Enrique Rojas Questionnaire

Answered by Kevin Brown, member of FOF

In January 1955, Rodney Collin was sent a questionnaire by an Argentinian journalist. Here is his prefatory comment. I cannot do better. It must be understood that these questions cannot be answered simply by verbal formulas. It needs many years of special study and experiment even to understand the meaning of the words that have been used. So the comments on the questions should not be taken as answers, but only as an indication of the long work necessary for each individual to come to his own conclusion. 1. How long have you practiced the fourth way and what difference has it made in your life? I have been in the school for 33 years. The difference in my life is not a quantitative change but a qualitative one. Its not a question of more happiness or joy or goodness. Its becoming a different order of creation. We live an animal existence imagining we are human. We also have the potential for a human existence and a divine existence (higher self or third eye.) This is the ultimate journey for man. With specific and sufficient work, directed by an awakened Teacher, these higher states begin in flashes and ultimately become permanent. In this divine state, we have true joy and goodness. Najm Al-Din ar-Razi (Daya): Know that the true meaning of Third Eye, Cairo the word return is the turning back to the Divine Presence. Rilke: Angels, its said, often dont know if they move among the living or the dead 1 Kings 3: In Gibeon, the LORD [Higher Self] appeared to Solomon and God said, Ask what I shall give thee. And Solomon said, I am but a little child: I know not how to go out or come in. Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people. And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself. Behold, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honor. And if thou wilt walk in my ways, to keep my statutes and my commandments, then I will lengthen thy days. Matthew 7:15-16: Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheeps clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. So every good tree bears good fruit.
Figure 1- Pharaoh Offering

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Enrique Rojas Questionnaire

Answered by Kevin Brown, member of FOF

2. How did these teachings become known to you? As in the tradition of ancient schools, it was by word of mouth that I learned about these principles. Guru Nanak: Beloved friend, on thy lips ever be the Name of God![Third Eye] 3. Which is the main difference between your school and other Fourth Way schools? All real schools, at all locations, and all times, from pre-history to the present, teach the same message. The message describes the long journey of awakening from an imaginary life into the real life of silent, divine, and loving presence of our own third eye. However, each school must reinterpret and present the same message in its own way, related to the role of the school and nature of its Teacher and students.
Figure 2- Male Speaks in Females Ear (West Mexico, Nayarit, Ixtlan, De Young SF)

Egyptian Texts: The key to all problems is the problem of consciousness. Figure 3 - Kufu, Cairo Museum Gurdjieff: There are periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations; often coinciding with geological cataclysms, climatic changes, and similar phenomena of a planetary character, which release a very great quantity of the matter of knowledge. This, in its turn, necessitates the work [of Schools] of collecting this matter of knowledge which would otherwise be lost. 4. It is said that Gurdjieff focused on the motor center and Ouspensky on the intellectual. How is it that R. E. Burton focuses on the emotional? Work on the emotional center is necessary because the path to awakening third eye begins with the heart, purifying and remembering in order to develop the strength and willingness to sustain divine wordless presence. 1 Chronicles 22:19: Now set your heart to seek the Lord [third eye]; arise therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the Lord [third eye].

Figure 4- Chinese Buddha (Song Dynasty, Muse Guimet, Paris)

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Enrique Rojas Questionnaire

Answered by Kevin Brown, member of FOF

5. Burton says art feeds the emotional center. Is this true only with respect to classical art or to modern art also? Schools use art to express the message to those who can receive it, and to transmit the message to other schools. Art created in schools uses symbols of presence to remind third eye to be present to itself and to instruct third eye with specific techniques, used by schools since pre-history, on how to develop the heart to retrieve third eye from imagination. However, it requires a Teacher to interpret the symbols for the Figure 5 Procession of Six with Offerings, Cairo initiate. Quintilian, Marcus Fabius: The perfection of art is to conceal art. 6. Is self-remembering only a manner of paying attention to actions, perceptions, and thoughts? Consciousness is not functions: not movement, sensations, feelings, or thoughts. Consciousness in the universe is a vast spectrum, from the consciousness of a rock to that of the Absolute. The potential consciousness of a man is also a vast spectrum. At some point in a man, his awareness approaches that of the divine, also known as self-remembering, coexisting with his human and animal consciousness. Figure 6- An Artist in his Studio, by
Rembrandt (1629)

Najm Al-Din ar-Razi (Daya): Sufis keep themselves constantly busy in their mind and heart, practicing remembrance during all their actions and behaviors. Philokalia, Theophan the Recluse: Attention to what goes on in the heart and to what comes forth from it is the chief work of a well-ordered Christian life. Kabbalah: It is the duty of a man to be ever male and female, in order that his faith may be firm, and that the Divine Presence may never depart from him.

