Adapted from the book Transforming Negative Emotions by Peter Ingle
Copyright © 2022 · Peter Ingle · All Rights Reserved

THE FOURTH WAY, which is said to have existed for millennia, is based on a system of ideas that describe human psychology in terms of promoting conscious awareness. According to George Gurdjieff who introduced these ideas to the west, the fourth way appears and disappears depending on the religious and political climate of the times.

The fourth way derives its name from the fact that it is distinct from three ‘traditional’ ways of inner development that were more common in the east: the way of the fakir, the way of the monk, and the way of the yogi.

The way of the fakir is an approach to conscious awareness through mastering the physical body by overcoming pain and enduring instinctive hardship.

The way of the monk is an approach to conscious awareness through mastering the emotions, typically in the form of religious devotion.

The way of the yogi is an approach to conscious awareness through mastering the intellect, a main stay of which is meditation.

Each of these three ways, each intended for different types of people, is a vehicle, a conduit, and a pathway to conscious awareness. All three characteristically require withdrawal into a monastery or ashram or secluded place.

The fourth way, on the other hand, takes place, not in isolation or under special circumstances, but in the ordinary conditions of contemporary daily life. It is said to be a balanced way of transcending the body, the emotions, and the mind at the same time through direct work on conscious awareness.

But what does this really mean? What is conscious awareness? How does it appear? How do we recognize it? And most importantly, how does it recognize and realize itself?

Degrees of Consciousness

The fourth way explains that the consciousness of awareness can manifest in four successive degrees or levels. Although awareness itself does not change, it experiences degrees of opaqueness and clarity, variations of contraction and expansion, and a wide spectrum of self-awareness—from no cognition of itself as awareness to full self-realization within the universe. In fourth way language, these fluctuations of degree are referred to as states of consciousness.

The first level or ‘state’ of consciousness is the condition of being asleep at night when all but the barest sensations are dimmed and awareness resides in the instinctive world of dreams and is, for the most part, oblivious to the outside world. In this state of consciousness dreams are our reality.

When we wake up from sleep in the morning, awareness expands into the  second state of consciousness which is a higher dimension that encompasses the physical world of activity where we walk, talk, have thoughts, feel emotions, make decisions, and accomplish tasks. This is our reality in the ‘second’ state. The dimension of the first state is still there inside the second state. It is simply dimmed by the brighter light of earthly impressions and human activity.

In this waking state, awareness often fluctuates throughout both the first (dream) and second (waking) states of consciousness. One moment we are attentive to the task at hand, the next moment we are daydreaming about the past or future. Then a noise or the sound of a person’s voice ‘brings us back’ to what we are doing. Typically, however, we take little note of these fluctuations of awareness, nor do we control them in any way. Even less do we realize that there is a possibility of greater awareness above and beyond these two states of consciousness.

The fourth way explains that the third state is elusive to our perception, partly because we think we are already in it, and partly because we don’t realize that it exists as a higher dimension than thought. When we hear that it is a state of heightened awareness, we assume we can just raise the level of our awareness whenever we choose. Although it is true that we can voluntarily focus our attention, what we don’t understand is that this is not conscious awareness. It is simply focused attention. A key ingredient is still missing.

In the third state of consciousness, awareness experiences a more vivid view of the world. We see everything in a simple and clear way, sometimes in a more poetic or mystical way. At the same time, there is a detached sense of awareness that seems to stand apart from and outside whatever it sees. This may happen, for example, when we find ourselves in new surroundings, or when something unexpected happens, or when we are in the presence of great natural beauty such as Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, the Alps, or a spectacular view of earth from a jet airliner. Suddenly, awareness is rendered more conscious, more present, more awake, and we become more aware of ourselves as the pure witness of our surroundings. The key point is that awareness becomes aware of observing from a higher dimension of consciousness that is aware of being aware as a distinct quality of inner presence and calm.

We normally experience our life from a low state of awareness and spend most of our waking moments in the first and second states with occasional flashes of the third state, but these flashes can pass almost unnoticed without their significance being fully realized. At the same time, it is possible to experience more moments of life from the dimension of a higher state of conscious awareness.

