the fourth way #7

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THE FOURTH WAY www.gurdjieff.es

ENG // English version

What is the relationship between

LaTeca Institute for Harmonious Development

Gurdjieff and Christianity?

Study notes

#07

Study and examination of the Sacred Texts

The Visit of the Three and the Destruction of Sodom EMeetings with remarkable women

Hildegard of Bingen II

Studies on the Fourth Way

WHY begin WORKING on yourself?

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THE FOURTH WAY Chairman Giovanni M. Quinti From an original idea by

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APUNTS - Barcelona Contributors to this edition Melinda Fazekas, Sonia and Luigi di Sante, Anna Di Giandomenico, Eva M. Franchi, José L. García Muedra, Giorgio C. Tagliafico, Giovanni Maria Quinti,

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The Fourth Way_Table of contents

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Table of Contents pag.3 e

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Being on the Way today

From a pupil’s diary / Melinda Fazekas

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The sense of searching and the need to find ourselves before we can find others…

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4 Study

Editorial Will I at least have the means to stop?

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Exploring the Fourth Way

Why begin working on yourself?

What are the reasons that can drive a person to start searching?

Why search? Can life have a “higher” sense?

Study

10 The Fourth Way in the Holy Scriptures

The Visit of the Three and the Destruction of Sodom

How many Higher Centres are there, and which are they?

Why, in esoteric Christianity, are they related to the Trinity?

pag.5 Study

pag.10

15 The Origins of the Fourth Way

Gurdjieff and original Christianity

René Zuber, one of G.’s pupils during the German occupation of Paris, explains some of his absolutely fascinating intuitions.

20 E-mails from the Quarta Via site The Gifted Parrot

The website www.quartavia.org publishes some e-mails to spread the teaching.

21 Meetings with remarkable women

Hildegard of Bingen. The soul is a symphony... 2 The story of saint Hildegard of Bingen, a woman ahead of her times (Part Two).

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Letters to the Founder Letters from searchers

Answers to questions from today’s searchers.

pag.15

24 ...a short tale

pag.21

About the Plan

A new look to go with the new use of this tool, why?…how?…

25 Introduction to the ideas of George I. Gurdjieff

The role of man in the evolution of the universe

Gurdjieff’s system illustrated using rare and unpublished material by J. G. Bennet.

Study

The indicated Articles have been read, studied and analyzed by the Study Groups La Teca, present in Italy and in Spain. If you wish to participate, send a request to: LA TECA - Gran Vía, 204 bis (local 4) - 08004 Barcelona or email to: info@gurdjieff.es We will send you as soon as possible the address and the hours of our Study Groups meetings.

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THE FOURTH WAY_From a pupil’s diary…

Being on the Way today

From a pupil’s diary…

by Melinda Fazekas

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In a glimpse of awareness, I saw that everything in my life that I considered mine, my personality and my way of being, did not belong to me. I had actually borrowed a lot from people and situations that had influenced me strongly ever since my earliest days, when I was so fragile and vulnerable to outside situations. You can imagine how I felt when I got this insight. My first question was:

“Who am I?”

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papa mama Fredy teachers master Mary reverend friends brothers

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It is no easy task to rid myself of the things that I have carried with me for so many years, which have put down roots within me. We can’t free ourselves overnight. It takes constant work and plenty of perseverance. It is difficult to overcome the negative things I have inside me, which use any strategy they can to take control of my life. Something changed within me after I realised that I was wasting my time with negative and pointless thoughts.

I was wasting my vital energy, and consequently, inevitably, day by day, my strength was waning. Instead of being, I was frittering it away, until certain events happened to me, and gave me the shock I needed to get out of that precarious situation. Events that I had initially seen as devastating were transformed into experiences that gave me the chance to see things from a different perspective: “every cloud has a silver lining”.

Something deep inside was telling me that I should stop expressing negative emotions, and I did. The thoughts that used to fill my head were slowly but surely fading away, and day by day I felt the quietness within me grow. This silence enabled me to solve certain conflicts with myself, because some thoughts remove you from the present and prevent you from living life as it should be. Now I feel my existence more intensely. I have learnt to accept things as they come, without struggling to try and change them, and this has helped me to avoid so much pointless suffering. I used to think that the reason for my suffering lay in others, but only I am responsible for my suffering, with my negative reactions to external stimuli. There are many things that keep me from feeling free, both inside and outside myself. One of these things is identification: when I identify, I do not exist. Just as a drop of water that falls into the sea ceases to exist, I too mix with all that surrounds me.

When I identify with something, two things are present: me, and the world around me.

THE END

THE FOURTH WAY_Editorial

Editorial Luigi and Sonia Di Sante

“Will I at least have the means to stop? No, I must go on. I have no right to wait and I no longer have the power to choose. If I do not act for myself, there is something in me or around me that acts without me; and that which acts without me generally acts against me. Peace is a defeat; action will tolerate delay no more than death does. So then, head, heart and arms, I must willingly give, or they will take them”.

Dear Friends, how often we have felt these words vibrate within us…

We frequently feel the tension of thoughts opposing actions, or decisions and behaviours that betray our best intentions. The great human incongruence between aspirations and reality! Our existence is cadenced by the rhythm of our often confused and wavering actions, which often end in a painful feeling of incompleteness. The great enigma of human nature is this extreme mixture of strength and weakness. And in the meanwhile, we act. It is nature, a pressing need that is not enough to quench our thirst for the knowledge and truth that would complete “Does human life have meaning or not, and does man have a destination?

I act, but without even knowing that it is action, without ever having our “raison d’être”. We experience anxiety wanted to live, without knowing exactly who I am, nor even if I am. because our action has not yet created This semblance of being that stirs within me, these light, fleeting the best work: the Divine. And what if actions of a shadow, I hear, bring with them a responsibility that man’s actions had a sacred significance? must be carried for eternity. Not even if I pay with my own Is it reasonable to believe that we draw blood can I buy the nothing that is no longer for me: and so the sense of the divine nearer to us through I shall be condemned to life, condemned to death, conscious action? We feel close to the idea that man can walk the path of action condemned to eternity! towards God, that his job is to seek his transcendental part, even though his nature always tends to divert him and How, and by what right, if I neither knew nor wanted it?

I shall set my conscience at rest. If there is something to cause him to forget the higher purpose see, I need to see it. Perhaps I shall learn whether this and himself. In the very moment we feel phantom that I am to myself, along with this universe that I we have reached God with a dart of carry in my gaze, with this knowledge and its magic, with the thought, He slips away, unless we hold strange dream of consciousness, has any solidity or not. I will onto Him, and seek Him with our actions. doubtless discover what is hidden in my acts, in my very Wherever we stop, He is not; wherever we deepest depths where, without me, despite me, I undergo this go forward, He is. Hence human action should be used in the direction of its being, and grasp onto it”. indispensable primordial element: in the courage to fight against that which leads us away from any possibility of nearness to the infinite, creating with our hearts the unity that is missing from our souls.

