My understanding of the Gurdjieff’s thoughts-2

I first have to assert that the Fourth Way has nothing much in common with Nietzche’s Superman. The concept Superman, Michael’s comments read, “was a being who can bear recurrence in a meaningless world where god is dead; a meaningless ensemble of the most mechanical materiality of brute facts”. My assertion simply meant rather a comparison with the equivalent Western concepts. Gurdjieff proposed a philosophical paradigm upon which Ouspensky made efforts to methodically wake humankind up from the dream of ideal-types and to transform them into fulfilled Self conscious beings.

The Fourth Way is about various ways to increase and focus attention and energy on Self awareness, and to minimize daydreaming and absentmindedness. Inner development i.e. being resolved in Oneness will bring about further process of change, leading one into what Gurdjieff termed as the Sly Man.

The Fourth Way system of self-development is a compilation of the lectures and accompanied question and answer sequences of P. D. Ouspensky at London and New York, 1921-1946, published posthumously by his students in 1957.

The Forth Way consists of either different consciousness levels: the physical, emotional and intellectual, or all levels simultaneously; as called the "Fourth Way". As opposed to the three traditional ways that call for retirement from the world: those of the fakir, the monk, and the yogi, the Fourth Way holds a balanced development of human's growth to its heightened glory.

The Fourth Way mainly addresses the question of people's place in the Universe and their possibilities for transcending themselves into a higher state of consciousness. People normally lead their lives in a state referred to as "waking sleep", but higher levels of consciousness and various inner insights are possible. A transformed person, even in slavery, remains a master of a higher consciousness Order. We need to be aware then and search for the Reality and learn to separate the fine from the fake.

While Gurdjieff demonstrates his ideas through metaphor, parables or analogy, Ouspensky comes from a scientific background and approaches mysticism in a more rational and discursive way. However, their works represent a relentless attack on our complacent, half-waking state. Amalgamated with oriental philosophy, The Forth Way is an attempt to wipe away the illusions we live within every day of our lives. To be aware of what you're doing; requires you be observant of your behaviour from the outside in. When you don't remember yourself you are in mechanical or auto-pilot mode.

Most of us go through life asleep, and to be awakened, we need others to help keep reminding each other to 'wake up'! It is not possible though to transmit essential states of being to anyone. It should be yielded by the individual and through desires and inner experiences. 

It is only the individual who is able to define what kind of transmutation is needed and where to get it from. We have to bravely, sit at the steering wheel and re-define Knowledge for ourselves so as to make our way to the ultimate source. Working with a living teacher or master is of great help, but most of us cannot stay with that teacher all the time. It is helpful if followers meet often to remind themselves.

As Michael said, it is true that Ouspensky broke away from late Gurdjieff maintaining that (according to Michael’s comments) “we ought not to confine ourselves to formal systems”. Ouspensky set the task of bringing this ethos of Higher Knowledge or this First order of mind to a wider audience in an unadulterated form.

Most of Gurdjieff’s early philosophy corresponds to methods and means to self knowledge and is conspicuously non-dualistic because it is difficult to assume that the body of his work be lacking a mystical core after his level of search for truth in esoteric traditions.

Western philosophy from its antiquity has had dualistic features; invariably more in common with inherent logics of languages. Western thought has always been logocentric and the metaphysics had above all been regarded as the search for the ‘other’ nonmaterial truth. I have to clarify though that it is quite recent with the advent of post modern thinking that the legacy of the modernity and the nature of linguistics have come to critical revisions.

As the logos of meaning implies, all knowledge is merely idealistic. Thus there is no objective truth of reality. From a postmodernist angle, nothing, nothing at all, exists outside the epistemic apparatus and the logocentric thought. In ‘non dual advaita’, you don’t remain at the superficial locus level where truth is represented within the logics built into the language. Non-dualism can’t be explained in rational language because it is a model of experience. What it implies is that everything is part of one whole; there’s just One beingness. In dualistic philosophies, you get a whole variety of dichotomies. With non-dualism, everything is perceived as part and parcel of one substance of Consciousness.

In Advaita, the discriminative wisdom refers to the ability to see beyond the world of appearances and go to the ultimate cause, which is itself causeless. That is why most traditions of Sufism break away with sermon adhering with Silence as the source of wisdom. From Rumi’s perspective, life and all the various forms and events that have happened on the face of the earth, are all a part of this whole Oneness. Rumi’s poetry in the Mathnavi and the Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi actually is identical to Advaita; it’s a nondual teaching with a very strong emphasis on Love.

Rumi often uses the analogy of the mirror and polishing the surface of the mirror as a process of becoming transparent and awakened. The ability to master yourself will result in the better control of your body functions. One has to drop the “EGO" and open himself to the Reality. The more life goes on, the more you are just learning to trust life’s process. Do whatever is the raison d’être of your being alive. We need to trust life and love existence and by doing so, things will fall eventually into their place like jigsaw parts. Once we access your true Being, i.e. the great Stillness that lies beneath our true nature, we get looked after one way or another. The Stillness lies behind the psyche and the thoughts and feelings.

My understanding of the Gurdjieff’s thoughts-1

The original Fragments of Gurdjieff’s thoughts lie somewhere from Central Asia (near Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan where there has been unrests ever since, so probably nothing remains of it now) to India and Iran as well as from Caucasus to Turkey.

