Fourth Way

After Ouspensky's death, his students published a book entitled The Fourth Way based on his lectures.

According to this system, the three traditional schools, or ways, "are permanent forms which have survived throughout history mostly unchanged, and are based on religion.

Schools of the fourth way exist for the needs of the work which is being carried out in connection with the proposed undertaking.

It emphasizes that people ordinarily live in a state referred to as a semi-hypnotic "waking sleep," while higher levels of consciousness, virtue, and unity of will are possible.

"[4] The Fourth Way teaches that the soul a human individual is born with gets trapped and encapsulated by personality, and stays dormant, leaving one not really conscious, despite believing one is.

"[8] Gurdjieff's followers believed he was a spiritual master,[9] a human being who is fully awake or enlightened.

[10] He agreed that the teaching was esoteric but claimed that none of it was veiled in secrecy but that many people lack the interest or the capability to understand it.

The Gurdjieff Foundation, was established in 1953 in New York City by Jeanne de Salzmann in cooperation with other direct pupils.

[12] He left a body of music, inspired by that which he had heard in remote monasteries and other places, which was written for piano in collaboration with one of his pupils, Thomas de Hartmann.

[13] The Fourth way was influenced by Tibetan Buddhism, according to Jose Tirado,[14] and Chatral Rinpoche alleged that Gurdjieff spent several years in a Buddhist monastery in the Swat valley.

Having migrated for four years after escaping the Russian Revolution with dozens of followers and family members, Gurdjieff settled in France and established his Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Château Le Prieuré at Fontainebleau-Avon in October 1922.