In our tender fragility, there is surely a new perspective, a greater strength, enabling us to enter totally into life without illusions and falsehoods. The true will of man is divine will. Confessing his fundamental passivity is the perfection of activity for man. To the man who recognises that God makes everything, God acknowledges that he has made everything; and it is true. Not taking possession of anything is the old way to obtain the infinite. He is everywhere we no longer belong. We would like to close with this reflection, thinking of Jesus’ words reminding us that in action without consciousness, in choices lacking full awareness, there is only sleep: “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’, ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one”. We cannot say both yes and no at the same time. Compromise only leads us away from our pure “reason for living”.

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THE FOURTH WAY_Exploring the Fourth Way System

WHY begin

WORKING

on yourself?

by Anna Di Giandomenico

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THE FOURTH WAY_Exploring the Fourth Way System

Study

WHY begin WORKING on yourself?

by Anna Di Giandomenico

A person who knows me inside out recently wrote to me: “You must be saddened above all because life is nostalgia, and there will be an end to your days... This is the only fruitful suffering”.

This invitation to get the reality of physical death into focus, to reflect on my current life, took my mind back to when, even as a child, I looked into the meaning of life. I would wonder:

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Did you know that Gurdjieff’s teaching was actually Esoteric Christianity?

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In your opinion, how important is the work group?

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“Surely our existence did not unfold like the ready-written script of a film, amongst the ordinary scenes of professional life, affections and leisure? Was there a goal to reach? How could I fulfil my being? What was the meaning of suffering?” (1) How should I spend the only life that I had been given wisely?

I had been given just one chance to play out my existence, a precious opportunity not to be squandered. My inability to content myself with this déjà vu drove me towards a ceaseless search, trying to discover the true meaning of life. I longed for my life to leave a mark, like the trail of light left by an aeroplane in the clear morning sky, or the lingering scent of rose oil…

How could I leave an indelible mark with my being? How could I avoid contenting myself with coming into this world, getting by, and then dying, leaving behind me no more than the odd flower, a few tears from those who loved me, with the prospect of being forgotten before too long?… I sensed the need to work on myself, to aspire to my transformation, to realise my authentic being. We can compare the work on ourselves to that of a miner digging through the rock in order to extract the valuable minerals. Such hard work to dig, getting rid of layer upon layer of plain old rock, until we reach the veins of gold that lie in the belly of the earth… By analogy we can understand the means and meaning of the work on ourselves. Each aspect of ourselves offers primary material for personal evolution. The negative part of me, my mechanical part, seeks to hinder or even prevent me from growing, evolving, undertaking this work. With the guidance of those who have already evolved – without any instruction it is impossible to effect any real change – and with the help of other companions on this journey, who have made the same decision to carry out this work, making a systematic effort to achieve another existence, I set out along a precise path.

Indeed, it is almost impossible to work alone, because the others are our ‘mirror’, helping us to focus on areas we need to change and providing us with further working material. (2) This brings to mind my recent first attempts at cross-country skiing in the mountains. First of all I had to learn to keep my balance on my skis, which ran along the track through the snow; I had to face up to the fear that assailed me as I started down each steep slope; I climbed up slopes that required skill in order to avoid sliding backwards; I learned to pick myself back up after every fall… This whole exercise required effort and concentration, but it enabled me to discover wonderful scenery and to learn something new.

The track that I am following in the work on myself concerns the self-same ability to make a constant and conscious effort, along with the determination to suffer voluntarily, so as not to back out of the effort required, not to stop at the difficulties created by the lazy part of me that resists all change, and by the manifestation of my many I’s.

I have learnt that each new piece of awareness of ourselves that we achieve is generated and accompanied by the pain of the thousand necessary deaths of the various I’s that moved me, which would not otherwise have left enough room for the fragile sapling of my essential part, which is developing.

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THE FOURTH WAY_Exploring the Fourth Way System

Study

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WHY begin WORKING on yourself?

by Anna Di Giandomenico

Think, for example, of the candle, where the wick burn s at the expense of the wax, which must be consumed… Without this sacrifice, the light of awareness and knowledge that leads to change could not shine. (3) 3_

Are you prepared to “spend” something of yourself in order to grow spiritually?

How many times during this work have I clearly recognised my nothingness, my wretchedness and weaknesses of every kind; I have experienced quite manifestly the inner struggles between my various I’s, as they alternated and fought with each other, losing any illusion that inside I am ‘one’, confident and coherent!

How many times have I fallen prey to my conflicting emotions, tied to opposition between my inner and outer situations that I was unable to handle, as I vainly struggled to reach conscious decisions regarding my everyday situations and the choices I needed to make. I found that even when I felt certain as to what the right choice was, just moments later I would be attracted by the opposite option, and then almost immediately by some completely different possibility!

The more I wanted to get out of the muddy quagmire of my inner tangles, the deeper I sank. But I always felt the help and benefit of my guide, who assisted me in my progress as I worked to form a centre within myself. If I do not root myself in that single centre, I am like a wheel rolling haphazardly, bumping here, there and everywhere.

The construction of this centre within me gives meaning to my actions and to my relations with people and things. Otherwise, it all evaporates and I no longer even understand what I am living for. A few months ago, after years of hard work, at a time when I felt I had lost the sense of the work itself and, above all, the sense of my life, I happened to read a passage that restored to me the deep meaning of my existence, my work, and even my pain: «There is in our life a certain very great purpose and we must all serve this Great Common Purpose – in this lies the whole sense and predestination of our lives. All people without exception are slaves of this ‘greatness».

G. I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, Arkana, pages 1226-1227.

And so I re-grasped in a completely new way that the great purpose to which all people are called is that of personal transformation, the realisation of the divine part of our being. Gurdjieff also writes: «Man – how mighty it sounds! The very name man means ‘the acme of creation’; but... how does his title fit contemporary man? At the same time, man should indeed be the acme of creation, since he is formed with and has within himself all the possibilities for acquiring all the data exactly similar to the data in the ACTUALIZER of EVERYTHING EXISTING in the Whole of the Universe. To possess the right to the name of ‘man’ one must be one. And to be such, one must first of all, with an indefatigable persistence… work on an all-round knowledge of oneself, at the same time struggling unceasingly with one’s subjective weaknesses».

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Before carrying on reading, try to answer these questions for yourself.

G. I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, Arkana, pages 1208-1209.

At this point some of you may be wondering, “where do I find the key to acquire a complete knowledge of myself, to achieve the fulfilment of my own existence?” (4)

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THE FOURTH WAY_Exploring the Fourth Way System

Study

WHY begin WORKING on yourself?

by Anna Di Giandomenico

Let us read an interesting Hassidic story, entitled “Here where one stands”, which may help us to find the answer: “To youngsters coming to him for the first time, Rabbi Bunam would tell the story of Rabbi Eisik, the son of Rabbi Jekel of Krakow. After many years of wretched poverty, which had not shaken his faith in God, he had a dream in which he was instructed to go to Prague and look for treasure under the bridge leading to the royal palace. After the third recurrence of this dream, Eisik set off on foot for Prague. However, the bridge was guarded day and night by sentries, and he did not have the courage to dig where he had been told. Still he returned to the bridge every morning, wandering up and down there until evening.

In the end the captain of the guards, who had noticed his coming and going, went up to him and asked him amicably if he had lost something, or was waiting for someone. Eisik told him about the dream that had brought him all that way from his home country. The captain burst out laughing.