According to the fourth way, only through intense or prolonged experiences within the third state can awareness comprehend its true nature, and only then can we start to fathom what it would mean to be full conscious awareness.

As we gain conscious command of awareness (more accurately, as it gains command of itself), there comes the possibility of expansion into still another state of consciousness—the ‘fourth’ state—which is a broader, deeper, higher dimension of awareness. The fourth state is the ultimate mystical nirvana which people have sought for centuries, yet the fourth way teaches that it is reached by awareness passing  through the third state. This is why the central purpose and sole aim of the fourth way is to free awareness from the psychological grips that keep it ensconced in the lower dimension of the second state.

Awareness ‘Remembering’ Itself

The foundation of the fourth way system is that we are usually unaware of ourselves; that no one is automatically conscious of himself; that no one ‘remembers’ himself. The seemingly simple fact of being aware of our own existence does not occur to us. To put it more succinctly, awareness is not usually conscious of being aware. Just stop for a moment and think about that: we exist in human form on a planet in a solar system in a vast universe and are, for the most part, unaware of our own awareness of this fact.

Even if a person is told about this and sincerely tries to be more consciously aware, they soon forget to be aware of—to ‘remember’—their own existence. Awareness unknowingly falls asleep again and everything goes on as before—in a dim state of awareness that shuts out the larger picture of our existence as humans inside a planet that is in turn inside a solar system within a galaxy that is itself inside a vast universe.

Of course, everyone is aware of their existence to some degree, but it is small compared to what is possible. For the most part, everyone takes their existence—particularly their awareness of existence—for granted. No one remembers about his existence on purpose. Quite the contrary: everyone is always forgetting themselves one moment to the next.

One of the curiosities of the third state of consciousness is that even when we know about it, we cannot access it with the body or mind. We have to find a different way because what we are looking for exists outside the body and mind as a higher dimension of awareness.

On the fourth way, the primary preparation for this is a practice called self-remembering. Self-remembering is a conscious effort to be aware of yourself in your surroundings as often as possible. It means holding attention on the realization of yourself being aware, while simultaneously being aware of either your outer world (where you are and what you are doing) or your inner world (of thoughts, feelings, and sensations), or both at the same time. In this way you become aware of whatever you are observing in the moment while remaining aware as the observer.

For instance, right now it is possible to be aware of these printed words and be aware of yourself reading them, while also being aware of being aware of yourself reading them. These two extra dimensions of awareness—especially the latter—never happen by themselves. And without them awareness always slips into ordinary, one-dimensional attention.

The other key point to understand about self-remembering is that it is not a physical or mental or emotional ‘effort’. It is a wordless presence of awareness that resides beyond the brain, above the mind, outside the body. It is simply awareness.

Imagination

Conscious awareness—being aware of being aware—is indeed the magic potion for anyone seeking the nirvana of higher consciousness. Yet, simple as it is, it is elusive because of tendencies in our psychology which divert awareness away from itself, into our psyche, into our body, and into the events of our life. In other words, awareness has a propensity to slip out of the metaphysical dimension of itself and be appropriated by lower dimensions of our mind, body, and physical life.

One of these psychological tendencies is called imagination. In fourth way terminology, imagination means random associations, daydreaming, thoughts about the future or the past, and supposing (imagining) things about ourselves and other people. A person with his gaze ‘fixed’ in thought is in imagination. Awareness of himself and his environment is absent, entirely absorbed by the inner workings of imagination. Although the person is physically in the waking state of consciousness, he has psychologically lapsed into the realm of dreams. But he does not see any harm in this, partly because it is so satisfying to be in imagination, and partly because it has never been pointed out as a diversion from conscious awareness.

Another example of imagination is when we are looking at a scene or listening to an idea and then start to think about—to imagine—a similar scene or similar idea. Instead of seeing or hearing what is in front of us, we associate to something else and see that in our imagination. We do not realize that awareness becomes whatever we are imagining. In other words, as awareness loses consciousness of itself, it disappears into the clouds of imagination where it ‘falls asleep’.

