The fourth way is one of the spiritual ways to awake a consciousness. It was brought to the West by Georgiy Gurdjiev. During many years he traveled in eastern countries, studied in different spiritual schools.

As he says, there are four main ways in the world. They are the way of Fakir, the way of Monk, the way of Yogin and the fourth way is the way of the “cunning man”. This way is differs from the other ones. It is the way that lies among the life, doesn`t need special efforts and practice. It could be and should be used in everyday life. The one term is the existing of real and practical School and of the “awakened” teacher. The fourth way is the quickest, but also the most difficult one.

There are several main ideas of the Fourth way system. They are: sleep, awakening and attention.
Sleep: Every person who doesn’t make any inner efforts to understand himself is always in the condition of “sleeping in real life”. He just exists and doesn’t know the real life.
Awakening: awakening of a person is possible only if you make efforts to be in present time now. You should lead your energy to developing and investigating of your soul.
Attention: the main instrument in the system of the fourth way is attention. You should be always attentive. There are many ways of attention working; they depend on different circumstances of place, time and person.
I think it is very good practical school. As for me, I understand that I sleep now. And how to wake up form this sleep? Do you have any ideas? Maybe you know how to work on yourself in order to wake up?

nuzker пишет:
Hey nuzker, and thanks a lot for this informative post.
Sincerelly speaking, the your question "How to wake up" made me smile, but it's not because of this post, it's because my everyday biggest problem to wake up. I am so sorry for this retreat:)

So...what I wanted to add to this subject is the book I read some time ago, it's called "The 4th Way"by P. D. OUSPENSKY, and it is a record of talks and answers to questions based on the teaching of G.I.
GURDJIEFF. I bet you must read it, cause your post was describing some phrases and citates from that book. If not, I would really recommend to read it, it will wake a huge interest, because it's not written like a simple lecture that is , sometimes, very boring to read, it consists of Questions and Answers only
WHEN P. D. Ouspensky was asked if he intended to publish his lectures, he answered:
"What is the use? The most important is not the lectures but the questions and
answers."
This book consists of verbatim extracts from talks and answers to questions given
by Ouspensky between 1921 and 1946. Chapter I is a general survey of the
fundamental ideas, which in subsequent chapters are amplified subject by subject in
the specific order followed by Ouspensky himself.
To achieve this order some of the material has had to be taken out of its
chronological sequence; but in no case has there been any alteration of phrasing or
meaning.

Hope you'll enjoy reading it.
Thanks again.

The fourth way is the way of inner understanding yourself. It was brought to the West with Gurdgiev G.I.
In his opinion, a man in its normal condition is just not free creation, who can`t be artistic in his life. A man is just a biorobot, a computer, who is programmed with the same biorobots, as himself and his life is unhappy and doesn`t have sense.
It happens because people do not remember themselves, they just have some moments when they wake up, these moments occurred in the unfamiliar places. People think and act mechanically, in the principle: stimulus-reaction. They do not think, they are thought, they do not act, they are acted, they do not feel, and they are felt.
Besides, a man-biorobot does not have an entirety, but he thinks, he does. In reality, we do not have our own “I”, we have a variety of “I`s” (our thoughts, feelings, wishes). And we do not know how to control all this, how to lead it all. We cannot control ourselves, because we do not know ourselves. We are not the bosses of our lives.
The system that was created by Gurdgiev on the basis of the earliest schools helps us to break this barrier, and to find ourselves.
The fourth way does not ask for the exit from our life. It was created on the self-understanding, self education, and on understanding the situation round you.
The follower of the fourth way should live in the world, but out of the world. A man should live in the society, should do everything that he has to do, and should live according to the laws and rules of this world. But a man should also preserve his individuality, his freedom from the society and to be anxious for success, to be free from ambition, greed, intellectual arrogance, to be out of pity for him, to be out of egocentrism and fear.
The fourth way is assigned for being able to assume entirety, ability to make, to become a boss of him, for live the life and not to sleep it on.