‘And you, poor fellow, came all this way on foot to obey a dream? Ha, ha, ha! You won’t go far trusting in your dreams! If I obeyed my dreams I wouldn’t be here, I’d have set off on a journey too, all the way to Krakow to a Jew’s house, guy by the name of Eisik, son of Jekel, to look for treasure under his stove! Eisik, son of Jekel, I ask you! I can just see myself going and turning every house in the city upside down, since half the Jews there are called Eisik, and the other half Jekel!’ And he laughed again.

Eisik said goodbye, returned home, and dug up the treasure, which he used to build the synagogue known as ‘Reb Eisik, son of Reb Jekel’s School’.

‘Remember this story’ – added Rabbi Bunam – ‘and learn from the message it brings you: there is something that you can never find anywhere in the world, and yet there is a place where you can find it’.”(5) Translated from M. Buber, The Way of Man. Qiqajon, 1990, pages 57-58.

Here is an extract from Buber’s interesting comment on the story:

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Discuss the story you have just read.

What does it mean for each of you?

What intuitions does it suggest to you?

“There is something that can only be found in one place. It is a great treasure, which may be called the fulfilment of existence. The place where this treasure can be found is the place on which one stands. Most of us achieve only at rare moments a clear realization of the fact that they have never tasted the fulfilment of existence, that their life does not participate in true, fulfilled existence, that, as it were, it passes true existence by. We nevertheless feel the deficiency at every moment, and in some measure strive to find – somewhere – what we are seeking.

Somewhere, in some province of the world or of the mind, except where we stand, where we have been set – but it is there and nowhere else that the treasure can be found.

The environment which I feel to be the natural one, the situation which has been assigned to me as my fate, the things that happen to me day after day, the things that claim me day after day – these contain my essential task and such fulfilment of existence as is open to me. … . It is here, where we stand, that we should try to make shine the light of the hidden divine life.”

In the preface to this book, the author notes that “in order to grow and to achieve this true nature, man must first return to himself… – ‘go towards yourself’ – refind himself, reach his destiny, get back to the source…” In other words, man must make the path of his life, answering the question: “Where are you?” without any attempts at hiding or affirmations of impotence.

From this first essential step we need to realise that before each man lies a special path, his own…

Along the path, through resolve and faithfulness, it is possible for a man to unify his whole being, body and spirit. Man is a divided, contradictory and complicated being, but he can experience the miracle of unification by tuning his own will in

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THE FOURTH WAY_Exploring the Fourth Way System

Study

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WHY begin WORKING on yourself?

by Anna Di Giandomenico

with the divine force that lies deep within him. Only the unified man can fulfil the entire work, rather than patching up here and there…

And so, in order to perform the great work, we must begin with ourselves, walk the return path, and thus join others who realise that a real man can contribute to the transformation of the world only through his own transformation”. (6)

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Comment on what you have read.

M. Buber (1878-1965)

a German philosopher of Jewish origins, developed his philosophical analysis towards Hassidism (a school of thought within Judaism).

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What do you think you will do to set out on this path towards unity?

What choices might help you?

How can you begin?

Translated from E. Bianchi, “Preface”, in M. Buber, The Way of Man. Qiqajon, Comunità di Bose Magnano, 1990, pages 8-10.

In conclusion I would like to share with you a recent and intense experience, after I had tried cross-country skiing for the first time. It echoes certain passages given in this article, and expresses the heart of the work on ourselves.

“One Sunday afternoon, I went cross-country skiing for the first time, together with two more experienced friends. We were following a piste that ran along the side of a mountain, where we drank in the beauty of the breathtaking views. It was wonderful learning to keep my balance on my skis; overcoming the fear that assailed me when faced with steep slopes; climbing up slopes that required skill in order to avoid sliding backwards; getting up after each fall, persevering… The whole thing was an exercise in concentration and effort, but it brought me great pleasure: I was close to nature and I had the opportunity to learn something difficult.

Wonderful.

Then, still intoxicated by the thrill of it all, we took off our skis and sat on the snow to read some interesting pages on the importance of living in the present with our whole selves, which, in addition to enabling us to really savour life in all its expressions, prepares us for death.

Suddenly I was struck by the reality of death, not just a thought, but a deep awareness of this reality, which aroused in me a feeling of intense nostalgia for life, the trees, the snow, relationships, everything… Nostalgia for the bygone times that will never return, for the love we can no longer give… I was filled with a sharp and yet light pain: I tried not to run away from it, but rather to penetrate it, to allow it to flood into me, to feel it with all my being… My soul immediately ‘stood up’, aware of the frailness of all human reality, and of its preciousness… It turned towards the present moment, becoming more present to itself, and to God”.

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THE FOURTH WAY_ Study and examination of the Sacred Texts

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The Visit

of the Three and the Destruction of Sodom

by Giovanni M.Quinti

(Gen 18:1-8)

«The Lord appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby.

When he saw them he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground. He said, ‘If I have found favour in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by’.»

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THE FOURTH WAY_ Study and examination of the Sacred Texts

Study

Visit of the Three and the Destruction of Sodom The

by Giovanni M. Quinti

The entire eighteenth chapter of Genesis has always fascinated scholars and biblical experts, due to the fact that it appears to confirm the Christian theology of the “Trinity”. Abraham and his wife Sarah (mother of the kings) come into contact with God, seeing Him in the form of three separate people. It is interesting to note that, initially, Abraham speaks to the three of them in the singular (“If I have found favour in your eyes, my lord…” Gen 18:3) and then changes to the plural (“you may all wash your feet…” v. 4) for the rest of his monologue up to verse 9. From verse 10 the text changes again, so that it almost seems that there is just one speaker (when perhaps all three of them spoke with the voice of just one).

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What do you think about the Trinity?

What do you think it is?

In verse 16 the text returns to the plural, and in verse 17 it is made quite clear that these three individuals are the Lord (see also verses 21-22). This alternation of plural and singular is interesting because it highlights a “Trinitarian Theology”, found in other religions as well as in Christianity. In all religious traditions there are ternary systems, triads, corresponding to the Supreme Face of God. For example, the ancient Peruvians recognised the existence of a superior god (Illapa, Lightning) in three persons: the father, the first-born son and the younger son, who was lord of the fertilising rains and thus nourisher of mankind. (1) Ouspensky, too, refers to the idea of the “trinity”: “…in the Absolute, as well as in everything else, three forces are active… But since by its very nature everything in the Absolute constitutes one whole the three forces also constitute one whole… The idea of the unity of the three forces in the Absolute forms the basis of many ancient teachings – consubstantial and indivisible Trinity; Trimurt – Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, and so on…” (In Search of the Miraculous, pages 78-79)

As is clearly depicted by the inner triangle of the Enneagram which, arising from a single point and turning around on itself, forms all the other aspects of the symbol, the Scripture highlights that these “Three” are none other than the three divine principles, the three aspects of a single thing.