Imagination also takes other forms, such as glib talking, talking to oneself, being physically ‘busy’, and even eating frantically or in a trancelike state.

When we first hear about imagination, we perhaps see it as the exception to our normally alert state of mind. We do not see that it is the rule; that imagination interferes with almost every moment of life; that, unbeknownst to us, we even imagine who we are and how we appear to others.

But if we hear about conscious awareness and try to remember ourselves—to be aware of being aware—we may begin to see that we “forgot to remember ourselves.” This realization can start to reveal what it might mean to become fully aware of our existence.

Identification

Awareness is easily lured into imagination because of a second psychological tendency called identification which is what happens to us when a person, object, or interest captivates awareness, draws it out of self-awareness, and embodies it in the thing it has become aware of.

A cat chasing a mouse is identified. So is a person intent on a task, insisting on a point of view, immersed in anxiety, mesmerized by another person, or consumed by a television or computer screen or smartphone. In all these cases, awareness surrenders itself and grants identity to the object of its interest.

The problem is that we have come to view identification, not as a loss of awareness, but as interest and enthusiasm, as focus and dedication. Being identified is considered normal, useful, and necessary. To be without identification is to be listless, dull, unproductive, boring. The fourth way, however, explains that the reverse is true: that identification robs us of our real identity; that it is the exact opposite of conscious self-awareness.

Another thing which happens as a result of identification is that our imaginary sense of ‘I’ grows more concentrated and stronger. But a part of us likes this feeling and fails to see the damaging effect it has on awareness.

Internal Considering

A third tendency that diverts awareness from being aware of being aware is our identification with other people. The fourth way refers to this as internal considering, or ‘inner-considering’. Inner-considering happens when we worry about what other people think about us: whether they notice us, admire us, approve of us, and respect us, or whether we suspect they might be ridiculing us behind our backs.

Inner-considering is also behind the anxiety that prompts us to adjust our hair before entering a room, or to scratch our head when we are unsure of our response to a question. Sometimes it can cause overwhelming nervousness and fear to the extent that we cannot speak to another person or express ourselves in front of a group.

Inner-considering may also take the opposite form of imagining that we are not considering other people enough; that we are not treating them with enough respect or courtesy or admiration; that we don’t ever quite meet their expectations and requirements—in which case we may deprecate ourselves, feel sorry for ourselves, or feel guilty that we are the cause of someone else’s problem.

Being mired in internal considering comes from evaluating our life in relation to ourselves, which is why it is called internal considering. It produces a distorted, self-centric point of view that consumes an enormous amount of energy at the expense of conscious awareness.

One of the best ways to heighten awareness is to turn the psychology of inner-considering around and see ourselves, not as the center of things, but as part of a larger whole. This means seeing other people, not in terms of our need for approval or their need for recognition, but according to the needs of the larger whole or situation in which we find ourselves.

Turning internal considering around like this is called ‘external considering’. External considering means thinking of others, not in terms of us, but in terms of their circumstances, their needs, their ‘requirements’. External considering can also be seen as a form of imitating conscious awareness which is, by its nature, cognizant of its relation to the larger universe and its purposes, its needs, its reality.

Negative Emotions

Our most catastrophic diversion from conscious awareness is the tendency to outwardly express the many negative emotions that form as a psychological cocktail of imagination, identification, and inner-considering. Simply put, by means of imagination, identification, and inner-considering, we conclude that other people and circumstances conspire to make us negative; that they are the cause of our negativity or suffering. Through a series of well-oiled mental adjustments, we justify our accusations, indulge in them with pleasure, feel an urge to vent their buildup of energy, and then allow ourselves to express that energy in the form of irritation, opposition, argument, self-pity, self-righteousness, vindication, anger—and more.

The spectrum of negative emotions comprises a long list that also includes things like impatience, agitation, judgment, gossip, holding a grudge, anxiety, worry, suspicion, indignation, hatred, resentment, depression, guilt, and fear.

From a young age we are taught—through imitation and social pressure—that the outward expression of negative emotions is a harmless release of energy and even a necessary show of character. After all, it seems that someone or something has made us negative, that the cause of our negativity lies outside of us, and that we have a right to accuse, blame, voice our complaint, and get it “off our chest.”

