The Fourth Way - sometimes called the Way of Accelerated Completion - is unique. Unlike other ways of spirituality, which require living for long periods of time in a monastery or ashram and taking vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, the Fourth Way is followed in the midst of ordinary life.
The circumstances in which you are living when you meet the Work are the very ones you need for your development at that time, so you should not change them. As you evolve and develop, so your circumstances will change to suit your evolving needs.
Don't leave your job, or your spouse, or your home when you begin studying the Work. Eventually you may be led to make far-reaching changes in your way of life; then again, you may not. If you do, you will understand what it is you need, and what will help your spiritual development.
Relationships are vitally important in the Work, which encourages loving, considerate relations in your family, with your husband or wife, your friends and with those you meet in your everyday life.
Unlike Buddhism, the Work does not teach an ideal of non-attachment. Instead, it shows the student how spiritual evolution takes place in our relationships, and how we can evolve by becoming more sensitive, more intuitive, more compassionate towards others.
Of course, relationships are very important in any enclosed community, too. And undoubtedly those formed within monasteries and ashrams are based, ideally, on attentive consideration to others. But in the Fourth Way, we are to practice this type of relationship, which is called "external considering", towards everyone who crosses our path, and most of all within our families and in our friendships.
We don't take vows of poverty in the Work. Wealth is not to be a goal in itself, but a means to help others and to further the goals of the Work, if we are given the opportunity. We are advised in the Work that our goals are to be spiritual, based on our spiritual needs and those of other people, and not "life goals", such as getting rich, buying more and more goods, being admired, or grabbing a promotion. These events, should they occur, are to be used for our spiritual life, and not for feeding our worldly ambitions.
Neither do we take vows of obedience. We respect our teachers and value their instruction and example, but they are not seen as gurus or as possessing superpowers. We don't accept anything in the Work unless we can test it for ourselves, although to begin with we have to take some teaching on trust, to be verified later, when we are capable of doing so.
Unlike New Age or other self-help groups, the Work connects us directly with a higher level of Being, the circle of ascended saints, mystics and teachers whom collectively we call Conscious Humanity. They are headed by Jesus Christ, the supreme example of what a human being may become.
They ceaselessly work through the major religions on earth, and they seek to help everyone who sincerely asks for it. New Age groups and similar structures cut themselves off from help, however, because so many deny the existence of any Power greater than themselves, and claim that any ordinary human being can, without supernatural help, become enlightened. Such an attitude is based on arrogance, whereas for a spiritual seeker humility is an essential quality.
The Work tells us that to reach a level higher than life itself, we need help from an even higher level to get there.
The higher blends with the lower to actualize the middle.
That is what Gurdjieff taught, and he was referring to the need for help from a level far above that of ordinary life if we are to awaken.
The higher level - Conscious Humanity - reaches down to us, the lower level of ordinary human beings in life, and by means of special energies gives us the power to reach beyond our regular state. Our efforts attract the help we need. And the energies which we receive lift us beyond our own life level, to a level intermediate between the state we were formerly in, and that of the members of Conscious Humanity.
This lifting up must be repeated again and again, so our efforts need to be regular and unflagging.
But we cannot do it by ourselves; we cannot lift ourselves up by wishing it were so.
It is absolutely essential to attract the help we need from that higher level, and we must not make the mistake of thinking that the needed power lies within ourselves. That is just wishful thinking. Efforts must be made constantly, but alone they would not take us very far.
The Fourth Way teaches that life provides all the materials we need in order for our efforts to bear fruit. We have everything around us that we may use for our own development. We don't need special circumstances, although Work weekends and retreats can be very helpful in focusing and enhancing our efforts.
The energy we seek is to be found through the efforts we make, through our group efforts, and through our own teacher's ability to channel and conduct energies from a higher level.
To begin with, we absolutely must have a group and an authorized teacher, or we will be wasting our time, playing at spirituality instead of living it. Eventually, we will be able to work on ourselves and life will become our teacher, but even if we find ourselves without a group, as can happen, we still remain mystically linked to the chain of higher beings that leads all the way through the minor saints and unknown mystics all over the world up to the great saints, sheikhs, prophets and holy men and women who have evolved to be much closer to the Holy Sun Absolute.
Without that living chain, our efforts would be far less potent. We could, it is true, live out our lives by following a traditional, spiritual path in one of the major religions, as a Good Householder. But our evolution would be much slower and it would take us many lifetimes to achieve the higher state of Being we seek.
Fourth Way schools appear for a time, carry out their work secretly and in silence, and then disappear. But the efforts that students make whilst part of such a school can live on forever, and help the evolution of the entire universe.
The Work is certainly not for everyone, and the Fourth Way is not the only way to enlightenment. But it is certainly the quickest, and I remain eternally grateful that in this lifetime I was able to find and become part of such a school.
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