In Christianity, God is conceived as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Gurdjieff himself explains to us what is really meant by these three concepts, comparing them to man and his psychic structure (as should rightly happen on the Fourth Way). We have always emphasised the close relation between the higher centres (the part of us with which we need to get back in “communication”) and the “GOD” of the Scriptures, that “GOD” that speaks to man, that instructs him and guides him towards the full realisation of his “progeny”.

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What are the higher centres?

Can you describe some of your experiences of being in contact with them?

How, then, can we explain the “trinity” aspect of the Divine in our specific language? What form do the Father, Son and Holy Spirit take on for us?

Gurdjieff helps us out here when, in one of his meetings, he elucidates on the characteristics of these “higher centres”: (2) “In addition to those centers of which we have so far spoken there are two other centers in man, the ‘higher emotional’ and the ‘higher thinking’. These centers are in us; they are fully developed and are working all the time, but their work fails to reach our ordinary consciousness. The cause of this lies in the special properties of our so-called ‘clear consciousness’.”(In Search of the Miraculous, page

142)

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THE FOURTH WAY_ Study and examination of the Sacred Texts

Study

Visit of the Three and the Destruction of Sodom The

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Have you ever reflected on the fact that a school, as a conscious body, should stimulate and seek this “contact” with all possible and useful tools?

The subtitle of In Search of the Miraculous – “Fragments of an Unknown Teaching”– was taken from a book from the Gnostic Christian tradition, “Fragments of a Faith Forgotten” by G.R.S. Mead (published by Kessinger Publishing, 1996)

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Higher Creative

Higher Intellectual

E Higher Emotional

by Giovanni M. Quinti

One of the characteristics of Gurdjieff’s teaching method was that of not giving all the explanations necessary in order to understand the correspondences of what was being taught with the original Christian traditions. The scattered fragments, the symbolic similarities and hidden parallels with the gospels were there to help the reader work out this deep connection for himself. And thus, if the early Christian tradition (the “forgotten” or “unknown” one) is Gurdjieff’s source of inspiration, it is reasonable to think that he might have hidden some important information on the higher centres too.

Man does indeed have three higher centres: the higher thinking, the higher emotional and the higher creative. The last of these three is a combination of the higher instinctive and sexual centres which, in macrocosmic terms, are undifferentiated. The instinctive will of the Absolute is at the same time creative will. One important reason why Gurdjieff never spoke of this centre is that it is, on the whole, not directly accessible to human individuals. It is manifested almost exclusively through the higher emotional and thinking centres.

God says: “Let there be Light” and Light is made, which is the primordial Sound from which the Son is created and with that everything, it is the Higher Creative Center, the instinctive and Fertilizing Will. The Son is generated (the Logos) who is associated with the word (John 1:1), to show what is the Father (John 14:19), who then teaches to think about the Spirit (Lucas 21:37). It is a symbol of the Higher Intellectual Center (John 4:8). The Higher Emotional Center is the Holy Spirit that consoles us and is the levee pushing back against the wound (john 16:7). That Spirit that flows through the heart of he who is part of the “chosen group” (the Ekklesia) of the mechanical prison that reach the point of stating that Love is the Conscious Seal of his Presence (John 13:35). Schools have used various instruments providing real results that allow “contact” between the lower and higher centers. This contact is through the Higher Emotional Center, which is stimulated through specific exercises.

“These states can occur on the basis of religious emotions… But even these moments are so full of unusual shades and colors that there is nothing with which to compare them among the ordinary sensations of life. This is usually all that remains from so-called ‘mystical’ and ‘ecstatic’ experiences, which represent a temporary connection with a higher center.”(In Search of the Miraculous, page 195) (3)

The Old Testament reference to the principle of the Divine Trinity gives us a glimpse of how ancient the knowledge that leads to the consolidation of the single element and to self-development is. Abraham speaks to the Three, which means he knows God’s deepest and most intimate nature.

Now nothing is impossible. When a person is in contact with the higher centres, he is in a constant state of inner “fertilisation”, a river flows from his breast. (4)

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Read John 4:10, comparing and contrasting with what you have read here, and comment.

Sarah, “… well advanced in years… was past the age of childbearing” (Gen 18:11). The Essence, devoid of any richness, poor, blind, dumb and inhibited by personality, is fertilised by the higher centres. At this point, we discover that there is nothing “too hard for the Lord” (Gen. 18:14). And yet the work is not completely fulfilled: “When the men got up to leave, they looked down towards Sodom…” (Gen. 18:16).

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THE FOURTH WAY_ Study and examination of the Sacred Texts

Study

Visit of the Three and the Destruction of Sodom The

by Giovanni M. Quinti

Whilst on the one hand the higher centres fertilise and generate, on the other they refine and eradicate. The creative work generates a new state and what was there before must be taken away. Sodom is that kingdom founded on things temporary, that neither builds nor sanctifies (putting oneself aside for something more important). It is the empty mask that does not know the beauty of love. «… he is a machine, everything with him happens… such a person cannot stop the flow of his thoughts, he cannot control his imagination, his emotions, his attention. He lives in a subjective world of ‘I love’, ‘I do not love’, ‘I like, ‘I do not like’, ‘I want’, ‘I do not want’, that is, of what he thinks he likes, of what he thinks he does not like, of what he thinks he wants, of what he thinks he does not want…».

(In Search of the Miraculous, page 143 – bold type mine)

The kingdoms of our personalities constantly fight to have more “food” to help them carry out their work of overblown “defence” from the emotional wound that is a feature of all human individuals. In order to protect himself from seeing his inner emptiness, man develops a sense of “hedonism”; he flattens out in the exclusive search for outer gratification, forgetting about himself.

In this way he does not enjoy the world, he suffers it, turning it into his prison. Sodom became the city for the incessant pursuit of one’s impulses. One desire follows another, one chase follows another. The Sodomites (in our sense) are those who do not stop to think, the hysterical, obsessive seekers of having, of possessing. Their motto is: having just to avoid seeing (the inner void). Psychologically they are children, reaching out the chubby little hands of their desire and yelling “it’s MINE!” (5) In order to hold back this “separation” from themselves, to feel fuller, happier, they compensate for their non-being through having. We humans have many ways of carrying out these strategies, and the Enneagram tells us about them and sums them up in graphic form. A person of this kind forgets about God (failing to receive the angels sent by God), he does not speak with the higher centres, he stops being a man and becomes a machine made of reactions that respond to stimuli:

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Why do you think the Prophet Mohammed prayed to God by saying, “Let us see things as they are”?

What prevents us from truly “seeing”?

“Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them!” Gen 19:5 say the men of Sodom, who only follow their impulses. One day, God will send angels to check how much “stability” and “maturity” there is in a man.

This “developed essence” will leave the Sodom of our personality. A man will be “saved” depending on how he has treated his inner Lot.

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THE FOURTH WAY_ Study and examination of the Sacred Texts

Study

Visit of the Three and the Destruction of Sodom The

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Are you helping your inner Lot and his family prepare for the Great Escape?

