Unlike these paths, the Fourth Way, “the way of the sly man,” does not require withdrawal from the world, but can and should be pursued in the course of everyday life; and instead of working with the mind, the body, or the emotions alone, it works with all three.

The ' Fourth Way ' to which the title refers is a method of inner development - "the way of the sly man," as Gurdjieff described it. Rather than the three commonly known ways of enlightenment—physical, spiritual, and emotional—The Fourth Way presents a new way of reaching enlightenment, a more effective combination of the three known ways.

Upon entering the Fourth Way, sometimes called the way of the "sly man," a man does not give up anything in his ordinary life. He stays in life and works with all three sides of himself, his instincts, emotions and intellect; this re-aligns and balances him.

He instead advocated "the way of the sly man" [62] as a shortcut to encouraging inner development that might otherwise take years of effort and without any real outcome.

Oct 22, 2008 · The “sly man” knows the secret and with its help outstrips the fakir, the monk, and the yogi. There are “proper and legitimate ways” to attain the fourth way, but, Gurdjieff notes, there are also “artificial ways which give temporary results only.”

Unlike many spiritual traditions that require adherence to specific religious practices or ascetic disciplines, the Fourth Way is often referred to as “The Way Of The Sly Man” as this man works on all the three traditional ways simultaneously without the need of excluding himself from normal every day life and making much quicker progress ...

'I's which we see in ourselves are divided into several groups. Some of these groups are legitimate, they belong to right divisions of man, and some of them are quite artificial and are created by insufficient knowledge and by certain imaginary ideas that man has about himself.

At its core lies the concept of the “sly man,” a seeker who, rather than confining himself to a singular traditional path, simultaneously embarks on the journeys of the Fakir, Monk, and Yogi.

Apr 20, 2019 · The Fourth Way is also said to be the way of the “sly man”, but to be sly is to be crafty, cunning, and tricky. If you are sly you are deceitful or a charlatan, dishonest and evasive, a “rogue”.

What was described by Gurdjieff and Ouspensky as the way of the ‘sly man’ would potentially be understood or formulated by Nicoll as the way of the integration of the life, a phrase he used as a subtitle for one of his books.