle of all beings, establishes its presence in the physical or sensible realm not through any act, but by virtue of the expressive contemplation of the Demiurge, who is to be identified with the Intelligence or Mind (Nous) in Plotinus' system. Yet this Intelligence cannot be referred to as the primordial source of all existents (although it does hold the place, in Plotinus' cosmology, of first principle), for it, itself, subsists only insofar as it contemplates a prior -- this supreme prior is, according to Plotinus, the One, which is neither being nor essence, but the source, or rather, the possibility of all existence (see Ennead V.2.1). In this capacity, the One is not even a beginning, nor even an end, for it is simply the disinterested orientational 'stanchion' that permits all beings to recognize themselves as somehow other than a supreme 'I'. Indeed, for Plotinus, the Soul is the 'We' (Ennead I.1.7), that is, the separated yet communicable likeness (homoiotai) of existents to the Mind or Intelligence that contemplates the One. This highest level of contemplation -- the Intelligence contemplating the One -- gives birth to the forms (eide), which serve as the referential, contemplative basis of all further existents. The simultaneous inexhaustibility of the One as a generative power, coupled with its elusive and disinterested transcendence, makes the positing of any determinate source or point of origin of existence, in the context of Plotinus' thought, impossible. So the transgression of metaphysical thought, in Plotinus' system, owes its achievement to his grand concept of the One. The Six Enneads is a book whose title is sometimes abbreviated to The Enneads or Enneads, and was written by the Neo-Platonist Plotinus; it was edited and compiled by his last student Porphyry, in a short period c. 253 AD, after the death of Plotinus. Plotinus was a Platonic philosopher, being possibly a 12th to 14th generation student of the Greek philosopher Plato. ...

Question developed by Richard Liebow for Chapter Two.

Do you ever feel that you are trying to escape from some kind of a prison?
Do you have any wish to find yourself reincarnated into some kind of a new body when the body you presently occupy is all used up and worn out?
How do you feel about Gurdjieff the carpet seller, the businessman, the driver of hard bargains?
Do you have any illusions about knowledge being hidden?
Are you becoming more skillful at digging up ancient wisdom that may be buried and hidden in your own backyard?
Does the suggestion that your essence may dwell within a cluster of interpenetrating bodies have any appeal for you?
Does the illustration of the retort filled with metallic powders help you understand how the heat of friction and confrontation is necessary in order for you to crystallize for yourself a unified personality?
Which do you prefer: The way of the fakir, the way of the monk, the way of the yogi, or the way of the sly man?
Is humanity any better off today than it was 10,000 years ago?
Do you place much value on what comes to you easy without sacrifice and with very little effort?
How would you respond to a phone call announcing a surprise meeting of our group tomorrow at noon?
What does the word "esoteric" mean to you?
Any chance you might faint if you were to accidentally cut your finger?
Any sense of a struggle between yes and no in your thoughts and feelings?
Can you just sit still and wait like a bird on a wire?
Any chance that any of these ideas may stay with you the rest of your life?
Which one of your four bodies is most fully developed and guiding your on-going thoughts, feelings, actions, and behavior?
Which do you prefer: A weak yogi who knows what to do but has not the strength to do it--or a stupid saint who has the power to move mountains but does not know the difference between a mountain and a hill of beans?
How many rooms in the house of your being--and how many of them do you actually occupy and use meaningfully and effectively?
Do you really believe that knowledge can be weighed and measured?
Are you ever tempted to think that the grass may be greener on the other side of the fence?