· ·

by Giovanni M. Quinti

«… Abraham approached him and said: ‘Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing’ … The Lord said, ‘If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.’ Then Abraham spoke up again: ... ‘… what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?’ ‘If I find forty-five there,’ he said, ‘I will not destroy it.’ Once again he spoke to him: ‘… what if only thirty can be found there?’ He answered, ‘I will not do it if I find thirty there.’ Abraham said, ‘… what if only twenty can be found there?’ He answered, ‘For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.’ Then he said, ‘… What if only ten can be found there?’ He answered, ‘For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.’ ». (Gen 18: 22-33) May each of us find that we have at least “ten righteous ones” within us!

May we preserve them from the other murderous and mechanical I’s that seek to kill them!

Caged though it is by a lack of love, gagged by fear and by its jailer (personality), may our little essence survive until the Great Day, the great visit of the Lord that will take place at the end!

·

The visit of the Three who will reveal themselves clearly when everything stops making sense; when all land is burnt and cleared ready for new possibilities.

(6)

“[Abraham] looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah, towards all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace” (Gen. 19:28).

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THE FOURTH WAY _The Origins of the Fourth Way

GURDJIEFF

AND ORIGINAL CHRISTIANITY

by Giorgio C. Tagliafico We can consider Gurdjieff’s message, which seems complex and often difficult to understand, as suitable for those approaching it without a guide who has already personally experienced the process of escaping from the “prison” (which for G. is a symbolic representation of the “cage” of masks of “false personality”), relying solely on books and other texts on the subject.

Through the articles in these study notes, we will deal with the issues needed to make this message clearer, approaching it from a range of viewpoints, because once we grasp the key to understanding it we can find the same message in many traditions.

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THE FOURTH WAY _The Origins of the Fourth Way

Study

GURDJIEFF AND ORIGINAL CHRISTIANITY

Giorgio C. Tagliafico

To approach this topic, I would like to introduce some quotations from a little-known book in which Gurdjieff’s message is presented at its most profoundly essential. The book is: “Who are you, Monsieur Gurdjieff?” by René Zuber, one of G.’s pupils during the German occupation of Paris.

Zuber seems to have grasped the key to reading and understanding the esoteric message in the sacred texts of our tradition, such as the Old and New Testament, as well as those of other traditions, including some quite distant from our own. In René Zuber’s testimony, we read of how Gurdjieff spoke of these matters:

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Did you know that Gurdjieff’s teaching was actually Esoteric Christianity?

“Referring to the well-known commandment to love one’s neighbour as oneself, he asked who was able to do this? ‘The commandments exist as an ideal, but the knowledge that would enable us to keep them is lost. However, such knowledge constitutes the other half of Christianity, its esotericism. It has been preserved in certain schools. (1) Each one of you will be able to initiate himself into it while staying at the Institute which has been opened at the Prieuré, on the condition that you feel the need for it. Thus he spoke of Christianity only to people who already had some idea of its meaning. But labels, as we know, mattered little to him. Jew, Christian, Buddhist, Lamaist, Muslim... as soon as one gets to the heart of the matter, whatever the differing names, one comes upon the same truth.”

(Who are you, Monsieur Gurdjieff? - René Zuber, pages 36-37)

We also read in “In Search of the Miraculous: “You must understand, he said, that every real religion, that is one that has been created by learned people for a definite aim, consists of two parts. One part teaches what is to be done. This part becomes common knowledge, and in the course of time is distorted and departs from the original.

The other part teaches how to do what the first part teaches. This part is preserved in secret in special schools and with its help it is always possible to rectify what has been distorted in the first part or to restore what has been forgotten.

Without this second part there can be no knowledge of religion or in any case such knowledge would be incomplete and very subjective. This secret part exists in Christianity also, as well as in other religions, and it teaches how to carry out the precepts of Christ and what they really mean.” (In Search of the Miraculous, page 304)

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Exoteric religions try to give an answer to the “why”s.

“Hidden” religions try to answer the “how”s. Do you agree?

If you, like myself, have undergone the influence of exoteric (external) religion, feeling it to be like a heavy weight from which to free yourself as soon as possible, the association of Gurdjieff’s thinking and “method” with Christianity may at first seem rather forced. Especially if your path leads you to ideas that you thought you had dismissed for good as lies, or in any case as not complying with “your” view of reality. For example, the image of an anthropomorphic God, or the use of rituals and “mantras” that echo those of the religion as we all “un-know” it.

But let us return to a passage from René Zuber’s book, where he speaks of the new understanding: “As soon as the idea flashed across my mind, that the teaching was none other than a version of the Gospels in different language, I was overcome with great joy and at the same time a certain uneasiness. Why? To put it simply, let us say that I had a feeling of stepping into private territory. For Christianity was not born yesterday. It belongs by right to the saints and elders of the Church. Furthermore, although nowadays its precepts are universally doubted, it is clearly still the foundation of our institutions, codes and ethics and our thought is steeped in it. Could it really be that until now we had not recognized it in this unknown teaching?

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THE FOURTH WAY _The Origins of the Fourth Way

Study

GURDJIEFF AND ORIGINAL CHRISTIANITY

Giorgio C. Tagliafico

In order to recognize it in a form we had never seen before we would have had to have tasted its essence (which keeps its flavour throughout all changes of appearance). The essence of Christianity? Do not expect me to try to define what appears to be beyond definition. It would, however, be wrong to pretend to know nothing about it.” (pages 32-33)

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Again in “In Search of the Miraculous” we find this declaration by Gurdjieff himself:

What is Christianity to your mind? Have you stopped at the outer form? Or have you sounded the symbolic depths that the church does not teach?

“‘I do not know what you know about Christianity’, answered G., emphasizing this word. ‘It would be necessary to talk a great deal and to talk for a long time in order to make clear what you understand by this term. But for the benefit of those who know already, I will say that, if you like, this is esoteric Christianity. We will talk in due course about the meaning of these words.’” (In Search of the Miraculous page 102) (3)

This is precisely what we are trying to do here, or rather, if not to define, we are trying to come close to the feeling, starting from the intellectual centre that often serves as a “forerunner”. In the meantime we can observe that Gurdjieff himself was of Orthodox-Christian origins, and was born and grew up in contact with various traditions. His first masters were his father and a priest, so Christianity, and particularly the figure of the master Jesus and the Kabbalah of Jewish tradition, contributed to his preparation. Later there was certainly at least one Sufi master (holy man in the Muslim esoteric tradition).

For this reason whoever seeks to misappropriate the historic and cultural roots (as does the author going by the pen-name Rafael Lefort, in his book “The Teachers of Gurdjieff”) detaching them from the profoundly Christian roots, is committing a very grave error.

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Gurdjieff explains the Gospels

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Read the Gospel quotes at least three times each, and try to meditate on them with a clear heart and mind. Discuss them only at the end of your reading, indicating which passage made the biggest impression on you, and communicated something to you.

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There are many, many parallels between the Gospels and Gurdjieff’s words.

Indeed, Gurdjieff himself often makes explicit reference to them. I would now like to illustrate just some of the parallels between Ouspensky’s In Search of the Miraculous (except where otherwise indicated) and a number of verses from the Gospels. These similarities are innumerable.

Why don't you try for yourselves to find a few and send them in to us? (magazine@quartavia.org) They will certainly be published in a future issue.