The fourth way turns all this rationale upside-down by explaining that the cause of all negativity is not external, but internal; that negative emotions are a by-product of the wrong view we have of ourselves and others, of the world in general, and of the role of suffering in our life. From this perspective, expressing negative emotions is never useful, never necessary, and never a sign of strength. On the contrary, it is always a sign of weakness; it is due to emotional immaturity and shortsighted thinking; it is pointless in itself and completely unnecessary; and, above all, it is detrimental to awareness.

The primary reason that negative emotions are so harmful is that the ‘substance’ of conscious awareness is burned through the psychological manufacture and physical expression of negative emotions. In this process, negative emotions reject reality by denying awareness its rightful opportunity to see things as they really are.

This understanding is veiled, however, by the psychological machinations that produce a negative emotion. For example, if we could watch the creation of a negative emotion unfold in slow motion, we would the seed of it start as an instinctive ‘itch’, become a psychological impulse, make its way through a labyrinth of attitudes that reinforce it, gather as an assured sense of self, and eventually seek release as an inflated ‘emotion’ that radiates internally and fumes externally. In reality, however, this elaborate, multi-stage process unfolds at lightning speed and is difficult to see even when we know to look for it.

Understanding the intricate maze of negative emotions, being able to trace them to their roots, learning to catch and control them before they coalesce, being able not to express them, and understanding what transforming them would mean requires a new kind of study and a new command of awareness. It also requires a readiness to confront our deepest notion of ‘I’ with the knowledge that expressing negative emotions bolsters this feeling of ‘I’ while not expressing negative emotions exposes the truth behind it.

Ironically, ordinary psychology does much to reinforce and reassure our notion of ‘I’. In striking contrast, the fourth way is designed to gradually disassemble it, dissolve the illusion behind it, and open a door to the higher dimension of conscious awareness.

The Many ‘I’s

Science, religion, education, and psychology portray man as having full consciousness, unity, and will. After all, we appear to be conscious, to have an individual self, and to control our actions. The fourth way views all of these traits in a different light by explaining that our actions are involuntary responses to outside stimuli and that we are in a very real sense puppets manipulated by visible and invisible influences in each moment that act upon us and compel us into action.

Our actions are the result of thoughts that are governed, not by the ‘brain’ as we know it, but by four independent brains which the fourth way calls ‘centers’: the intellectual center, emotional center, moving center, and instinctive center. Each of these four centers has its own means of perceiving, responding to, and recording events, but the distinction between centers is imperceptible until we start looking for them with the light of conscious awareness. Even then it is challenging because all four centers work in tandem to produce an appearance of continuity in our actions and a core sense of ‘I’ behind them. Backstage, however, our inner world is a continuous chain of ‘I’s produced by the different centers: I am hungry, I am full, I am happy, I am sad, I want, I don’t like, I think, I hate, I know, I can, I never can, and so on ad infinitum.

We are usually not cognizant of all these ‘I’s constantly replacing and contradicting each other. We are not cognizant, partly because we have never studied ourselves in this way, and partly because awareness pulses at such a low level that it is usually unaware of itself as the awareness that is separate from all the ‘I’s in our psychological world. Instead of being aware of itself above that world, awareness attaches itself to each ‘I’ that appears in the moment. It literally becomes each ‘I’ produced by the four centers, without recognizing that the ‘I’s are one thing and that it—awareness—is an unseen ‘something else’ which exists beyond the ‘I’s.

Four Lower Centers

The purpose of the fourth way is to guide the self-realization of conscious awareness, but awareness is difficult to understand at first because it is not thought, feeling, movement, or sensation. To realize this, we need to study awareness in terms of what it is not by learning to recognize the four lower centers, the endless chain of ‘I’s produced by them, and the artificial sense of a single ‘I’ behind them. Observing ourselves in this way reveals that awareness resides outside the four centers as the observer behind observing, the seer behind seeing, the pure awareness aware of being aware of everything else. Realizing this requires a leap beyond our body, our sensations, and all of our thoughts and emotions. And to make that leap, awareness has to familiarize itself with each of the centers and realize it is observing them.

