EL CUARTO SENDERO

(The Fourth Way. P.D. Ouspensky.Vistage Books Edition, March 1971)

Summary

There are two other functions which no system of ordinary psychology divides and understand in the right way-instinctive function and moving function. Instinctive refers to the inner work of the organism: digestion of food, beating of the heart, breathing-these are instinctive functions. To instinctive function belong also ordinary senses-sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, the feeling of cold and warmth, etc. We do not learn instinctive funcions. Moving functions all have to be learn- a child learns to walk, to write, etc. So in self-observation it is necessry first of all to divide these four functions and to classify at once everything that you observe, saying, �this is intellectual function�, �this is emotional function� and so on. .

Generally you don�t remember yourself. If you could allways be aware of yourself all the time, then you would have will and could do what you liked. We can live in four states of consciousness, but such as we are we use only two: one when we are sleep, and the other when we are what we call �awake�. The third state of consiusness is very strange is called self-consciousness, and most people, if asked, say, �Certainly we are conscious. With self-consciousness, which is the third state of consciousness, we acquire a function which is called �higer emotional", although it is equally intellectual, because on this level there isno difference between intellectual and emotional such as there is on the ordinary level. And when come to the state of objective consciousness we acquiere another function which is calle �higher mental�. Phenomena of what I call supernormal psychology belong to these two functions; and this is why, when I made those experiments twenty-five years ago, I came to the conclusion that experimental work is impossible, because it is not a question of experiement but of changing one�s state of consciousness.

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