The fourth way to nowhere

A practice regularly observed in my early days in the London Centre, but later fallen into disuse, was the Centre Dinner (dinners with the Teacher, however, continue in Apollo). One could participate as a server or as a guest. My first experience was as a guest. The idea was to create a fine dining experience. There would be a freshly ironed linen table cloth and a small centrepiece of flowers.  The guests would be greeted at the door and their coats hung up, and then ushered into the living room where pre-dinner drinks would be served. Meanwhile other students would be working with food preparation, serving and ‘restoration’ (clearing up). Once the guests were seated and before the start of dinner one of the serving students or one of the diners would read a poem or other inspiring text. Everything would be done very intentionally. Courses were served to the left of each diner and empty plates taken from the right. I do not know if this is normal in high-end dining but it was supposed

Every thing possible to be believ’d is an image of truth. —William Blake In my early days in the Fellowship there were up to twenty members in the London Centre, and new students came and went fairly often. I attended meetings about once a week, which were held in what was called ‘The Teaching House,’ a rented house in a pleasant suburb of London. The rent was partly paid by students who lived there and partly by contributions from other London members.  We sat around the room usually in a circle and there would be a vase of flowers placed in the centre of the room. Someone would lead the meeting, usually supported by another student who might or might not say anything. There would be a Work topic, and meeting leaders had a free choice as to what they would talk about, although it was always about something in the fourth way as understood in the Fellowship.  Often the topic would have been announced the week before so that students could make personal observations prior to the meeting

According to the System we are born without personality, which the Fellowship calls false personality. As babies we are in essence: intelligent but guileless. Personality is a mask through which we deal with the world and behind which we hide. In Grimm’s fairytale of that name, Maid Maleen refuses to marry the man her father the king has chosen for her. Instead she is in love with the true prince. To prevent this marriage the king locks Maid Maleen and her maidservant in a stone tower with sufficient food for seven years. The true prince rides past and calls her name, but she cannot hear him because of the thickness of the walls. In the terms of the fourth way system, Maid Maleen could be seen as essence seeking the fulfilment of her full potential, represented by the prince. The stone tower represents the protection from the outside world by personality that essence hides behind. A catastrophic war follows in which the kingdom is laid waste apart from the tower itself. What prompts M

  Voluntary suffering does not mean wearing a hair shirt or self-flagellation. It means not kicking against the goads. Things are what they are. What we wish to change we can try to change. What we can’t change we must learn to accept. But to complain about what we can’t change is just a waste of energy, and creates additional turmoil inside us which is rightly called unnecessary suffering. Complaining is a negative emotion, resentment is another. In modern parlance it is ‘could-have, would-have, should-have.’ It is weakness. If you could have but didn’t, let it go. Start from where you are. The present moment dissolves the idiocies of the past, not so as to repair them, but so as to avoid repeating them. Always consider your aim—what do you want to happen? What will happen if you express what you feel—will things be better or worse? Will it matter a year from now? Ouspensky claimed that there is nothing noble, beautiful or strong in negative emotions. There is a nobility and strength