(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Russian philosopher G.I. Gurdjieff greatly influenced Western
meditation practice with his approach to meditation, which he called
the Fourth Way. He was a student of various traditional meditation
forms, and he developed a meditation discipline resonating uniquely
with the Western mind. As described by Victor N. Davich in The Best Guide To Meditation (1998), Gurdjieff categorized approaches to meditation practice as follows:
The First Way: the path of the fakir, who works on the physical body to conquer physical pain. This is
the most difficult path. One must surrender everything and do as you are told.
The Second Way: the path of the monk. This way requires faith above all. You develop the emotional
center on this path.
The Third Way: the path of the yogi. This is the path of knowledge and consciousness. One develops the
intellectual center.
The Fourth Way: the easiest path for Westerners, One works on the inner self while living in normal
life.
Gurdjieff’s
approach, the Fourth Way, is described for its ease of use for the
Western mind. According to Gurdjeff, you don’t have to give up
everything you own. All the work goes on inside you. You continue to
live the same life as before, in the same environment. These
circumstances are the best for you anyway.
· If you start to work and study in these conditions you can attain
something valuable. Eventually you’ll be able to transform yourself and
environment, but not before you sense the need to change. Nothing is
harder than to change the inner you without changing the outer,
external you.
Here is an additional quote from a student of Gurdjieff, taken from the book The Best Guide To Meditation (1998) by Victor N. Davich:
“We
are imprisoned within our own minds, and however far we extend them and
however highly we decorate them we still remain within their walls. If
we are ever to escape from our prisons, the first step must be that we
should realize our true situation and at the same time see ourselves as
we really are and not as we imagine ourselves to be. This can be done
by holding ourselves in a state of passive awareness…”
―Kenneth Walker
Gurdjieff
used a method called self-observation, in which the practitioner
focuses on softening the line between themselves and the world around
them. The idea behind self-observation is that we have lost our ability
to expand our consciousness beyond the boundaries of cultural
limitations. Through careful observation of the self we can begin to
notice the energy behind our existence, and how this energy is
continuous with the rest of creation. As the student of the Fourth Way
begins to meditate on the self, it is revealed that self is an
illusion, and that our personalities are made up of different aspects
which come forward, depending on the situation, as a reaction to the
environment. Through this process the student gradually begins to break
from identification with the personality, awakening to fully present
awareness, and reaching enlightenment.
Gurdjieff
developed the idea of self-remembering as a way of meditating. Through
self-observation, the practitioner can begin to understand that the
thoughts arising within the mind are not the self. When this
distinction is made, the state of self-remembering occurs in which the
practitioner recognizes the true nature of existence. In The Best Guide For Meditation (1998), Victor N. Davich
quotes a student of Gurdjieff, P.D Ouspensky, as saying, “We think we
can study meditation or meditate ourselves. If you can remember
yourself, you can meditate; if not, you cannot. Self-remembering means
control of thoughts, a different state. Meditation is an action of a
developed mind, and we ascribe it to ourselves. It would be very good
if we could meditate, but we cannot; self-remembering is the way to it.
You cannot begin from the end; you have to begin from the beginning
like in everything else.” This idea is very similar to the Zen
philosophy we explored earlier, which asserts that we have always been
enlightened, we just need to remember the true nature of the Self.
Self-observation
is a process by which we can observe, with detachment, all outward
phenomena. As we observe phenomenon arising and passing, this practice
brings us into awareness of the energy behind the self, or selves,
which is our true nature. In this way, we remember the Self, and wake
up.