The fourth way
Chapter II (A record of talks and answers to questions based on the teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff)
Man is an incomplete being—He lives below his legitimate level—Revaluation of old values—'Useful’ and ‘harmful’—Illusions—Man is asleep—Practical self-study-Study of obstacles—Psychology of lying—Man is machine—Study of obstacles—Psychology of lying—Man is a machine—Creating a permanent ‘I’—Allegory of a house in disorder—Roles—Buffers—Self-remembering—Why this system cannot be popular—Prison—Formulation of aim—To be free—Sin—Repentance—Helping humanity—Attraction and repulsion—Self-observation—Division of all that belongs to man into seven categories—Knowledge and being—Their relationship—We can have more knowledge—Necessity of changing being—Understanding—Harmful functions—Expression of negative emotions—Unnecessary talk—Difference between this system and others—levels of being—Thinking in different categories—Dangers of the present situation
The system
The system belongs to the class of systems which regard man as an incomplete being and study him from the point of view of his possible development.
Ordinary Psychology is very far away from reality
We ascribe to ourselves many qualities we do not possess. We are not conscious. If we are not conscious, we cannot have unity, cannot have individuality, cannot have an ego or ‘I’. All these things are invented by man to keep the illusion of consciousness.
Man can be conscious.
But, at present he is not. Man lives below his legitimate level. It is very important to understand what is a complete being and what is an incomplete being, because if this is not understood from the beginning it will be difficult to go further. An example:
“Let us compare a horse-carriage with an aero plane. An aero plane has many possibilities that an ordinary carriage does not have, but at the same time an aero plane can be used as an ordinary carriage. It would be very clumsy and inconvenient and very expensive, but you can attach two horses to it and travel in an aero plane by road. Suppose the man who has this aero plane does not know that that it has an engine and can move by itself and suppose he learns about the engine, then he can dispense with the horses and use it as a motor car. But it will still be too clumsy. Suppose that man studies this machine and discovers that it can fly. Certainly, it will have many advantages which he missed when he used the aero plane as a carriage.”
This is what we are doing with ourselves; we use ourselves as a carriage, when we could fly.
To follow the ideas and methods of the system fully, it is necessary to recognize and agree upon two points: the low level of consciousness and the practical absence of will (at lower levels of consciousness) and individuality in man. When these ideas are accepted, it is very useful and necessary to learn the right use of two ideas, two words, ‘useful’ and ‘harmful’; because it is rather difficult to apply these words to a psychological state and find what is useful in the psychological structure of man and what is harmful in it.
Our thought has acquired many bad habits, and one of them is thinking without purpose.
Our thinking has become automatic; we are quite satisfied if we think of and develop possible side-issues without having any idea why we are doing it. From the point of view to this system such thinking is useless. All thinking, All study and investigation must have one aim, one purpose in view, and this aim must be attaining consciousness (higher states, one already has consciousness). Attaining higher states of consciousness is connected with the gradual liberation from mechanicalness, for man as he is fully and completely under mechanical laws.
The more a man attains consciousness, the more he leaves mechanicalness, which means he becomes more free from accidental mechanical laws.
The first step in acquiring consciousness is the realization that we are not conscious. But this illusion cannot be changed alone, for there are many others. As I said earlier, the worst of them is the illusion that we can ‘do’. All our life is based on this illusion. We always think that we are doing when, in reality, we are not doing anything, everything happens.
Another illusion is that we are awake. When we realize that we are asleep we will see that all history is made by people who are asleep. Sleeping people fight, make laws; sleeping people obey or disobey them. The worst of our illusions are the wrong ideas among which we live, and govern our lives. If we could change our attitude towards these wrong ideas and understand what they are, this in itself would be a great change and would immediately change other things.
Some points from the question-answer session:
- The most serious lying is when we know perfectly well that we do not and cannot know the truth about things and yet never act accordingly. We always think and act as though we knew the truth. This is lying.
- We really know nothing about ourselves, and we really know that we know nothing, yet we never recognize or admit the fact; we never confess it even to ourselves, we act and think and speak as though we knew who we are. This is the origin, the beginning of lying.
- All we have is opinions, and they are all lies.
- You can study yourself only in the conditions in which you are because you are the result of these conditions.
- To be mechanical means to depend on external circumstances.
- In reality all human activities are equally mechanical, there is no difference from this point of view between scrubbing floors and writing poetry.
- We have wrong values; we have to be brave and start on this revaluation.
- In reality the change is always controlled by circumstances, it cannot be controlled by man himself, because he himself does not exist yet.
- If a role is mechanical, we must observe it and not identify with it. The most difficult thing is to act yourself consciously. We start consciously and then we usually identify.
- There is the process of elimination, many useless mechanical functions must be eliminated. Then there is the process of construction.
- I am not free; it is necessary to know it definitely. One must realize that at every moment of one’s life one decides to do one thing and does another, that one wishes to go to one place and in reality, is going to another place, and so on.
- Things must be taken simply and not philosophically. Certainly, if we begin to think philosophically that there is no such thing as freedom, then there is nothing left but to die.
- We imagine that we are free, and this makes us ten times more slaves. To sacrifice this illusion of freedom which we think we have.
- Man is a machine, a machine which works under external influences.
- According to this system no more knowledge is possible until one’s being is changed.
- A man can get only as much as knowledge as his being allows, otherwise his knowledge will be just words. If knowledge is given to several people, one of them gets it, others do not. Why? Evidently because their being is different.
- Being: What you are. The more you know yourself, the more you know your being. If you have never learnt that you have being, the being of all people will be the same to you.
- You have to work on your knowledge and being separately, otherwise you will cease to understand the knowledge you acquire. Work on being is a different work, a different effort is necessary.
- Being is power, power to ‘do’, and power to ‘do’ is power to be different.
From the book
The Fourth Way
P.D Ouspensky
