Schools are for people who need them

We’ve been posting and you’ve been reading. Even though the men and women who post are in a Fourth Way school, these Facebook posts and replies to comments do not constitute school work. They are, at best, group activities.

From the knowledge that George Gurdjieff brought from Asia to the West and Peter Ouspensky codified, it’s clear that previous schools, wherever and whenever they existed, both perfected and continued the practices of the fourth way.

In a school, as expected, there is a teacher and students. The teacher has at least three roles. He foments the observation and destruction of all that is false within the student; he supports and sustains the efforts of the student to remember him or herself, and the teacher helps the student create a permanent principle of consciousness.

What makes school work sure, are three lines of work. On the first line of work, the student works only for him or herself, making efforts for self-remembering. The second line of work consists in students working with and for each other, supporting each other’s efforts to remember themselves. The third line of work comprises the student’s efforts for the school with no expectation of getting something other than the betterment of the school.

How do these lines of work assure the evolution of consciousness? In every effort, there are intervals. We can address the nature of intervals in a separate post. When a student forgets about self-remembering, other students can offer reminders. This re-affirms the student’s aim to remember him or herself, and creates a conscious, rather than a mechanical friendship between students. When in an interval in self-remembering, a student may make efforts for the school, and distance themselves from their personal difficulties or neuroses by working for something larger or higher outside of themselves. Naturally there are other permutations of how the three lines of work support the students, the teacher and the school.

No conscious evolution is possible without a school. For some, this is seemingly harsh and arbitrary. For others it is a liberation because they understand that schools are for people who need them and know they need them. Entering and remaining in a school is one of the most solitary and intimate experiences an individual can encounter.

"Conscious development is impossible without a school, because one cannot look after oneself—one simply cannot remember things at the right time; one will forget or make things easy for oneself. If it were possible to work by oneself, school would be a waste of time and would not be necessary; but since it exists, it means that it is impossible without it."

~ P.D. Ouspensky

Post by Charles R

Image: School of Athens, Rafael

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