The Fourth Way
Many students of Gurdjieff's teaching regard him as an enlightened being who has undertaken a special mission designed to help contemporary people living mainly in urban environments far removed from the tranquility of earlier times. For this reason Gurdjieff called his mission "the Fourth Way," a way in life. Gurdjieff said that throughout history there have been three traditional ways that can lead a man or woman to immortality. By this he meant the transferring of our identity from the personality which exists in time and space and is therefore transient, to essence, which transcends time and space and is therefore immortal. These three traditional ways are:
1. The way of the fakir (the way of struggle with the physical body).
2. The way of the monk (the way of faith, the emotional way).
3. The way of the yogi (the way of knowledge, the way of mind).
Gurdjieff went on to say that historically, these three traditional ways were the only possible methods for the development of the human being's potential to be objectively conscious. Objective consciousness brings the recognition of one's immortality. It is the immortality of essence that is meant. There is no immortality of the personality.
These traditional ways have always required the person to leave his or her environment and enter into a secluded, monastic existence. But in the societies of the 20th and 21st centuries these ways are less and less practiced and are difficult to find. Gurdjieff brought a Fourth Way, a teaching that can be practiced in the midst of life. The primary significance of the Fourth Way is that it is a way in life, whereas the three traditional ways, even if they can be found, require a complete change in one's ordinary living circumstances from the outset. Through Gurdjieff's teaching, we can apply the methods he brings to the events of modern everyday life.
This teaching works on all three sides of our nature at once: on our physical body, on our emotions, and on our intellect. This is another characteristic of the Fourth Way. It requires that we become balanced individuals, using the events of life to attain that balance. As we become more balanced, we can be self-conscious more easily because we are less identified with our body, our thoughts, or our emotions. When we no longer identify with these features of temporal life, we discover that we are free of all fears and all desires. We then stand in essence, not in personality, and essence is immortal.