The Intellectual Center

The intellectual center produces all mental constructs such as ideas, concepts, intellectual interests, logical comparisons, associative thoughts, and speculations. It is reading these words now, trying to comprehend or contradict these ideas, and probably relating them to other ideas it has heard or read about. The intellectual center responds to ideas and information with definitions, associations, opinions, and analytical opposition. It is the home of mental curiosity, inquisitiveness, and our sense of intelligence.

The intellectual center is also a storehouse for collecting, defining, sorting, and retrieving information. This is a useful instrument, yet despite its ability to give intellectual form to everything, it does not and cannot actually see anything. This sounds strange, but the fact is that the intellectual center follows perception and responds to what is seen by giving things a label, a name, a description, a meaning, or a cross-reference. When it cannot absorb something, it disallows, criticizes, and rejects it, be it ideas, people, opinions, situations, or events.

What is important to understand from the point of view of conscious awareness is that the intellectual center obscures being truly aware of—fully present to—whatever is right in front of us. Instead of awareness witnessing each remarkable moment that unfolds and absorbing it with unfiltered awareness, the intellectual center displaces awareness with associations, names, definitions, logical explanations, and memories.

Try, for instance, to walk or drive down the street and just look at what is in front of you as you go, without naming things or allowing tangential thoughts. If you succeed in simply being aware of being aware of what you see while sidestepping all thought about what you see, you will invariably discover the intellectual center trying to encroach on awareness with random thoughts and associations. You may even ‘awaken’ for a moment to the realization that awareness got so lulled by imagination in the intellectual center that you ceased, for a time, to see out of your eyes altogether.

The Emotional Center

The emotional center is the ‘brain’ that produces responses to people, to visual impressions, and to human events. These responses include feelings of like and dislike, judgment, envy, sentimentality, jealousy, patriotism, suspicion, criticism, sympathy, self-pity, anger, resentment, admiration, appreciation, compassion, and creative insight. The emotional center is especially sensitive to people and gets upset when it feels that other people do not pay us enough attention or give us enough respect. It is the root of our feeling of uniqueness and our sense of right. It is also the source of our approval of and judgments about other people and about ourselves. Inner-considering, which was described earlier, takes shape in the emotional center.

Of all the lower centers, the emotional center is the fastest (the intellect is the slowest) and most perceptive when it is functioning properly. It has a capacity to appreciate nature, beauty, friendship, and the arts. It is sensitive to beauty and orderliness, be it a clean room, a flower arrangement, or a Greek statue. This same sensitivity can give rise to a deeper appreciation of the spectacle of life on earth and the fact that everything has come to exist in the first place. In this regard, the emotional center can bring us to the threshold of conscious awareness where we have the possibility of stepping beyond emotions and experiencing direct seeing—wordless beholding—from the perspective of pure awareness.

The Moving Center

The moving center is responsible for producing all physical movement, all sense of pleasure or inconvenience from movement, and all visualization of movement in space, such as when we drive a car or plan a project or play chess, or when we solve architectural, engineering, or programming problems. The moving center imitates, improvises, and invents, and it prides itself in its movements and physical accomplishments. It gets frustrated, too, when our momentum is interrupted by circumstances or by other people.

As the most visible of the four lower centers, the moving center is also the most mesmerizing. Movement gives us the appearance and feeling that we are conscious beings busy accomplishing things on planet earth. Often, the busier we are and the more we get done, the more alive and in control we seem to ourselves and to others. Yet, as the fourth way explains, movement is not an action of self-awareness or conscious will. It merely happens out of impulse as a physical reaction.

The moving center is so quick, so competent, and so consistent that it deceives its owner as well as other people into thinking that it is identity. What it cannot see, however, is that automatically visualizes and anticipates each next movement so as to link all its movements into a smooth continuum. But, like the intellectual and emotional centers, even useful functioning of the moving center tends to displace awareness of what is right in front of it. It moves nimbly through the moment without being consciously present to the moment and to what is in the moment.