Glossary:
forthnight=A fortnight is a unit of measurement of time equal to two weeks: that is 14 days, or literally 14 nights. The term is most commonly used in British English. It derives from the Old English feowertiene niht, meaning "fourteen nights".
groups=According to Gurdjieff a group is everything! One alone can't do anything, well maybe, but it's very rare.
The 4 bodies of man= The Basic Trinity of Man The most basic distinction we can make in regards to the make-up of man is that he consists of a personality, an individuality and a divine essence. The personality is the lower self, consisting of the physical body and the psychic soul. It has the genetics of its forefathers, the energy system to keep the physical body alive, and the psychological and psychic characteristics that define us as human. He has the abilities to express himself through thought, language, and other intellectual capacities. The personality is a unit of incarnation, it is all those bodies and all those characteristics you have taken on for this incarnation. As it belongs to the world of form, it is temporary. It was created to express yourself in this world on a temporary basis. When you die, the personality dissolves. The experiences you have gained during your lifetime are then being absorbed by your individuality. The individuality is the higher self. It is the unit of evolution. It does not die but remains the same throughout the many incarnations. It learns from all the experiences in those incarnations. While the personality often does not know why it incarnated, as with every birth memory of the past has been wiped out, the individuality has an overview of all incarnations, and of the meaning of everything that happens to the person. Eventually the personality will go back into the Divine. The divine essence is what man always has been, at this moment is, and always will be. Each living being is a part of the Divine. It is often compared with a star, or a light spark. Although it seems that each living being is a separate light spark in this universe of darkness, our divine essence links us all together, as in the Divine there is no distinction, only unity prevails. Our divine essence does not know duality, only unity. Our language is too limited to express the Divine, but we try it anyway and thus we say that the Divine, and our divine essence, is perfect, immortal, eternal, unchangeable, formless and so on. The individuality and personality are not perfect, mortal, temporal, subjected to change, have form and so on. The Bodies of Man There are several systems, doctrines, and philosophies that have their own classification and names for the different bodies of man. Aside from some minor details they all fit together in the following basic schematic. The physical body The astral body The mental body The spiritual body All these bodies belong to the world of creation, and thus are temporal. They have form and each has a specific function that allows man to express himself in the world.

The Physical Body The physical body allows man to express himself in the physical world. It is built out of cells, molecules and atoms, and it needs food to survive. It is the most crystallized of al bodies, and the most dense. The physical body is male or female, and this polarity plays an immense role in the life of man. The physical body is kept alive and structured by the ethereal body. The ethereal body is often seen as a separate body, but it is actually a template, a matrix for the physical body. The physical atoms, molecules and cells arrange themselves according to the structure of the ethereal body. The ethereal matrix looks like a web of energy lines, like light fibers which attract physical matter and arrange it into a physical body. You can say that the physical body is a duplicate of the ethereal body. Did you know that with children, when a piece of a finger got cut off, the entire finger will grow back again (for some reason this ability gets lost in later years). How do the cells know how to structure themselves in order to grow a new finger? It is because they follow the ethereal matrix along which they align themselves. In primitive animals, like salamanders, this ability remains for their entire live. They will grow a new limb, or tail, easily. The ethereal body is responsible for the pain of so-called phantom limbs. It has been a medical mystery for a long time, that when a limb has been amputated, the patient will feel pain in this limb that actually is not there anymore. The pain is often long lasting. In the light of the above we can explain this pain in phantom limbs. Although the physical limb has gone, the ethereal counterpart is still there. The surgical removal of that limb created an immense trauma on the body. In normal circumstances traumas settles themselves on muscles, creating muscle spasms which in turn creates pain. As the physical body by itself is inert, the trauma always happens on the level of the ethereal body, which will pass on the trauma to the physical body, mostly to the muscles. In the case of an amputated limb, the trauma is still in the ethereal counterpart of that limb, and thus pain is felt. It just does not have the ability to express itself on the physical level. People have successfully removed this �phantom� pain by methods of relaxation, hypnosis and energy work. Although the physical body can loose parts or can be deformed during the course of a lifetime, the ethereal body always remains the same. The only change that can happen to the ethereal body is constriction on the energy flow through its fibers (also called nadis). This will result in ailments and diseases in the physical body. When the nadis are �cleared�, or the constriction of them lifted, by energy healing of one kind or another, the physical ailments or diseases will disappear. The ethereal body absorbs the solar and lunar pranas (subtle energies) and transforms them into the necessary life energies for the physical body. They keep the physical body not only alive but also healthy. The ethereal body acts especially on the muscles, and with the ethereal body we experience time. The physical body, as it is composed of physical matter is by itself inert. It is through the ethereal body that we feel pain, suffering, hunger, thirst and other �physical� comforts or discomforts.
The Astral Body The astral body is the body that allows us the experience of emotions, lust, instincts, desires and so on. The astral body does not have organs, although it takes on a form similar to the physical body. It is composed of little astral particles which are in constant movement. The astral body takes up these astral particles from its astral environment and then �breathes� them out again. The astral can take any shape, but usually it takes the form of the physical body of the present or last incarnation as consciousness has gotten used to identifying itself with this form. It is called �astral� body because i t glitters like stars when observed clairvoyantly.
The Mental Body The mental body allows us the experience of thoughts, thinking, and rational processes. The intellect. It still has a form, but not necessarily a human form. Its form is abstract and geometrical, although it can take on an apparent physical form to make oneself recognizable on the lower levels of existence. The mental body cannot think by itself, as it does not have a consciousness by it own. It is more like an automatic body that stores information and transfers what it receives. The mental body is sometimes divided into two: The lower mental body: which is the seat of practical thinking The higher mental body, also called the causal body: which is the level of abstract thinking, and which contains the causes of everything that manifest in the lower bodies and worlds. It contains the knowledge of all past and present incarnations , and the roots of and possibilities of future incarnations. It is the gateway to universal knowledge and spiritual development. Although some authors make a distinction between the causal body and the spiritual body, there are probably one and the same.
.The Spiritual Body. The spiritual body allows us to experience the highest forms of human manifestation. We could call it a cosmic body and it is close to divine realm. It is not a real body as it is not subjected to form. On this level the ego ceases to exists. One is free of duality and its constructs. Here is the experience of oneness of everything that exists. The spiritual body knows all things, lives in utmost purity, and gathers true, divine knowledge. Its energy vivifies and nourishes all the other bodies of man.

