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King David from the cathedral of Chartres, a pyramid on his brows
King David from the cathedral of Chartres, a pyramid on his brows. c. 1206. In a letter to St Bernard, Peter the Venerable writes of cultivating, ‘that single eye which renders the whole body full of light.’
Copyright © 2008, Wayne Mott.
August 2008

The Fourth Way (I)

Schools of the fourth way have existed and exist, just as schools of the three traditional ways existed and exist. But they are much more difficult to detect, because—unlike the others—they cannot be recognised by any one practice, one method, one task, or one name.
Rodney Collin
 

A fourth way school offers the miraculous, a place where the ‘two worlds touch’, the physical and the metaphysical. In the physical realm, a fourth way school is one step away from the terrestrial, the preparation for being in an invisible realm, a temporary physical space while its metaphysical connection exists. This means that a fourth way school has certain characteristics. Rodney Collin wrote that a fourth way school ‘will exhibit the same processes and permit the same possibilities’ as the traditional ways of the fakir, the monk and the yogi, ‘but very much faster.’

 

While the traditional ways of the fakir, the monk and the yogi are well known, even culturally acknowledged, the fourth way is hidden and avoids representation. There are traces, for example, the Gnostic Christians, but this is a trace and not the activity of a living school. The archaeological sites of some gothic cathedrals are what remain of a school and their construction involved the creating of conscious souls. Perhaps the first worshippers of these cathedrals were also participants of the gothic school, and through the beauty of its structure, the esoteric stories of its windows, the ethereal yet powerful singing of its choir, they knew that the cathedral evoked higher centres. Since then, the initiatory power of the cathedral has faded even as its structure and ritual remains. This indicates that a fourth way school exists for the duration of its esoteric task.    

 

Awakening in a fourth way school is ‘very much faster’ because it demands more; one works for one’s self, for others and for the school, a three-fold involvement that becomes a way of life, an interweaving of opportunities and challenges for the development of being. In building a fourth way school, one is building one’s Self.

Quotations
Schools of the Fourth Way demand understanding before anything else.
Gurdjieff
In the Fourth Way there is no difficulty in the first step, all work is inner, there is no external giving up of things.
Ouspensky
In the Fourth Way, the more inner work is deepened the wider external work becomes, and the more external work widens, the deeper internal work becomes.
Rodney Collin
The Fourth Way removes symbols of identity and gives one identity itself.
Robert Burton
 
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