Introduction

This primer is written for persons who have some sense that there is more depth and potential to life and to our own nature than what we see around us. This material is for those who refuse to drown in the shallow values of our culture and society. The ideas presented herein have great power and have been around for centuries in many forms.

The reader will notice early on the relationship between this teaching and some of the great knowledge and wisdom of humanity handed down from the likes of Plato, Lao-Tzu, Mevlevin, Eckhart, and through the sayings of Christ and the teachings that are called esoteric. In this work, the term esoteric means inner rather than hidden or secret and concerns the spiritual life, the life of transformation.

Through long years of study and effort, I have received these ideas in the form of a Teaching. Like all systems of thought and methodologies, it has a special vocabulary so that practitioners can understand each other. I will be sharing words with you that have an immense density of meaning. This form of the Teaching comes from the genius of George Gurdjieff who at the turn of the century, in his great search for meaning, was able to gather practical and transforming insights from various spiritual traditions and synthesize them for the contemporary rational mind and way of life that we are required to follow in our day. He brought to the west a distillation of the esoteric teachings of humanity dealing with spiritual awakening that are applicable to the experience of every individual.

Gurdjieff called his teaching "Esoteric Christianity." He wanted to present a psychological methodology that could be applied in daily life without going to an ashram, without leaving your family or your job. He called it "The Fourth Way." He categorized esoteric teachings as the way of the monk, the way of the yogi, the way of the fakir—which deals with transcending the physical—and the fourth way which has to do with applying all of these techniques and insights internally and psychologically without removing yourself from the external life that you are living.

Though invisible and personalized, these methods have the same intensity and power as the other ways to enlightenment. These teachings come down through the ages, all of them having to do with spiritual awakening, all of them having in common the ultimate aims that we find in the teachings of Christ, of the Sufis, of Lao-Tzu, and in all the great hearts and minds of humanity. This particular teaching, the Fourth Way, uses daily life as the field of opportunity for the process of awakening.

Like every other Teaching, these ideas can become dogma and turn into their opposite very quickly. The ideas of the Teaching at the end of the twentieth century have a different quality than when they were presented in the early and middle part of our era. The holistic consciousness of this age brings a new context to these ideas: the appreciation of other cultures and teachings, the recognition of the unity inherent in physics and mystical insights are all part of the flowering of a new consciousness. Gurdjieff left statements that foresaw this development.

Everything in this inner Work is taught from the perspective of personal verification. Each individual must verify these ideas for himself or herself. However, the cosmological aspect of this teaching is not verifiable. It is useful for providing perspective or a sense of relativity. It can lead one into a moment of higher consciousness. But the essential part of this Work is the practical application of the ideas to one's own psychology since this Teaching is about self-transformation.

In its essence, this Work is the same as the wisdom of every authentic religion: how to become your true self and living out your purpose in life.

This Work leads only toward developing our inborn capacity for goodness. I will therefore not deal with other cosmological aspects of the teaching that may be familiar to students of the Fourth Way, such as the table of hydrogens or the Ray of Creation or the Law of Seven. It is important to note that this stream of Teaching that has come down through Gurdjieff has gotten stuck in the mud along the way. A coldness—even a lack of humanity—has developed among some of the exponents of the dogmatic version of the teaching. You will find this opinion confirmed in a number of fine books that have been published by former students who have moved into other teachings in order to make connections between different systems of thought. In my case, it was through the Christian mystics that I found another dimension to the ideas made available through Gurdjieff.

The Teaching known as the Fourth Way is for those of us who cannot go to live in an ashram or a monastery, and who seek meaning and higher states of consciousness while living in the world. It is specifically for penetrating into the simple aspects of our daily life. Gurdjieff called this work the way of the "sly man" (a misleading translation of le ruse in French which is less pejorative). This term does not refer to questionable ethical behavior or to a belief that the ends justify the means, but rather to the lucid awareness of an individual who perceives how to transform difficult circumstances into valuable opportunities for personal growth. Such a person knows how to use everything that happens to him/her in life as fuel for inner growth.

Imagine turning situations that are otherwise unpleasant and dead ends into material for inner joy and liberation. Carlos Castanedas spoke of the Indian priests who were made abject slaves by the conquistadors but retained their dignity and learned how to use the horror of that experience to strengthen themselves internally and as a result were not destroyed by their conquerors. The "sly man" is not caught in the madness of it all and can bring stressful situations to fruition for his higher aims by living them at a new level of consciousness.

The whole point of this Teaching is about one's own practical psychological (and ultimately spiritual) transformation. It isn't about anything external. It has nothing to do with changing our outer circumstances in life, but rather with changing our inner selves and therefore our relation to life's events. When an external method is turned into law—which happens in many Fourth Way schools—it loses all its purpose and meaning. The Church is an example of a Teaching becoming external and disconnected with the real purpose of its existence. All the dogma of the Church is only a reflection of the real experience of those who were transformed by the teaching. With the inquisition, the distortion of these ideas became a reason to torture people, thereby turning the teaching into its very opposite.

In some contemporary esoteric groups, one will often find the idea of personal effort transformed into a matter of heavy financial donations rather than of inner sacrifice. This phenomenon is also a sign of degeneration.

In my journey, I have found that the mystics' experience of the sacred was reflected in this Teaching's more psychological and scientific way of describing human transformation. Through such connections, I understood that Truth is found in the inherent unity of seemingly different spiritual teachings.

This primer will be confined to focusing on the practical, experiential inner work that can be done anytime and anyplace. I will be presenting ideas that are similar to those of purification and detachment, and yet you will find that they are not abstract, not counter to the ways and needs of your life. Rather, they may lead to the development of a new consciousness, a new perspective of yourself and of the meaning of life.

This is a powerful teaching. My purpose here is not to give you new intellectual concepts to place next to others, but to assist those who desire to embark on an inner path of psychological evolution that has practical, daily ramifications. It may begin with the mind, but it will move quickly into the heart, into your psychology and your whole way of life.