(4.) Maurice Nicoll 1 - THE FOURTH WAY - pp.11-15
This is number 4.) of our sequential postings from Volume 1 of Maurice Nicoll’s Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.
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Links to each commentary will be put on the following Contents page, as we progress through the book:
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Birdlip, May 4, 1941
THE FOURTH WAY
It is very necessary at this moment to understand something of what the Fourth Way means. There are four ways of work on oneself. We belong to the Fourth Way which is the most difficult way of all because it must be practised in the midst of life. The Way of Fakir—that is, the First Way—the Way of Monk, that is, the Second Way—the Way of Yogi, that is, the Third Way, is not our way. We have to speak on the small scale of ourselves, but the point is that we are, even on this small scale, trying to follow the Fourth Way which comes down into external life always when there is a period of special disorder and chaos.
Now I would like to say to you all that some of you do not understand the idea of the Fourth Way—for example, you appear to me to expect that the conditions that have existed at one time must or will always exist. This is quite wrong. The Fourth Way must always be related to the varying circumstances of life and can never become fixed and habitual. Suddenly it may be necessary to alter the whole external scheme of things. I want especially at this moment to have around me people who understand this and who can relate themselves to different conditions and still maintain in themselves all the principles and ideas of the work. We have no idea how things will go in the future. But we
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understand that the work must continue in the future. And that means that people must be able to adjust themselves to completely different external conditions and yet maintain the sense and feeling of the work.
In the Fourth Way the first main achievement is to become No. 4 man—that is, balanced man or all-sided man. Now if some of you have formed an idea of what the external form of the work is from past associations and you find yourselves confronted with an entirely new external state of affairs and become negative you are really useless to me in so far as the Fourth Way is concerned. You must learn that every change in the work externally is always useful to you, whatever form it takes, and all of you must be prepared to follow the work in its changing outer manifestations, and at all moments maintain a clear inner attitude towards it. At the present moment it is quite impossible to reproduce the situation that existed in Essex. The present Headquarters of our branch of the work are now situated in the full glare of publicity—that is to say, the two houses that we have taken are literally on the highway, especially the house in Birdlip itself, which is right in the village. For that reason it is quite impossible to live our life as we did in Essex at the Farm and everyone must realize this and adjust himself to circumstances, and also everyone must realize that we are in, so to speak, a "foreign" county, and particularly a conservative county, and must contribute to making a reasonable and normal impression on people. Under such circumstances we cannot have the same external life as before, but I see no reason why people who visit us should not understand that this quite small difficulty can be overcome and that apart from it everything is exactly the same as before.
I said a long time ago to you and repeated it several times that the work does not necessarily include coming to the Farm and that the Farm was distinct in a sense from the teaching of the work. The work exists through everyone's attitude towards it and no matter what the external situation may be it should make no difference to work in this sense. I am sorry that I have to say this but it is necessary to do so. For all that I know, we may find ourselves again in quite different circumstances, which again will require a proper understanding, and then again, and then again. People must understand that they are in the Fourth Way and that they must always be able to be "all things to all people" and to develop every side of themselves, in relation to society and to all forms of external life, to a reasonable point; otherwise they do not understand the idea of the Fourth Way which maintains itself right in the midst of life amongst everything that goes on, adjusting itself and yet always maintaining itself internally. The Fourth Way is and must be always the most "flexible" of all, but it requires a most flexible inner understanding and unless a person can be flexible, and yet maintain the feeling of the work, he is a rather difficult subject in connection with this line of work. Every change in circumstances provides a very useful chance for everyone to learn something. When I have sufficient people round me whom I can trust, in the sense of
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their being able to deal normally with every kind of person they meet and with every situation in life, I will feel that I am able to extend the work in the way that I wish to extend it eventually. And here I will remind you of one meaning of "mechanicalness" in the work. If you cannot relate to one side or another in life you must make this one of your aims. There is not a single thing in life about which a man in the Fourth Way should not be knowledgeable, or capable of maintaining himself in connection with it. This Fourth Way is not romantic and it is no use having romantic feelings about the Farm in Essex. This Fourth Way is quite ruthless and as soon as something is finished—that is, gives no longer any real value, it is abandoned. By this I do not mean that we cannot go back to the Farm, but that this is a great chance for everyone to adjust himself to the external form and physical situation of the work at the moment. This applies equally to those who cannot come here and to those who can.
I would be very glad if you would all try to understand what I mean because it is important to draw attention to this point owing to the fact that so often everyone begins to "settle down" after a time into some form of the Fourth Way work which he thinks is going to go on and on just like that. Unfortunately, such mental and emotional habits can be formed.