Fourth Way The idea of the fourth way is strongly associated with Gurdjieff, who appears to have been the first to use this phrase. The bulk of his discussion of this idea is to be found in Ouspensky's record of his teaching in Russia, In Search of the Miraculous. In his own writings, the idea is implicit but never mentioned as such (this is similar to his teaching on the enneagram). In Russia, he referred to three traditional ways:
1. Way of the Fakir, involving effort in the body
2. Way of the Monk, involving devotion and concentration of feeling
3. Way of the Yogi, involving largely mental attention.
In the fourth way, effort is made in all three: body, feeling and mind. This is harmonious development, as in Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. To some degree, his series of movements or 'sacred gymnastics' epitomised this approach (in the learning of them rather than their performance). His inner exercises, insofar as these are reported, usually involved an act of mental concentration combined with physical effort; the feelings are also involved but spontaneously in the 'I am' state. ith the other ways, the fourth requires its own kind of social organisation. How this has been interpreted has varied from group to group. However, in contrast with the traditional ways, the fourth does not require separation from conditions of ordinary life. Indeed, Gurdjieff often indicated that these conditions were ideal, especially in times of turmoil, for the 'awakening' process that he so strongly advocated and which is integral to the effectiveness of the fourth way. At the same time, work with others of like mind is essential. Some of the reasons for this are: (a) Different types of people see the same thing differently and thus a group working together can get an all round understanding (this is only valid if the 'work group' contains enough diversity, which is often not the case). (b) Differences between people can lead to useful 'friction' providing energy for inner work. It should be noted here that the latter consideration has led to considerable indulgence in negativity amongst Gurdjieff groups, and it must be remembered that such friction, to be useful, must be entirely voluntarily entertained and intelligent. Gurdjieff also said: 'In the fourth way there are many teachers'. This belongs to the same requirement for diversity of vision. In the fourth way here should not be adherence to ritual, blind obedience or pursuit of a single idea, but understanding. The fourth way is also the way of the sly man. Of him, Gurdjieff said that if he needs to obtain an inner result, he simply 'takes a pill'. To obtain the same results the traditional ways would take days, weeks, months. The pill in question is probably not a psychotropic drug but a capsule of 'intentional suffering'. Why would the fourth way be introduced in this time and, is it something new? To answer the last question first, it is probably not; but, every time it is introduced it has to take a new expression. To a large extent, Idries Shah claimed that Sufism incorporated Gurdjieff's idea of the fourth way; but it is common to find explanations for the sources of Gurdjieff's ideas from whatever tradition one upholds. However, the Sufi idea of 'being in the world but not of it' strikes a resonance with the fourth way. To answer why it was introduced at this time is not easy. There are suggestions that, in this time of rapid transition and exceeding turmoil, new impulses need to enter humanity and these cannot be transmitted fast enough through the traditional ways. This is problematic. There are no clear cut indications from Gurdjieff about the relation between 'fourth way people' and the rest of humanity. At the same time, we assume that Gurdjieff being an intelligent man did not believe that his ideas were the sole source of fourth way initiative in the world. One of the models for Gurdjieff's own endeavour is provided by Arnold Toynbee's concept of 'creative groups' that withdraw and concentrate and then re-enter their civilisations with new ideas and impulses. The practice of the fourth way seems to require a special very adaptable know-how and cannot be followed by adherence to any set of standard procedures. Needless to say, the form of the fourth way has become ossified in many groups which have settled into a pattern of working together that has its roots in previous experience. But, if understanding is crucial to this way, then it must be creative and find ways of challenging itself. Understanding requires conditions of uncertainty, change, diversity and challenge. We believe that this understanding is not at all the same as seeking to understand what Mr Gurdjieff meant. In the literature, reference is made to the critical transformative step called the 'second conscious shock'. It is said that this must always and in every case be unique. This leads us to suppose that there is a whole class of approaches similar to the fourth way which exhibit various degrees of uniqueness and specificity. In this context, we need to develop our own way in every moment. The fourth way is associated with the term 'work', which had great appeal in terms of the Protestant ethic. This term refers to conscious efforts by an individual to change herself and also the whole 'enabling means' that makes this possible, sometimes called 'The Work'. The 'work' divides into three aspects: (1) work for oneself; (2) work for the group; (3) work for the greater whole (the 'world', the 'Work', even 'God'). These three should be in balance. This scheme leaves itself open to a variety of interpretations, of various degrees of spiritual orientation. For example, John Bennett came close to identifying The Work with God. In this respect, one might easily find intense resonances with Gnostic teachings. Bennett also gave rise to another scheme of the seven lines of work. Some of these were 'active' (effort) and others 'receptive'. Over the years since Gurdjieff's death there had been a tendency to bring in more passive lines of work such as is loosely called 'meditation'; but, perhaps more importantly, some began to suspect the critical importance of being able to learn, which is a receptive act. There was also one line neither active nor receptive, but 'reconciling'. In this line, it is the Work that manifests through us. Finally, what is the fourth way and/or the Work to achieve? In brief, to cease to be a slave of external and internal influences and be able to contribute consciously towards the working of the whole.

