The Fourth Way is a term used by G.I. Gurdjieff to describe his approach to self-development.[1] Gurdjieff believed that his method combined what he saw as the three established ways, or schools: that of the body, the emotions and the mind.[2]
The way of the body is that of the fakir, instinctive-moving-sensory people without much mind and without much heart. The way of the monk, the religious way, is of emotional people. The mind and the body are not strong. The third way is that of the yogi. The heart and the body are not strong. In any of these ways, if the other ways are too strong, they may be a hindrance on this way. A fourth way exists for those who cannot go with any of the first three ways.[3]
According to Gurdjieff, the chief difference between the three traditional ways and the fourth way is that “they are permanent forms which have survived throughout history mostly unchanged, and are based on religion. Where schools of yogis, monks or fakirs exit, they are barely distinguishable from religious schools. The fourth way differs in that it is not a permanent way. It has no specific forms or institutions and comes and goes controlled by some particular laws of its own.
The particular laws are determined by higher school, much as Mr. Gurdjieff followed a pattern of his own life. I think it was Mr. de Hartmann or Ouspensky, perhaps, who stated that it was impossible to communicate the degree of sefl assurance with which Mr. Gurdjieff threaded his way through the chaos of the Russian revolution. He knew something.
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