Once we observe this, it is alarming to realize that we can go through a rapid series of elaborate movements—in the kitchen, at a desk, or behind the wheel of a car—without seeing clearly what is right in front of us. This realization can also be the beginning of a new understanding about what awareness is and what it implies.

The Instinctive Center

The fourth center in the human body is the instinctive center which invisibly governs the five senses and all the inner workings of our physical organism such as breathing, digestion, metabolism, sneezing, tissue building, and healing. Although most of these operations take place behind the scenes and undetected by the other three centers, the instinctive center is also the realm of sensations. For example, it is attuned to climate and temperature, to other people appearing sympathetic or threatening, and to the omnidirectional sense that we may be being watched or approached from behind.

The instinctive center also gives rise to intuitions such as sensing that a particular person may be in the vicinity, or that a relative may telephone soon. It can sometimes ‘read’ with uncanny accuracy the weaknesses or well being of others. And because all of these perceptions are wordless and invisible, they can deceive us into mistaking them for conscious awareness—when, in fact, the ‘seeing’ of conscious awareness has a very different origin, essence, and aspect.

Where the intellectual center logically explains what is in the moment, and where the emotional center evaluates and discriminates about what is in the moment, and where the moving center visualizes and manipulates the moment, the instinctive center senses and seizes upon the moment to ensure its welfare. With radar-like acuity, it stealthily notices, greedily clutches, selfishly hordes, and craftily takes advantage of the opportunity to gain, get ahead, and guard its survival.

More than any other center, the instinctive center exists for itself. It exhibits no interest in conscious awareness and is even opposed to it, largely because it believes that it is awareness, when in fact it is just a spectrum of keen sensations. Partly because of its keenness, however, its decision-making power governs the other lower centers and distracts awareness from being aware of being aware.

Fortunately, the trump card is held by conscious awareness which comes to realize that, although the instinctive center is keenly alert in its own right and aware of is own intensity, it cannot be aware of being aware. Only pure awareness can do that and be that.

Although we experience the world through our four centers, this experience is not conscious awareness. Conscious awareness is what watches this and is aware of watching it.

The Connection Between Centers

While it is important to distinguish the four centers, it is equally important to understand how they are connected to each other. In brief, there are three main connections: between the intellectual and emotional center; between the emotional and moving center; and between the moving and instinctive center.

The strongest connection exists between the moving and instinctive center. In fact, it is so strong that they appear to act as one center in a bond that can be likened to a concrete wall (the moving center) and the rebar (instinctive center) that reinforces it. This powerful melding renders these two centers so integrated as to form a single unit that can, when needed, exist completely independently of the intellectual and emotional centers.

As Gurdjieff put it, the connection between our moving and instinctive centers can be thought of as a carriage and its wheels. Although they are separate, neither can exist in a practical way without the other. It also happens, not coincidentally, that they operate at the same speed.

Continuing Gurdjieff’s analogy, the instinctive-moving ‘carriage’ is connected to the ‘horse’ of our emotional center by means of a harness and shaft. And although the emotional center could operate at a much faster speed than the moving and instinctive centers, it usually operates at their speed due to the harness that is designed to make the transfer of energy between them more smooth.

In this same analogy, a ‘driver’ holds the reigns and is responsible for guiding the horse and steering the carriage. This is the intellectual center which operates at a much slower speed than the trio of emotional, moving, and instinctive centers. But even though it is slower, the advantage is that it can regulate the other three centers. In effect, the driver can exercise reason, pull on the reigns, say “whoa” to the horse of emotions, and in turn bring the carriage under control or to a halt. As it turns out, this proves essential when it comes to controlling the expression of negative emotions.

As we will see later in this book, the creation of negative emotions typically begins as raw energy in the instinctive-moving centers (the carriage) before spilling into the emotional center (the horse) where it is embroidered as a personal feeling of ‘I’. This feeling in turn percolates into the intellectual center where it is granted authenticity and given final permission to express itself (in a variety of ways) as a declaration of identity.

There is more to the formula behind how negative emotions form in our psyche and how they forge their way to expression, but the analogy of the carriage-horse-driver provides a vivid image of how the connections between the four centers contribute to negative emotions and the identity behind them.