In the past, Gurdjieff’s ideas were known as "the non-dual Advaita philosophy and practic”. He created an extraordinary system of which separate fragments could be found elsewhere, but not connected and put together like they are in his wisdom. And certain things, particularly belonging to the psychological side, are elements alongside many other constituents. The whirling dervish practice known as Mukabele or the Turning ceremony of the Mevlevi order of Dervishes is a likewise technique requiring awareness of the great stillness that underlies all phenomena.

Peter D. Ouspensky (1878–1947) was a major contributor to Twentieth century ideas. He appreciated many of the key questions in philosophy, psychology and religion that have driven and informed us throughout the century. Born in Moscow and raised by an artistic and intellectual family, Ouspensky refused to follow conventional academic training.

He studied intensively with G. I. Gurdjieff between 1915 and 1918. Throughout the rest of his life, Ouspensky continued to promote Gurdjieff’s vision as the practical study of methods for developing Consciousness. He lived conspicuously in England after 1921, exerting considerable influence among writers, conducting his own study groups and publishing The New Model of the Universe in 1931. In 1940, as a leading exponent of Gurdjieff’s teaching, he moved to the United States with some of his London pupils and continued lecturing until his death in 1947, shortly after returning to England. Ouspensky was an important philosopher and at the same time Anti-Bolshevist Russia and a professional journalist.

The Armenian sage G. I. Gurdjieff established a most interesting spiritual tradition in the West; one which, although not connected with religious Sufism, contains a number of original elements. Gurdjieff's teachings are strongly practical, revolving around the development of Self-awareness, and a kind of control of the subtle bodies known as multiple I identities.  The Gurdjieffian path requires great discipline; so it is not surprising given its esoteric origins, it is only a path for a few. The Gurdjieff tradition could not possibly compare with any of the various “New Age" and Guru-groups.

Gurdjieff's teachings were based on the idea of developing self-Consciousness, of being "Awake” and aware in everything one does, rather than being  "Asleep" as is the case of most of humanity lifestyles.

For Gurdjieff humans are mortal, but immortality can be attained once one is merged with the Devine through Love. So he formulated an alternative perspective called "Fourth Way" or "Way of the Sly Man". 

If it is accepted that the Higher Self is immortal in any case, it could be supposed that what Gurdjieff was striving for was a sort of transmutation and eventual immortality of the personality, or at least something equivalent to Immortal Fetus of Taoist thought.

The Fourth Way refers to a concept used by Gurdjieff to combine what he saw as three established ways, or schools: that of the body, the emotions and the mind. The chief difference between the three traditional schools, or ways, and the fourth way is that; they are permanent forms which have survived throughout history mostly unchanged, and are based on mysticism as the substance of all religions. Thus the term "The Fourth Way" has also come to be used as a general descriptive term for the body of ideas and teachings which Gurdjieff brought to the west from his study of eastern esoteric schools.

It gives a lucid explanation of the practical side of Gurdjieff's teachings presented in the form of raw materials. Ouspensky's specific task was to put them together as a systematic whole. So The Fourth Way is concerned with a new way of living. It shows a way of inner development to be followed under the ordinary conditions of life. The Fourth Way or "Way of the Sly Man"(comparable to that of Nietzsche’s concept Super Human) is distinctive from the three traditional ways that call for emancipation. These esoteric Eastern traditions are those of the schools of yogi, monk or fakir which are barely distinguishable from religious conventions. The Fourth Way is a way of developing all the levels simultaneously, and is a guide for those who seek a true way of inner growth under conditions open to everyone today.

Learning to be awakened seems like an act of trying to hold a thousand different ideas in your mind at the same time. It seems to present an avalanche of separate ideas capable of differing interpretations. The central themes are identified as: Self-Remembering, Non-Identifying, Separation, External-Considering and the subtle practice of Transforming Negative Emotion. These are five of the most central ideas of the entire Work. The powerful ideas such as recognition of multiple I's and non-identification, can improve our understanding of ourselves if we engage in the necessary struggle against the smug impotence of our present state. You can then sort out all the rest of the seemingly vast array of things to observe or ponder, and see where they fall and where their place is relative to the central ideas and practices. This array of rare ideas of a high order, consist of ideas yet poetic and mystic by nature. It is always compelling to re-orient yourself by the light of the central ideas and practices.

LOVE is the ground as well as the goal of The Fourth Way. In order to become no one and yet someone in the highest sense of the term, one needs to return to the Self and having gone beyond name, colour and race, country, and even faith. In other words, it is the state of realizing the unity beyond all dualities, the one Formless reality beyond all formal distinctions.

Self-knowledge is necessary to learn about our own psychology. A new outlook is needed to think, and ways to observe for our Self growth. Interesting examples are for instance simply observing your thoughts for a day, contemplating on how one thought does lead to another and detecting where one thought does seem to arise from. When you are distracted, you may embark on a fact finding mission on how much of your surroundings are you aware of. When you become distracted, do you tap your feet or unconsciously move your fingers or hands? If you aim to observe yourself for one day, you will likely notice that your attention is swayed from one thing to another, and you have many unconscious habits and patterns of acting/reacting/or simply interacting.

Practicing self-observation (e.g. meditation or self-analysis, body awareness through yoga or tai-chi or other disciplines) is in itself a great achievement. According to Ouspensky, once we create a "permanent centre of gravity", in the sense that we focus on Knowledge, events will happen in our life (e.g. meeting particular people, going through particular circumstances) that facilitate our growth.