"faith,,,opposed"
Posted by eddie on 02/21/2012 13:33:49
In reply to A "Work" in progress... posted by Scot on 02/18/2012 13:39:42
Scot
My understanding is that Gurjieff’s meaning of “esoteric” is rather
different from the conventional meaning of the word; which is commonly
used to mean a secret to only be perceived and enjoyed by the devotees
of a cult for example, confined or limited to a small circle, i.e.
secrets known only to God and a chosen few. But to my very limited
understanding Gurjieff’s meaning of esoteric in this regards simply
means ‘inner’ as in psychological, and has nothing whatsoever to do
with any esoteric secret holding doctrines or engaging in esoteric
rites, which guard a mystery known only to the initiated. So from my
best understanding of Gurjieff's "Work, it “does not” require faith at
all, or fall within the perimeters of ‘any’ religious belief system
whatsoever.
Truthfully; the fact that the Fourth way had no requirements of faith
was one of the main things that attracted me to it to begin with. You
yourself may have noticed, I know that I have throughout the years
that I’ve been looking at the Fourth Way, that it’s not that easy to
find much ever even said about faith period in the writings available
to the general public. I think the reasons why might be a little
clearer after reading the below excerpts from the commentaries, I know
it was for me.
At any rate the closest thing that I have ‘so far’ come up with on
the “The Fourth Way” in regards to the question you purposed, about
whether it requires “faith”, or whether it is actually a theist based
system, is from what Nicoll wrote in the commentaries on pages 232-
234.
To start you may be confusing “The Forth Way” with “The Second Way”.
Nicoll writes:
“The Second Way is the way of the monk. This is the way of devotion to
faith, the way of religious feeling, religious sacrifices. Only a man
with very strong religious emotions and a very strong religious
imagination can become a ‘monk’ in the true sense of the word.”
“The Forth Way is different from any of the three Ways of the Fakir,
Monk, or Yogi. …because the Forth Way requires no retirement into the
desert, nor does it require a man to give up and renounce everything
by which he formerly lived…In the Forth way it is possible to work and
to follow this way while remaining in the usual conditions of life,
continuing to do the usual work, preserving former relations with
people, and without renouncing or giving up anything. On the contrary,
the conditions of life in which…the Work finds a man, are the best
possible for him…These conditions are natural for him. These
conditions are the man himself, because a man’s life and its
conditions correspond to what he is.”
“The Fourth Way differs from the other ways in that the principal
demand made upon a man in it is the demand for understanding. A man
must do nothing that he does not understand, except as an experiment
under the supervision and direction of a teacher. In the Forth Way the
more a man understands what he is doing the greater will be the
results of his efforts. This is the fundamental principle of the
Fourth Way. The results of work in it are in proportion to the
consciousness and understanding of the Work. No ‘faith’ is required in
the Fourth Way; on the contrary faith of any kind is opposed to the
Fourth Way. In the Fourth Way a man must see for himself. He must
satisfy himself of the truth of what he is told. And until he is
satisfied he must do nothing.”