Free to Serve a Higher Purpose

Free to Serve a Higher Purpose

Without self-remembering, I cannot sincerely view my efforts as First, Second, or Third Lines of Work anymore than I can say that I have run a marathon just because I dreamt it. Work in the Fourth Way system means to proceed first from the understanding of the need to awaken. In The Tempest, Shakespeare observed the human condition as “… a strange repose, to be asleep With eyes wide open; standing, speaking, moving, And yet so fast asleep." These words are some of the best descriptions in literature of the second state of consciousness. With the voice of Prospero, Shakespeare asserts that “... our little life is rounded with a sleep.” From the effort to verify my sleep and begin to wake up through self-remembering, I can engage in First Line Work – it is the starting point.

As one begins to awaken, it is one’s duty to help others, just as one has been helped. —The Teacher

Last week, the topic for our discussion was Second Line Work – work with other people. Again, self-remembering is the cornerstone of all Work. The best assistance I can give to another is to be present while sharing the knowledge that I have received from the Teacher. The Teacher instructs that he, “… can only communicate knowledge, the teacher cannot communicate being,” and that “Knowledge cannot be a substitute for self-remembering.” This is a poignant reminder for me to share and communicate as best I can from self-remembering.

The aim of the Work is to become free, and to help others to become free – free to serve a higher purpose. What makes for freedom? Faith, kindness, courage, knowledge, selflessness, and understanding. This is the work of Schools. —Rodney Collin

Coupled with knowledge and understanding my being grows and I find myself wanting to serve a higher purpose. The desire to share with others is a natural offshoot. My involvement with this Facebook Group is an example of imparting to others what I have been given and value. As I write, I try to make efforts to compose these essays from a place of sincerity – from a higher state. This can be seen as Second Line Work.

The longer one is in the school, the more is expected of one. The ability to contribute to third line of work increases … It is not sufficient simply to know one’s machine, one must do something with it which ennobles oneself and humanity. —The Teacher

On this journey of awakening, there is a progression from knowledge to understanding which increases being, then a student spirals up into even more objective levels of understanding as he or she begins to teach. It is an inward, expansive journey which eventually results in contributing to the building of an outward structure, intended to gather wisdom and to give form to a School in order to pass the esoteric tradition on to the next generation. Third Line Work – work for the School – can be seen as the Process of Regeneration, as Rodney Collin speaks of it. The process by which something is “re-created a second time by will, intention and purpose. It implies a second birth.”

It is the duty of a school to disseminate esoteric knowledge because there is no greater gift to bring to people than the knowledge of their selves. There are certain things that one can learn only through teaching, and second line of work is designed so that the students in the school have an opportunity to teach. It is our duty not only to remember ourselves but to transfer what we learn to the school. Self-remembering is first line; translating it is third line. —The Teacher

To participate in Third Line Work, students learn about self-will by borrowing the will of the Teacher, thereby serving a conscious, higher purpose with the strength of a conscious, unified direction in harmony with the Teacher’s vision. The Teacher has said that “Our school functions because those who have entered the way have yielded their will to a higher will.” Each Teacher and School have their own outward form, conditions, and tasks to bring to humanity. Some examples of various esoteric forms of schools are the Gothic cathedral builders, Plato’s Akademia, the Sufi Whirling Dervishes, the Hindu Schools of ancient India, Buddhist Schools, the School of Moses, the School of Jesus, the writers of the Egyptian Pyramid texts, to name a few. Third Line Work for cathedral builders is quite different from that of whirling dervishes, yet the inner goal of awakening is the same.

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. —Pericles

It is my hope that this Facebook Group for me is not only First and Second Line Work, but a growing community where Third Line reaches out to find other people searching – as I once did – to find a practical approach to living life more consciously.

While the school will take care of the students, it is more true that students must take care of the school. It is necessary to work for a greater aim than oneself throughout one’s life – to assist the conscious aspects of the Ray of Creation. —The Teacher

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Prospero and Ariel, William Hamilton (1751–1801)