I once said to G.: "Why don't you build more solidly?" (we were building a theatre). He said: "This is only temporary. In a very short time everything will be different. Everyone will be elsewhere. Nothing can be built permanently at this moment." So it is necessary for everybody to understand in a way what this means. Many times G. had no work "externally"—that is, no place, no habitation. Everything seemed to have been dissolved away and from the external or sensory point of view to have vanished, yet, as you know, the work went on and was finally transmitted to this country, and yet this had nothing to do with the external form of the work, with the actual house or situation and so on, and in view of what G. told me privately I fancy that we can have no permanent home for the work and that we shall have to adjust ourselves to every kind of situation in the future. But all of you who have heard the teaching over a sufficient time should be able now to be quite tranquil about change in the external form or the external demands of the work and to relate yourselves instantly to them from the work point of view. The trouble is that things become mechanical and it is necessary for a shock to be given so that things are no longer quite mechanical. But the work continues in the same way and speaks with the same voice and gives the same force to those who acknowledge and practise it.
I must add that the centre of gravity of this talk to you lies in the meaning of what is called the Fourth Way. We are not Fakirs holding out our arms year after year; we are not monks living in monasteries; we are not Yogis going to remote schools or sitting and meditating in caves in the Himalayas. We belong to what is called the Fourth Way
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which is right down in life. So we have to work in the midst of life, surrounded by all the misfortunes of life, and eventually life becomes our teacher—that is to say, we have to practise non-identifying in the midst of the happenings of life; we have to practise self-remembering in the midst of affairs; and we have to notice and separate ourselves from our negative emotions in the midst of all hurts and smarts in daily life. And for that reason it is said that a man who follows the Fourth Way must become No. 4 man—that is, a man who has developed his centres. It means a man who can be all things to all men, and it means a man who has developed all sides of himself so that he can meet with every situation reasonably, with every class, with every kind of person, with every point of view, with every theory, with every practical thing or theoretical thing or philosophical thing up to a certain point. From one point of view he is a man of the world. It is wrong to say this, but it probably gives the first idea of what No. 4 man is. No. 4 man does not really mean a man of the world. It means something deeper than this, but certainly it includes this—that is to say, it means that a person is able to meet with all the events and situations of life in a reasonable way and is not a fool about life and people. There are many things to learn from ordinary life that everybody ought to learn and in view of the idea of No. 4 man all these things become interesting. This person mechanically hates this side of life or that person mechanically hates that side of life. Actually a man must get his full development from life in conjunction with the work in order to reach the stage of No. 4 man—for no man can become No. 4 man unless the work illuminates him and at the same time no man can become No. 4 man unless he relates himself to all sides of life. Ask yourselves, all of you, in what sides of life you are very undeveloped, and here I simply mean ordinary external life. Would you be able to take charge of an army suddenly? Would you be able to run a hotel? Would you be able to talk effectively to the Prime Minister? Could you produce a play or sail a ship or give an important dance and keep quite quiet and know what to do? Could you give a good criticism of a book? Could you maintain yourself in conversation amongst ordinary educated people? Although all this is not important and no one must take it literally, everyone must have ideas of what No. 4 man means, because No. 4 man does not mean what I have said exactly. It means the attainment of a quite wonderful allsidedness so that, although you have never talked to the Prime Minister, when the moment comes you can do it from your inner development and your inner strength.
The Fourth Way lies in life and people must be strong enough to maintain it in their wills and their understanding because it has no temples or churches or ritual, only rules. So therefore please understand that if external conditions of the Fourth Way change for you and even change again and again, you must always try to keep your balance and accept the new conditions as work and believe that however much I like a man or woman personally I cannot do anything if change of
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external circumstances makes him or her negative in the work.
And I will add this quite simple sentence. Please do not think, some of you, that the work means the Farm. The work is not an external thing lying at the Farm. Often people connect themselves with the work through outer sensory images so that they forget even what the work is about. The work is not a place, the work is not a thing that you can touch or handle, the work is not in France or England or America, or in any place in the world. The work is in your hearts and in your own understanding, and wherever a man has to go, the work can always go with him, if he maintains the right attitude towards it. The work is only kept alive by a man's own efforts. Only if he is willing to receive it can the work touch a man; and it then slowly begins to transform him. Therefore the work is not in space nor even in time. It is in something that we do not understand, which is neither space nor time, place nor moment, for which a word was invented long ago, a word that is always completely misunderstood, called eternity.