Body, feeling, mind – all have to be transcended. One has to become just alert – alert of all that happens within and without. The only key for the fourth way is to be mindful, to be aware, to witness, to see into things – and not to get identified……” “There are four ways to reach God. One is to make an effort through the body to reach; that’s what hatha yogis have been doing. It is not a true way. Something can be achieved through it – because finally the body also belongs to God – but it is not your totality.
Gurdjieff has called this ‘the way of the fakir’.
You can see many fakirs in India. You may be impressed by their attainments; they attain to certain powers. For example, you can come across a fakir who has been standing continuously, for ten, twenty years. He has never allowed his body to rest – to sit down or to sleep. He has been standing. Even if he has to sleep, he sleeps standing. Now his body has become almost rigid, paralyzed. Now it cannot move; the flexibility is lost. But you will see certain powers in him because he has attained to the lowest kind of will; to stand for ten years continuously needs a will. Just try for ten days and you will know. Just try for ten hours and you will know. Just try for ten minutes – not moving, just standing – and you will know. A thousand and one problems arise. The mind says: ‘What are you doing? Drop this whole nonsense. Everybody is enjoying and what are you doing? just standing like a fool?’
Ten years, not moving, and a very low kind of will concerned with the body happens. It is very materialistic, but a will arises. The man attains to a certain crystallization. He can do a few things: he can heal. He can touch your body and healing power will be possible through his body to flow towards you. He can bless; he can curse. And whatsoever he says will come to pass. Because a man who has remained standing for ten years, has attained to an intensity. If he says something, those words become very potential and powerful. They are atomic; they carry energy. If he curses you, the curse is going to happen. If he blesses you, the blessing will be there. But this man himself will remain on a very low rung of being. If you look into his eyes you will not see intelligence; he will be a stupid type of saint. Nothing of the higher, but a crystallization of the lower will be there. You can feel certain powerful vibrations around him, not of intelligence, not of awareness, not of meditation – but of concentration. He can live a long time – a hundred or two hundred years will not be very difficult for him, because his body will follow him.
Whatsoever he wants to do with the body, he can do. But it is nothing of the spiritual; it is nothing of the religious. If you try through the body, you are trying the lowest possibility within you. If a fakir is fortunate, then he may get the guidance of a Master who can pull him out of his body. Otherwise, he will die, deep in his body. And next life, everything will be lost again. Unless something is attained in consciousness, it cannot be permanent because the body will change. Whatsoever you have attained with this body will be lost with the next. You may be a Mohammed Ali, but you cannot carry the body to the next birth; this body will be left here. You may be a beautiful man; you may be a beautiful woman, a Cleopatra – but this body has to be left here. All that has been attained through the body and with the body will be lost. Unless the fakir is fortunate enough to come under the guidance of a Master, he cannot be pulled out of his body.
In India, it has been one of the compassion of the Masters… You must have heard, there are ancient stories that in India Masters used to travel all around the country on the surface, it looked as if they were great intellectuals: a Shankaracharya, a Ramanuja, a Vallabha, a Nimbark, a Buddha, a Mahavir. On the surface, it looked as if they were going to convert people. That was just a superficial thing. Deep down, they were doing many things. One of the most important things was to go from town to town to look after fakirs – because those fakirs could not come to you. They were so deep-rooted in their bodies; they had lost all intelligence. They were not bad people; they were ignorant but powerful. If their power could be released, they could suddenly jump to a higher rung of their being.
Meher Baba, in this age, did such work. He traveled all around the country for years. just looking after fakirs. Wherever he would hear that a fakir is, he would go – to bring him out of his stupor. A fakir is a good man, a very good man – but ignorant.
Then there is the second. Gurdjieff has called it ‘the way of the monk’. You can call it the way of the devotee, BHAKTI MARG. The first is hatha yoga; the second is BHAKTI MARG – the way of the monk. The way of the monk is to get to the divine through feelings, prayers, crying, weeping – in deep love and affection, in a deep thirst to move towards God. But this type of man gets involved in the emotions. He achieves a greater state, A higher stage than the first, the fakir – but still, he is caught. Somebody is needed to bring him out of that also. Then there is the third way: the way of the yogi. He works through the intellect; he works through thinking. It is the way of the philosopher, the intellectual. He attains still a higher stage, but then he gets caught. All three get caught!
Only the fourth goes beyond and is never caught. That’s why Gurdjieff has called his path ‘the fourth way’. And it is significant to understand because the Hassidic path is also the fourth way. Hassidism, the Hassidic approach also belongs to the fourth. Body, feeling, mind – all have to be transcended. One has to become just alert – alert of all that happens within and without. The only key for the fourth way is to be mindful, to be aware, to witness, to see into things – and not to get identified. -OSHO