For the moment we will list those that came to our minds, so as to allow everyone to identify their deeper meaning and their closest similarities. (4)

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THE FOURTH WAY _The Origins of the Fourth Way

Study

GURDJIEFF AND ORIGINAL CHRISTIANITY

Giorgio C. Tagliafico

Matthew 10:38 Anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.

Matthew 10:39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake

will find it.

“Sacrifice is necessary,” said G. “If nothing is sacrificed, nothing is obtained. And it is necessary to sacrifice something precious at the moment, to sacrifice for a long time and to sacrifice a great deal.” (In Search of the Miraculous, page 33) Matthew 5:37 Simply let your "Yes" be "Yes", and your "No", "No"; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

"Fusion, inner unity, is obtained by means of 'friction', by the struggle between 'yes' and 'no' in man." (page 32) Matthew 23:27 Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are

like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.

Matthew 23:28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

“On the most prevalent occasions a man is identified with what others think about him, how they treat him, what attitude they show towards him. He always thinks that people do not value him enough, are not sufficiently polite and courteous. All this torments him, makes him think and suspect and lose an immense amount of energy on guesswork, on suppositions, develops in him a distrustful and hostile attitude towards people. How somebody looked at him, what somebody thought of him, what somebody said of him, all this acquires for him an immense significance.” (page 151) Matthew 7:1 Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

Matthew 7:2 For in the same way you judge others, and with the measure you use, it

will be measured to you.

Matthew 7:3 Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no

attention to the plank in your own eye?

Matthew 7:4 How can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye,"

when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?

Matthew 7:5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

"External considering… is adaptation towards people, to their understanding, to their requirements. By considering externally, a man does that which makes life easy for other people and for himself… if a man really remembers himself, he understands that another man is a machine just as he is himself. And then he will enter into his position, he will put himself in his place, and he will be really able to understand and feel what another man thinks and feels. If he can do this his work becomes easier for him… Right external considering is very important in the work." (page 153) Luke 21:34 Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down…

Luke 21:36 Be always on the watch, and pray…

"There is nothing new in the idea of sleep. People have been told almost since the creation of the world that they are asleep and that they must awaken. How many times is this said in the Gospels, for instance? 'Awake', 'watch', 'sleep not'. Christ's disciples even slept when he was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane for the last time. It is all there. But do men understand it? Men take it simply as a form of speech, as an expression, as a metaphor… I tell you seriously that I have been asked several times why nothing is said about sleep in the Gospels. Although it is there, spoken of on almost every page. This simply shows that people read the Gospels in sleep." (page 144)

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THE FOURTH WAY _The Origins of the Fourth Way

Study

GURDJIEFF AND ORIGINAL CHRISTIANITY

Giorgio C. Tagliafico

John 3:3 In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, unless a man is born again, he cannot

see the kingdom of God".

"To awake, to die, to be born, these are three successive stages. If you study the Gospels attentively, you will see that references are often made to the possibility of being born, several references are made to the necessity of 'dying', and there are very many references to the necessity of 'awakening' - 'watch, for ye know not the day and hour‌' ‌ We have already spoken enough about the meaning of being 'born'. This relates to the beginning of a new growth of essence, the beginning of the formation of individuality, the beginning of the appearance of one indivisible I." (In Search of the Miraculous page 241-242) Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

"The idea of centre of gravity can be interpreted in many different ways. It is a more or less permanent aim and the realization of the relative importance of things in connection with this aim. This means that certain interests become more important than anything else - one acquires a permanent direction, one does not go one day in one direction and another day in another; one goes in one direction and one knows the direction. The stronger your centre of gravity, the more you are free from accident." (page 98 - The Fourth Way) Luke 9:60 Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God".

"Moreover, it happens fairly often that essence dies in a man while his personality and his body are still alive. A considerable percentage of the people we meet in the streets of a great town are people who are empty inside, that is, the are actually already dead. It is fortunate for us that we do not see and do not know it. If we knew what a number of people are actually dead and what a number of these dead people govern our lives, we should go mad with horror."

(In Search of the Miraculous page 164) Matthew 21:33 "Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard.

He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey.

Matthew 21:34 When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.

Matthew 21:35 The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.

Matthew 21:36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way.

Matthew 21:37 Last of all, he sent his son to them. "They will respect my son," he said.

Matthew 21:38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, "This is the heir.

Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance".

Matthew 21:39 So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

Matthew 21:40 Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?"

Matthew 21:41 "He will bring those wretches to a wretched end," they replied, "and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time."

"‌ man is compared to a house in which there is a multitude of servants but no master and no steward. The servants have all forgotten their duties; no one wants to do what he ought; everyone tries to be the master, if only for a moment; and, in this kind of disorder, the house is threatened with grave danger. The only chance of salvation is for a group of the more sensible servants to meet together and elect a temporary steward, that is, a deputy steward. This deputy steward can then put the other servants in their places, and make each do his own work: the cook in the kitchen, the coachman in the stables, the gardener in the garden, and so on. In this way the 'house' can be got ready for the arrival of the real steward who will, in his turn, prepare it for the arrival of the master." (page 60)

THE FOURTH WAY_The Gifted Parrot

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E-mails from the Quarta Via site La página web www.gurdjieff.es (Órgano Oficial de la Asociación Cultural La Teca) enviaba semanalmente un correo electrónico para informar y divulgar la enseñanza. Muchos nos habéis pedido poder releer los mensajes enviados durante el año pasado. Ésta es la ocasión para hacerlo. Cada mes insertaremos uno de aquellos mensajes, escogido entre los que nos parecen de especial interés.

The Gifted Parrot

Dear friends, for your meditation this week we bring you an ancient story from over 800 years ago, combining allegorical meanings in a simple tale “for children”

The staff at gurdjieff.es

A merchant had a very gifted parrot. One day, he decided to go to India. He asked everybody what kind of present they wished him to bring them when he came back from his journey. When he asked the question to the parrot, it answered: “There are many parrots in India. Go and visit them for me. Tell them about my situation and this cage. Tell them: ‘My parrot thinks about you and he is so homesick. He sends you his greetings. Is it right that he is a prisoner while you fly amid gardens of roses? He asks you to think about him while you fly joyfully among the flowers’.”

When he arrived to India, the merchant went to a place where some parrots lived. But as he gave them his parrot’s greetings one of the birds felt to the floor dead. The merchant was very surprised and said: “That’s very strange. I caused the death of a parrot. I shouldn’t have given them the message.”

Then, when he had made his last purchase he came back home, his heart full of joy. He gave the presents he had promised to his servants and to his wives. The parrot asked him: “Tell me what you have seen so that I can be happy!”

When he heard these words the merchant began to moan and to say how sorry he was. “Tell me what happened,” the parrot insisted. “Why are you so sad?”

The merchant answered: “When I gave your message to your friends, one of them fell to the floor dead. That’s why I am so sad”.

At that very moment, the merchant’s parrot dropped dead. The merchant cried with grief: “Oh my parrot with your fine tongue! Oh my friend! Whatever has happened? You were such a bird not even Solomon knew one like you! I have lost my treasure!”

After much crying, the merchant opened the cage and threw the parrot out of the window. Suddenly, the parrot begun to fly and crouched down on the branch of a tree. The merchant was very astonished, and asked: “Tell me what’s going on!”

