Centers (Fourth Way) - Importance in The Fourth Way

Importance in The Fourth Way

In the Fourth Way, study of the centers is an important part of self-development. Students of that path must observe themselves. Study of the centers gives a framework and context for two things:

  • What to observe. In the Fourth Way, dispassionate self-observation must begin somewhere. The study of centers gives students a place to begin.
  • What is actually being observed. When observations are made, students may frame the observations using the concept of "the centers." For example, a student may observe an increased heart rate and increased respirations while watching a sporting event. In Fourth Way terminology, the student might say, "The body had a definite reaction when the team made the touchdown." Placing self observations within the language of the centers helps students become dispassionate about what they observe, or, to use Fourth Way terminology further, it helps students "not identify" with what they observe.

Read more about this topic:  Centers (Fourth Way)

Famous quotes containing the words importance in the, importance in, importance and/or fourth:

    The Mississippi, the Ganges, and the Nile,... the Rocky Mountains, the Himmaleh, and Mountains of the Moon, have a kind of personal importance in the annals of the world.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    There are of course people who are more important than others in that they have more importance in the world but this is not essential and it ceases to be. I have no sense of difference in this respect because every human being comprises the combination form.
    Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)

    There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.
    John Dewey (1859–1952)

    ‘Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one, another it kills: like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield at night which it besieged but in the morning; for there is no force able to resist it.
    Miguel De Cervantes (1547–1616)