Awakening: Presence as a Unifying Element

How can we see presence as a unifying element in our aim to awaken?

To awaken from our ordinary state of consciousness, we must be practical. The most practical tool for awakening is often one and the same. It may have several different names, describing the same phenomenon from different angles, however.

First and foremost of these names, as presented by Fourth Way authors, is ‘self-remembering.’ This means that the divine particle in us, our Self, needs to remember itself, which can only be done in the present moment. Peter Ouspensky offers us an additional, more precise, or technical term, ‘divided attention’. To awaken, we must divide our attention between ourselves and the activity in which we are partaking, such as observing a beautiful tree.

A third, more general term for a practical way to awaken is ‘being present.’ This term, not unlike self-remembering, puts in the foreground the fact that any awakening, or increase in consciousness, is connected with our ability to partake in the present moment. Indeed, the Jewish tradition says, ‘The Divine Presence is everywhere.” The process of awakening contains simultaneously a gradual increase in consciousness and the birth of an immortal astral body.

Traditions concerned with the spiritual development of a man or a woman often describe the human being as a multitude. When Christ asks an unclean spirit for its name, the spirit replies, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” Fourth Way authors describe this inner multiplicity as ‘the many ‘I’s.’ As long as we identify with each fleeting sensation of ‘I’, we cannot awaken. Awakening means a gradual increase of inner unity. At the same time, we must remember that awakening is not only possible, it is within reach. While we are indeed a multitude, there is a chance for us–a cure for what the Fourth Way describes as ‘sleep.’

This salvation lies in the creation of an entity supportive of presence within ourselves. This entity resides in the part in us that Fourth Way authors describe as the seat of intelligent emotion,[3] or the ‘king of hearts.’ This artificially-created entity is the result of work in schools for the higher development of man, and often called a ‘steward.’ It is the job of the steward to prepare the way for higher worlds. The king of hearts can take ordinary, mundane impressions and turn them into something beautiful and extraordinary. As in the Eastern saying, ‘Out of the mud grows the lotus.’

At a certain point after working with his spiritual teacher, George Gurdjieff, Peter Ouspensky was asked a question. What he had received from working with the Fourth Way? He replied that he had a part in him that was able to rise above the petty, selfish inner ‘I’s.

Benjamin B