The parrot answered: “The parrot you saw in India showed me how to get out of my prison. Through his example, he gave me advice. He was telling me: “You are in prison because you talk. So pretend to be dead.

Goodbye my master. I am leaving now. One day you will reach your Fatherland too”.

The merchant said: “May God welcome you! You have guided me too.

This adventure is enough for me because my spirit and my soul have taken part in these events.”

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THE FOURTH WAY_Meetings with remarkable women_2

HILDEGARDA OF BINGEN

The soul is a symphony Eva M. Franchi

When we reach our destination, the path we took to get there loses its importance. We were surprised by the testimony of the life of this Benedictine nun. We found her to be very modern, and remarkably in tune with the teachings of the great masters of all traditions.

And so we decided to bring you the story of this artist who lived at a time when, for the most part, a convent was the only place where a woman could express her art…

Summary of previous issue Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine nun who lived in 12th century Germany, is considered a forerunner of natural medicine. She loved nature, and had a joyful and radiant view of things divine, far from the custom of mortifying the flesh, which was very common in her day. She was also a musician, cosmologist, artist, politician, philosopher, poet and prophetess. Her prophetic powers and her ability to connect with the divine initially led her to withdraw into herself, as she felt misunderstood by the world at large. At around 40 years of age, she heard an inner voice that convinced her to open up to the world and put her visions in writing. She suffered greatly when her beloved fellow nun and close friend Richardis left the convent in Rupertsberg to become abbess of another convent. She did all she could to persuade her friend to withdraw from her new position, but to no avail.

Second and final part Richardis accepted the new position as abbess, and left the Rupertsberg convent that Hildegard had just recently founded, and which had cost her great effort and determination in the face of considerable opposition. Hildegard confessed that “each time I have loved someone or something that was not divine, I have experienced grief and pain, just as the same is true of all those who, like me, have felt deep love for a human being in their heart and soul”. After a year, Richardis changed her mind about leaving Hildegard, and asked to return. Unfortunately, however, she was prevented from doing so by a fatal disease.

“God loved her more… I tear the pain from my heart.” This was Hildegard’s comment on the premature death of her beloved friend. Hildegard was also a masterly herbalist, and author of the most comprehensive manual of herbal medicine of her day in Germany. This aspect of her character has brought her back into favour in recent years, with the rising popularity of natural medicine.

However, limiting Hildegard’s renown to herbal medicine would mean failing to do her justice. She was a truly multi-faceted woman. She was an active witness to the events of her time, and many came to her seeking advice and pearls of wisdom, both simple folk and powerful men, including a number of successive Popes during her eighty-one-year life, and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Hildegard had no qualms about freely giving out advice, and did not hesitate to rebuke the powerful for their abuses of power and any actions rooted in vanity and the lust for earthly power rather than the desire to serve God’s will. She was very critical of the lax morals of her church, about which she wrote in a letter to Emperor Conrad III “…In truth, worse times will follow, in which the truly faithful shall be scourged and the Catholic throne shall be shaken by sin: thus the latter days shall be blasphemous, like a corpse in death. This pain shall be like smoke that blackens the Lord’s vineyard...”

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THE FOURTH WAY_Meetings with remarkable women_2

Hildegarda of Bingen: The soul is a symphony

jlgm

Whilst Hildegard’s eyes were wide open to see all the incongruences and hypocrisy that stained the Catholic church, she always remained faithful.

Probably, in her unitary vision of God, she could see no good in any movement that tended to create separation. In a period of antipopes, when religious movements such as Catharism were beginning to gain a strong hold amongst the people and to be viewed favourably at the courts of many nobles, Hildegard felt it her duty to take steps to try to strengthen the foundations of the Catholic church.

Sick and elderly, she began to travel around Germany preaching to both the people and the clergy, criticising the latter for leading the former away from true faith by their poor example.

Deeply concerned by the Cathar “heresy” that was spreading by the day, and unable to accept its clearly dualistic ideas that saw the spiritual world as absolutely “good” and the material world as absolutely “evil”, Hildegard sided openly against the Cathars, but beseeched the authorities that they should be “driven out but not killed”.

Unfortunately her pleas fell upon deaf ears, and some half century after Hildegard’s death, the Catholic Church stained itself with one of the vilest episodes in its shameful history, the extermination of the Cathars and the founding of the “Holy Inquisition”.

Hildegard was also a mystic, blessed with visions rich in imagery and symbolic meaning; one of her visions, a man at the centre of the world, was taken up four centuries later by Leonardo Da Vinci.

But in order to get closer to Hildegard’s intimate side, we need to remember that she was above all a musician. Amongst all the arts, she considered music to be the one that most closely reflected the manifestation of God. She defined the soul as a symphony and, indeed, she composed over seventy symphonies during her lifetime.

When people asked her where her thoughts and visions came from, she would reply: “The words that I write do not come from me, but from my visions. Man is both a heavenly and an earthly being: through the knowledge of goodness and of the rational soul, he is divine, through the knowledge of evil he is impoverished and darkened.

The more he loves God, the more he knows himself.

Man sees his face as in a mirror, he sees it as darkened and obscured by dust, he tries to clean it and to make it shine again, realising that he has sinned and defiled himself… I myself am always weighed down by fear, and am well aware that I have no ability of my own, but then I raise my hands towards God and let them go as if they were weightless feathers entrusted to the wind, and I let Him uphold me.”

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THE FOURTH WAY _Letters to the Founder

Letters to the Founder

// Giovanni M. Quinti answers

Send your question(s) to: informazioni@quartavia.org

Dear Giovanni, last night I dreamt of you and I wanted to tell you about my dream. There is a meeting. It is like a party and it takes place at your house. You have a big house with a big garden. Everything takes place in front of the house.

Lots of people come. I see about ten of them standing in a circle and chatting. I can see you some 15 metres away, because I am sitting next to other people, and on my left is F. He is watching some girls, and I feel a bit jealous, but it’s no big deal. Above all, I feel happy because we are sitting together, F and I, joking around, which I take as a sign that the disappointment at him leaving me has faded. I get up and walk away. After a while, I notice that you are speaking with some people. You are sitting around a big round table. I am watching from behind you. I am surprised to notice that both my brother, E, and my mother are there. E is smiling. He fixes his hair with his left hand and he looks happy. Mum on the other hand looks at me feigning surprise that hides a smile. After a while, something happens that makes everybody agitated. Your mum feels unwell and she goes into the house. You give me the task of giving her the pills: eight pills. You go into the house, I don’t understand what’s happening, and nobody can go in, so I can’t give the pills to your mother. When you come out, I point this out, and you tell me that the pills have already been given to her. I don’t understand, I’m confused, I want to tell you that that’s impossible, because I was supposed to give them to her and I didn’t manage it. You reassure me and I move away. There’s still a group of people chatting, and a lot of people have gone away.