It is also noteworthy that the intellectual and the moving-instinctive centers communicate through the emotional center. This is noteworthy because although negative emotions originate in the moving and instinctive centers, and although they are rationalized in the intellectual center, it is in the emotional center that they substantiate our sense of self.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the carriage, the horse, and often the driver, there is a silent, unseen passenger inside the carriage. If our four centers were properly aligned and connected, this ‘passenger’ of awareness would govern our life: it would consciously prompt the driver to guide the horse and steer the carriage. In other words, we would live out life from the top down. But as it is, the process happens in reverse from the bottom up: the carriage unwittingly pulls the horse; the horse drags the driver along; and the passenger remains ‘asleep’ in the back seat.

According to the fourth way, the remedy to all this is twofold. First and foremost, the passenger needs to recognize itself, realize itself, actualize itself: awareness has to become aware of being aware, which is what self-remembering is about. At the same time, the four centers need to be aligned and balanced so they can support and respond to conscious awareness, which is what the non-expression of negative emotions is about.

Non-expression is powerful because it exposes and weakens the sense of ‘I’ we experience in the four centers. In parallel, self-remembering renders awareness aware of being conscious. Both the seer and the seen become more apparent, which is the crux of spiritual awakening and enlightenment.

 ‘Obstacles’ to Awareness

It was mentioned earlier that awareness is generally elusive because of certain tendencies in our psychology. Namely, identification, imagination, inner-considering, and the expression of negative emotions. Sometimes these are referred to in the fourth way as obstacles that must be overcome or as barriers that must be broken through, and that special ‘effort’ is required to achieve this. It is important to understand, however, what the word effort means in this context.

One way to understand it is in terms of the connections between centers. For example, if you look closely at identification, imagination, inner-considering, and not just the expression of negative emotions but how negative emotions form, you will discover that all these tendencies are a consequence of one or more weak connections between the centers.

When the four centers are properly aligned and balanced, and when the connections between them are sufficiently strong, many psychological ‘tendencies’ would not exist, or would at least be greatly minimized, and self-remembering (awareness aware of being aware) could establish and maintain itself more effectively.

In this context, ‘effort’ means not so much doing things as not doing things so that awareness can be effortlessly aware of being aware at all times.

Essence and Personality

For the purposes of self-study, the fourth way also distinguishes two other aspects of our being which are called essence and personality. Essence refers to who and what we are as we are born, including our physical constitution (race, culture, temperament, magnetism), our psychological makeup (the way we interpret and respond to the world), and our natural propensities (athleticism, artistic talent, academic interests, intuitive know-how). None of these are learned or borrowed or contrived. They are inherent at birth and although they may be camouflaged or suppressed during our life, they never change.

By contrast, personality is not inherent. It is everything we learn, everything we are taught, everything we imitate, everything we try to become. It is the mask—the persona—we wear during our earthly life. This mask changes expressions and even tone of voice when circumstances change. For instance, we wear one mask at the office, another at home, another when things are going well, and another when we are under pressure. The differences in our masks can be dramatic or subtle depending on our psychological mood and to the circumstances at hand. The differences can also be hard to detect because of the underlying feeling of ‘me’ that supports them.

Whereas personality is mainly reactive, essence is naturally receptive. For example, essence is easily affected by things like nature, our surroundings, and beauty as well as by man-made industry, brutality, changes in the weather, and cycles of the moon and planets. Personality also serves as a buffer that minimizes the effect of strong influences and, in right order, it protects and helps orient essence. What often goes wrong, however, is that personality takes on a life of its own and we start—generally at an early age—to believe that we are our visible personality. As a consequence, we lose touch with our less visible but more true nature, our essence.

Conscious Transformation

Although personality does have a purpose as part of our human makeup, it stems from a false sense of identity that we imagine inwardly and project outwardly. In this regard, one of the most corrupting aspects of personality is how it learns to manufacture, indulge in, and express negative emotions. This is harmful because, as described earlier, negative emotions negate and reject the reality that essence is equipped to see with clear awareness which it must learn to do.