Georgiy Gurdjiev is one of the most mystical figures that the world has ever seen. As to me, his practices and teachings seem very right and actually do help people to get out of the sleeping state and to be happier, healthier and more successful. There is another master who also devoted his life to teaching people to rise their awareness and to live a much happier and more joyful life- Osho. He also stated that a modern human being is simply hypnotized, he does not feel his inner world, inner joy, his is disconnected to nature and lost all the contact with the highest Power, with God. His main advice on how to get dishypnotized, on how to get closer to oneself is through meditation, state of non-mind, non-thinking, non-judging. There is a great power in us, but due to our narrow perception of this world, of this life we are unable to see it. Please, if you have time and desire, look for some of his talks on youtube. They are really inspiring and give you more understanding that any other book, that is my personal opinion. In his talks Osho clearly talks on how to become more and more aware each day in your life. It is a process of one day or two weeks, it is a long and tough way, where each single day we learn to let things that are born in our mind go, as they do not originally belong to us, where we learn to be less and less attached to the things in our lives, where we become more peaceful and joyful learning to trust our lives fully and completely. This is where we gain understanding.

Behind the closed doors of spiritual school, established by Gurdjiev, which was called Institute of Harmonious Development of a Man, students had really hard times. The main principle of education was named the Pendulum principle. All students were asked to get out of their comfort zone, to crash their internal pendulum balance. Only in this way it was possible to expand the limits of their capabilities. Students had to perform the most unpleasant actions, which they were trying to avoid in real life. Bohemian maidens had to peel potatoes and hammer nails, golden-haired young men were sent to the slaughterhouse and had to participate in this murderous process. One of the regular exercises was dancing in circles with raised hands over head during long hours. Such an extreme approach , going hand in hand with an iron discipline and hard living conditions has generated rumours about the inhuman treatment and abuse of students.
Gurdjiev`s connection with two main dictators of the last century, Hitler and Stalin , does not make positive reputation to him as well. Someone is telling that he helped to create the main symbol of the Fascist party , the swastika of Germany. It was very strong sign, which gave the huge power to its owner, but Hitler decided to change the direction of movement in this sign. Gurdjiev proposed counter clockwise direction, but the fuehrer decided to portray her in a mirror. This mistake became one of the reasons for the defeat of the Nazi regime.
The death of this enigmatic and mysterious man was really impressive. He was lying in some American hospital after a car accident. In the last minute of his life Gurdjiev sat up in bed, put on a red hat on his head, lighted a cigarette, took at his hands a cup of black coffee and said : "Does anyone have any questions, otherwise I am leaving ?". He died in a second. The real artist.

I've been living a live under the 'closed doors' and couldn't afford myself to 'look inside' myself. My parents taught me that I have to work hard and do not pay much attention in such things as God or etc. They were full of pragmatism and thought that religion is useless. My opinion was the same until I was 20. I left home and travelled a lot in search of something. I cannot say that I have found what I was looking for but I truly became better and my eyes and my mind are open for God. Now, reading the posts, I understand that I was sleeping. My mind was kept in warm, undisturbed conditions not bothered with any kind of religion or even belief. I believed in myself, in my family in my future but nit in God.
Anyway, I have changed. That’s for sure. I don’t know how to describe it or classified the stages I lived but it is very similar to the one described above.
Recognizing the changes in your head, it is very important to understand that you would never be the same if had once entered the world of ‘new you’. This is pure harmony and I don’t think that somebody doesn’t want to bring it to his life too. It is fantastic feeling! You feel yourself like an architect with perfect sense of what and where has to be put.
I haven’t read books about it and I do not know about the authors, who have a great clue about such things but I have my own example and it tells me that I was right living my life in a way that brought me to the point where I am now.
Do not be afraid of changes. Take belief in your heart when you think the time has come. Don’t listen to people if you don’t want to do it. It’s your life and it’s up you when to ‘wake up’. I know that sometimes it is very hard to pay much attention on such things but nobody says it is impossible!
PS
Now I’m inspired by many factors. I’m an artist in some way. I love building my life in my own, invented way. More than that, I believe that everyone has to understand his own destination and his own mission. Read more, if you feel lack of information. If you feel yourself too overload with it – try to find the way out it or find the alternative information. These things helped me a lot.