Additional Notes:

This is an article about the 'system' of G.I. Gurdjieff. For P.D. Ouspensky's book about on the subject, see Fourth Way (book). The Fourth Way has come to be used as a general descriptive term for the body of ideas and teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff, which are also sometimes called "The Work" or "The Gurdjieff Work". Contents [hide] 1 The Teachings 2 The Ways 2.1 The Fourth Way 2.2 Teaching Methods 2.3 Symbolism 2.4 Conditions 2.5 After Gurdjieff 3 See also 4 External links [edit] The Teachings When asked about the teaching he was setting forth, 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." However, as with so much of what Gurdjieff said, the critical reader should take notice that, even amongst his closest students (Bennett, for example), much of the Work appeared derived from Sufic (Nashqbandi in particular) thought, neoplatonism, hermeticism, and Tibetan Buddhism. This is not to take away from the remarkable process by which Gurdjieff amalgamated these teachings into a form at once coherent and cohesive unto itself. In other places, Gurdjieff himself alludes to receipt of teachings from a variety of sources. The teaching he brought centers on the struggle of working on oneself for the purpose of awakening consciousness. Gurdjieff taught that man has no soul. Rather, man must, while incarnate, create a soul whose substance could withstand the shock of death. Without a soul, Gurdjieff taught, man will "die like a dog." He taught that the ordinary waking consciousness of human beings was a form of sleep and that higher levels of consciousness were possible, namely subjective consciousness and objective consciousness. The development of these levels of consciousness corresponds with the development of the higher being-bodies (i.e. the astral, mental, and causal bodies). These could be developed within the physical body in which ordinary consciousness was found, if done under the supervision and guidance of a teacher. That is, under one who has himself been trained in the science and practice of the teaching. The Ways Gurdjieff sometimes referred to his methods as the "Fourth Way." The first three ways were the way of the fakir the way of the monk the way of the yogi The fakir struggles with the physical body, devoting himself to mastering incredibly difficult physical exercises and postures. The way of the monk represents the way of faith, the cultivation of emotional feelings. The yogi's approach is through knowledge and the mind. [edit] The Fourth Way Gurdjieff said of his Fourth Way that it simultaneously combined work on the body, emotions, and mind, and that it could be followed by ordinary people in everyday life, requiring no retirement into the desert. The Fourth Way did involve whole-hearted acceptance of certain conditions imposed by a teacher. The Way required supreme effort to devote oneself continuously to inner work, even though one's outward worldly roles might not change that much. In spite of his insistence that work without a teacher was impossible, Gurdjieff stressed each individual's responsibility: "The fourth way differs from the other ways in that the principal demand made upon a man is the demand for understanding. A man must do nothing that he does not understand, except as an experiment under the supervision and direction of his teacher. The more a man understands what he is doing, the greater will be the results of his efforts. This is a fundamental principle of the fourth way. The results of work are in proportion to the consciousness of the work. No "faith" is required on the fourth way; on the contrary, faith of any kind is opposed to the fourth way. On the fourth way a man must satisfy himself of the truth of what he is told. And until he is satisfied he must do nothing." By its very nature, the Fourth Way is not for everyone. Knowledge is not deliberately hidden, Gurdjieff would say, but most people simply are not interested. Gurdjieff referred to those capable of receiving the work as "five of twenty of twenty" - only twenty per cent of all people ever think seriously about higher realities. Of these, only twenty per cent ever decide to do anything about it. And of these, only five per cent ever actually get anywhere. By bringing together the way of the Fakir (Sufi tradition), the way of the Yogi (Hindu and Sikh traditions) and the way of the Monk (Christian and Buddhist traditions, amongst others) Gurdjieff clearly places the Fourth Way at a crossroads of differing beliefs. [edit] Teaching Methods Gurdjieff said that students of his methods would find themselves "unable to transmit correctly what is said in the groups. [Students] very soon begin to learn from their own personal experience how much effort, how much time, and how much explaining is necessary in order to grasp what is said in groups. It becomes clear to them that they are unable to give their friends a right idea of what they have learned