Fourth Way

The Fourth Way is spiritual teacher George Gurdjieff's approach to human spiritual growth, developed by him over years of travel in the East (c. 1890 – 1912), and taught to followers in subsequent years. Gurdjieff's students often refer to the Fourth Way as "The Work" or "Work on oneself". The exact source of his teaching is unknown, but Gurdjieff indicated that the knowledge was known to man in the past and he had gathered it from attending various monasteries and from meetings with remarkable men. The term "Fourth Way" was used by his pupil P. D. Ouspensky in his book In Search of the Miraculous, which provides a detailed account of Gurdjieff's teaching as it was conveyed directly to him; and also in his own lectures and writings. After Ouspensky's death, his students published a book entitled The Fourth Way based on his lectures. According to Ouspensky, the three traditional schools, or ways, "are permanent forms which have survived throughout history mostly unchanged. Where schools of Fakirs, Monks and Yogis exist, they are barely distinguishable from religious schools. The fourth way differs in that "it is not a permanent way. It has no specific forms or institutions and comes and goes controlled by some particular laws of its own."

When this work is finished, that is to say, when the aim set before it has been accomplished, the fourth way disappears, that is, it disappears from the given place and in its given form and continues perhaps in another place in another form. Schools of the fourth way exist for the needs of the work which is being carried out in connection with the proposed undertaking. They never exist by themselves as schools for the purpose of education and instruction. The Fourth Way addresses the question of humanity's place in the Universe and the possibilities of inner development. It emphasises that people ordinarily live in a state referred to as a semi-hypnotic "waking sleep," while higher levels of consciousness are possible. The Fourth Way teaches how to develop and focus attention and energy in various ways, so as to help a person awake and to minimize daydreaming and absent-mindedness. This inner development in oneself is the beginning of a possible further process of change, whose aim is to transform man into "what he ought to be."