Apparently some people have got stuck in snow on their way home. I can hear that M is on the phone with the person next to me, asking for a Swiss phone number. I wonder if he’s got stuck in the snow too, or if

he’s had some other kind of problem. Who knows if maybe I’ve got the number he needs? The call ends, and M calls someone else from the group to ask for the same number. I go back to the large space in front of your house. You come out, and there’s no one else left. I try to tell you that I haven’t been able to give your mother her pills, I want to ask whether everything is alright. You come ever closer, and I begin to feel deeply sad. I want to tell you that I’m not here for myself. I had a responsibility that I have been unable to fulfil, and you need to know that. You reassure me, and then somehow... I find myself lying down, but not on the ground, I can’t work out where exactly. You place your right hand on my back, and then your left hand over it. I feel all my sadness, everything set in motion, as if it is coming out of me.

After this everyone seems to come back there, by the house, and they all go into another building in procession. You invite them to repeat the phrase “tell us” twice. Once again my eyes meet my mother’s, which seem to express some doubt. But she, too, does as you say, and goes in. I think there’s a funeral. And then, at another moment, she’s sitting at a round table full of postcards, letters and other things. She asks me if I remember her red-headed friend. “Yes, the boy in the wheelchair?” I ask. “Yes,” she replies, “he’s dying.” And she’s gone. I find myself looking at a Christmas card that she’s received. It’s strange, with an old man in a big bed, dressed as Father Christmas.

The card reads, “at my age I can no longer ride over the snow”. Alongside Father Christmas are two pillows, and his hat, seemingly highlighting the absence of something or someone.

What do you think? What do dreams mean? Who knows how many other messages my hard head will throw into the drawer of forgetfulness... – C.

Dear friend, dreams are maps of your psyche. The people in your dreams are parts of yourself. Your mother is distrustful, just as you do not trust me. Sometimes the hardest thing is to let ourselves go to those who want to free us from our guilt. “Don’t be afraid, the cure has arrived”. But you have a thousand reasons to punish yourself. Read those characters as you, parts of yourself. And when you see me, that is the part of you that is closest to me, that most resembles me. The part that is on the Way. Eight pills, like the eight steps in the Octave, to cure my mother, the source from which I/you were born. Try to open up with trust to this death. Drown in the sea of the Friend. Don’t feel guilty any more. All you can do is embrace your feelings of guilt, accept them, love them.

With warm regards.

What does it mean to “become a master”? – L. Dear L. Becoming a master means having had the chance to become disciples, and understanding the importance and enormity of this. It means having got up from the table, taken the butler’s suit, given up one’s own place and started serving. This is the only way to become close friends with the Host. With warm regards.

THE FOURTH WAY _...a short tale

...a short tale ABOUT THE PLAN

Jlgm

That evening Pepito and his friends stopped sending messages and making paper planes and birds. Don Paco, the biology teacher, skipped the scheduled lesson and told them almost everything he knew about his subject, and the things he loved of his vocation, which had to do with verbs, predicates and so forth.

They listened in wonder as he told them how the moon makes the tides ebb and flow. The way the earth purges itself through its volcanoes, the survival strategies of animals, how atoms dance to a precise rhythm, why you can't sink your finger into iron, and why you can stretch rubber. Pepito was amazed by what Don Paco told them about the magical effects of nouns, verbs and what have you. Words make things appear that didn't exist before, or which cannot be seen.

It was almost five o'clock when the bell rang, and Don Paco sat at his desk and said, - Any questions?

Pepito raised his hand and asked, - Why are there still people who don't believe in God?

And this is the story of the evening when Pepito first heard talk of "such things", about how life works, and we need to be able to tell it so that the Plan works out well, YOURS AND HIS.

THE END

24_

THE FOURTH WAY_Introduction to the ideas of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff

25_

Man’s role in the evolution of the Universe

We are inspired by certain unpublished notes by John G. Bennet, taken from a number of conferences given in Denison House between March and April of 1949 that help illustrate how the Fourth Way’s System places man in the Universe.

Introduction to the ideas of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff edited by Eva M. Franchi

The degree of perfection of the Kesdjan Body greatly depends on the kind of aims underlying a man’s efforts. These may be driven by self-centred aspirations, and thus not by primary survival needs, but based on one’s own selfish interests. This leads to a Kesdjan Body that can even degenerate and become a source of suffering for its possessor. It can live far longer than the physical body, but in the end it, too, must disintegrate, since it has not yet achieved the state of an immortal body. For a man who has not placed any aim over and above himself and his selfishness, what could be more terrible than witnessing the slow disintegration and final destruction of his very existence? The situation changes completely for the man whose efforts have been aimed at a purpose higher than himself, and who tries his best to fight and overcome his own selfishness. The Kesdjan body of this kind of person becomes the vehicle for a body even higher than his being.

The real part of a man, on which the hopes of his Creator have been placed, is the third body, which Gurdjieff simply calls the Highest Being Body. He also calls it the soul or third body. This is the body of independent individuality, the body of man’s

freedom. It is made of substances of a higher nature than those forming the Kesdjan body. They do not originate in the solar system where this being exists, but are formed from the emanations of the Absolute Sun itself, known as the Theomertmalogos, and cannot be destroyed by any process operating in the rest of the universe. The Highest Being Body is the body of true immortality, and is capable of further perfecting itself.

Although this possibility has rarely been openly explained, religious traditions all over the world teach that there is a great destiny to be achieved through effort and sacrifice. Unfortunately at present the realisation of this fundamental truth has become weakened and confused. This is the deep cause of the sad state of the world today. The above enables us to understand how extremely important it is to know, as much as we can, the way higher bodies are formed and how they grow. Man feeds on three types of food. We usually only consider ordinary food and drink, which is broken down, assimilated and digested by our digestive system in a complex series of processes.

(TO BE CONTINUED)...

"The Ray of Creation"

Illustration by José L. García Muedra

www.gurdjieff.es

THE FOURTH WAY Monthly Study Notes

"THE FOURTH WAY" is the official press body of the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man - La Teca.

"When we learn, we listen only to our thoughts. this is why it is not possible for us to take in new thoughts, unless we use new methods of listening and studying."

London 13/02/1922 G.I. Gurdjieff

Each edition contains lots of sections full of information that has never been revealed publicly before, practical exercises and original material on the teachings of the Fourth Way.

Topics covered will include: -

The meaning of the Stop Exercise The Enneagram and the Tree of life The Fourth Way method explained step by step What has never been said about the 6th Lower Centre and the 3rd Higher Centre The secrets of Gurdjieff's life The Hasnamusses: who are they?

The Study of the Sacred Texts using the Fourth Way method Alchemy and the Fourth Way The influence of the Higher Centres Study of the Old Testament in light of the System Objective Music Where does Gurdjieff's teaching come from?

How to work on ourselves The Origins of the Fourth Way Dante and the Fourth Way The Relationship between Master and Pupil The Spiritual aspect of the Fourth Way The power of conscious thought What is true Self-remembering?

The Enneagram revealed: things that have never been written on the Enneagram

...AND MUCH MORE

IN THE NEXT EDITION VIA li TA ensi AR udio M QU di St LA dispense Le

Principles of

Gurdjieff’s Method VIAnsili RTAdio Me QUAdi Stu LA dispense Le

The Sacrifice of Isaac

VIAnsili RTAdio Me QUAdi Stu LA dispense Le

PINOCCHIO The Fairytale of the Human Being ...AND MUCH MORE