As the most pure part of our human nature, essence resounds with simple awareness, but it is not consciously aware of being aware. By not expressing negative emotions and understanding why, we start to free essence from the stronghold of personality. This makes possible a conscious transformation of awareness that is beyond the realm of thought (beyond the ‘driver’ of the intellect) and therefore cannot be adequately described in words.

The Ray of Creation

It is enormous to start realizing the significance of being aware of being aware and to see for ourselves how negative emotions hamper awareness. But to fully comprehend both, we have to connect them to our place in the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe.

The fourth way explains this larger context as a framework called the Ray of Creation. Its main principle is that the universe operates as one whole and that everything is connected to and has a prescribed purpose in the whole, including our existence as human beings and the potential for awareness to realize itself.

The Ray of Creation extends from the source of the universe all the way to man, the earth, and the moon. The Ray begins at the ‘Absolute’ which spawns the ‘world’ of all galaxies, which in turn spawns the world of all suns in all the galaxies. All suns spawn the world of all the planets which includes, in our branch of the ray, the earth that is in turn spawning the lower world of its moon.

In this scheme, higher worlds transmit influences to lower worlds which receive those influences, add their own, and continue the transmission down the ray. Each lower world is nested inside the successive worlds above it.

As human beings, we find ourselves as part of the thin film of ‘organic life’ on the earth’s surface. This film comprises the earth’s atmosphere and oceans as well as the human, animal, and vegetable kingdoms. All these together encase the earth like a sheath that filters and transmits celestial influences. This filter also plays a special role by virtue of residing between the planets and the earth and between the earth and moon.

Organic life is essentially a ‘device’ that is designed to ensure the transmission of influences from planets to earth and from earth to moon, and mankind is the most sensitive element in this device. Each of us, by means of our physical, psychological, and metaphysical nature, acts as a tiny ‘antenna’ that receives influences coming from higher worlds. Collectively, we (humanity) process influences from the sun and planets (and higher) and help channel them to the earth and moon.

We are unwittingly locked into this arrangement and everything about our lives is driven by it. But we don’t notice this because the Ray of Creation is inconceivably large and we are infinitesimally small, and because our awareness is usually restricted to the scale of our personal life. We barely see ourselves as part of a community or city—and at most a country. The idea of a global village on earth is, for most people, little more than a concept.

Beyond that, we usually regard the rest of organic life as something we are separate from, not part of. The solar system and galaxies seem to be ‘out there’ with no relevance to us. Rarely do we think about, much less comprehend, the reality of our existence inside those higher worlds  and part of an all-encompassing ‘Absolute’ where everything is one.

Our existence in the Ray of Creation takes on particular meaning in terms of the psychological tendencies that obstruct awareness. This is because the intricate machinery of our psychology plays a key role in the way we receive and transmit influences coming from the Ray of Creation. Specifically, it is by means of imagination, identification, and negative emotions that we conduct influences to the earth and principally to the moon. But we usually interpret the effect of these influences as our own: as ‘my’ impulses, my thoughts, my emotions, my decisions, and my behavior. Said another way, when higher influences act on us, they vivify a sense of identity which in turn camouflages the fact that we are part of an enormous transmission of influences taking place between planets-earth-moon.

This transmission occurs mainly via identification and negative emotions, with identification as the conduit and negative emotions as the current passing through it. The more identified we are, the more we strengthen the conduit; and the more vociferously we express negative emotions, the more we increase the voltage passing through us.

Negative emotions may seem inconsequential on an individual basis, but when you multiply their effect by eight billion humans, the impact on a planetary scale is palpable. Suffice it to say that humanity and the earth would be very different without human beings manufacturing, indulging in, and expressing negative emotions. At the same time, however, this would not benefit the larger purposes of the Ray of Creation. It would benefit only individuals.

For those individuals, the benefit would come in two forms: it would loosen the grip that negative emotions have over awareness, and it would sever the cable of identification that keeps awareness tied to the earth and tethered to the moon.

From this perspective, being more conscious about not expressing negative emotions outwardly and not identifying with them inwardly marks the beginning of a profound turnaround in our psychology that leads to a new realization of awareness and the possibility of transforming the finest energy we possess.