themselves. " Ouspensky relates that in the early work with Gurdjieff in Moscow and St. Petersburg, it was strictly forbidden for students to write down, much less publish, anything at all connected with Gurdjieff and his ideas. Somewhat later, Gurdjieff relaxed this rule, accepting as students many who subsequently published accounts of their experiences in the work. A brief outsider's summary of what was involved in the work of Gurdjieff's groups: Relaxation. Many of Gurdjieff's exercises involved or began with some sort of gradual relaxation of the muscles, starting with the muscles of the face and working downward through the body. Along with relaxation goes a type of exercise for sensing the different parts of the body "from the inside." This might have involved, for instance, lying on one's back and concentrating all of one's awareness first on one's nose, then on one's right foot, and so on. Other Exercises; The Movements. Ouspensky relates a series of what he found to be "unbelievably difficult" physical/mental exercises that Gurdjieff had picked up in various esoteric schools during his travels. In general, these involved some precise and exact combination of counting, breathing, sensing of body parts, and movements, to be done in some coordinated sequence. The famous "movements," often done to music Gurdjieff had composed himself, were dances based on those Gurdjieff had observed and participated in, notably among sufis and dervishes, and in ancient hidden monasteries. Gurdjieff taught that the movements were not merely calisthenics, exercises in concentration, and displays of bodily coordination and aesthetic sensibility: on the contrary, in the movements was embedded real, concrete knowledge, passed from generation to generation of initiates - each posture and gesture representing some cosmic truth that the informed observer could read like a book. Division of Attention. Gurdjieff encouraged his students to cultivate the ability to divide their attention, that is, the ability to remain fully focussed on two or more things at the same time. One might, for instance, let half of one's attention dwell in one's little finger, while the other half is devoted to an intellectual discussion. In the division of attention, it is not a matter of going back and forth between one thing and another, but experiencing them both fully and simultaneously. Beyond the division of attention lies "remembering oneself" - a frame of mind, permanent in the hypothetical perfected person, fleeting and temporary in the rest of us, in which we see what is seen without ever losing sight of ourselves seeing. Ordinarily, when concentrating on something, we lose our sense of "I," although we may as it were passively react to the stimulus we are concentrating on. In self-remembering the "I" is not lost, and only when we maintain that sense of "I," according to Gurdjieff, are we really awake. Like mastery on a musical instrument, such forms of heightened self-awareness can be developed only with years of practice. Hands, Head, and Heart. With many variations and complications over the years, Gurdjieff's theoretical picture of the human organism boils down to a tripartite model consisting of three "centers": the moving, the emotional, and the thinking. Becoming a genuine person involves coordinating the three centers and becoming capable of conscious labor and intentional suffering. Abstract Symbolism. Gurdjieff was fond of elaborate theorizing - the construction of intricate symbolic systems embodying or representing the relationships between phenomena at all levels of existence from the atom to the universe. Ouspensky described Gurdjieff's concept of "octaves" - the musical scale do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do taken as a sort of universal yardstick for determining the measurements and proportions of all of nature's parts. [edit] Symbolism Another symbolic thought-form with which Gurdjieff worked was the enneagram, a circle with nine points around its circumference. Said Gurdjieff, "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." 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. Gurdjieff's ideas could be only partially expounded in ordinary words and sentences; to go beyond language he drew on music (he played several instruments and John G. Bennett tells of him improvising unearthly melodies on a small organ late at night), dance, and visual symbols such as the enneagram. [edit] Conditions 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 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." [edit] After Gurdjieff After Gurdjieff's death in 1949 a variety of groups around the world have continued, or attempted to continue, The Work. 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.

Chapter#02

Petersburg in 1915. The "fourth way." The "four bodies of man." Almost Final Version

Petersburg in 1915. The "fourth way." The "four bodies of man."
Almost Final Version