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Enrique Rojas Questionnaire

Answered by Kevin Brown, member of FOF

7. Is self-remembering similar to vipassana techniques? Can you practice both at the same time? All traditions and even psychology today recognize the chaos of the human mind and seek remedies to this malady. Vipassana, as it is practiced today, requires specific preconditions. Self-remembering, divine presence, or third eye, cannot be dependent on specific circumstances or conditions. It is for all the moments of ones life, the Figure 7 - Buddha (Indian significant as well as the inconspicuous; to be present to 3rd century, Freer Gallery of Art) whatever one is doing. Augustine: There is another inward kind of prayer without ceasing, which is the desire of the heart. The continuance of thy longing is the continuance of thy prayer. You will be ceasing to live if you cease to long for it. 8. How can anyone start to practice self-remembering? Be where you are, and be awake to what you are doing. Empty your heart of animal passions and fill it with longing for union with the divine within you. Ibn Arabi: When you restrain your anger...you outrage the devil, since you have tamed your animal self and subdued it. Rilke: Your life is now yearning forth beyond the great thing toward the greater one. That is why it does not cease to be difficult; that is why it will not cease to grow. Rumi: Work in the invisible world at least as hard as you do in the visible.

Figure 8- Winchester Cathedral

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This Message and all its contents are copyrighted and the exclusive property of the Fellowship of Friends, Inc. There is no use allowed without permission of the FOF. (C) (2010) All Rights Reserved. 12/9

Enrique Rojas Questionnaire

Answered by Kevin Brown, member of FOF

9. Does transformation of suffering relate to the Christian idea of pain as a way to redemption? Suffering creates a tremendous amount of energy that, with training and practice, can be used to ignite the presence of third eye. This is the inner meaning of redemption: freedom from lower self. Robert Burton: At times during ones life, it may seem as if everything is falling apart, but in fact, through the transformation of suffering into divine presence, everything comes together. Philokalia, Symeon the New Theologian: Suffering is the source of nearly all our joy. Talmud: Rabbi Akiva said, 'Beloved are sufferings.' Rumi: The honey is worth the sting. Philokalia, Monk Callistus: God [third eye] is fire which burns the evil wiles of the demons and of our passions. 10. In the book Self Remembering, Burton says that the work takes a few lives. What is the role of reincarnation in your school? Past lives have disappeared, and the future is unknowable. Change of consciousness can only occur now; otherwise it is merely imaginary change. If one is curious about past lives, one is living one now; so live now. The inner meaning of Sasra (Sanskrit for continuous flow or wandering) refers to the endless reincarnation of imagination as one struggles to awaken. Ramachakra: As we progress on to higher planes of life, we shall incarnate in bodies far more ethereal than those now used by us. 11. In the same book, Burton says that the sexual center's function is to activate the pineal gland. People who study about chakras relate the pineal gland to aja chakra. Are other chakras related to any other centers? The inner meaning of ancient medicines and alchemy is the possibility to use the physical body to create an astral body, which can exist without a physical body when fully developed. Kabbalah, Zohar, Genesis 1, 150/1: As regards the higher world, Pyramid in Solar Plexus (Tibet) he was not sure of it till he had perfected himself Philokalia, Thalassios the Libyan: Make the body serve the commandments.
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Figure 9- Resurrected Christ & Christ on Green Cross Detail (St Denis, 12th

Figure 11 Card number X in the Tarot of Marseille, as restored by Philippe Camoin

Figure 10- Man with

Enrique Rojas Questionnaire

Answered by Kevin Brown, member of FOF

12. What benefits can an ordinary man obtain by practicing the Fourth Way? Schools are for ordinary people who are not satisfied with merely an animal or human existence. They are not satisfied because somehow they were shown a glimpse of another level of existence, as a kind of prescience of his possibilities. If this ordinary man can make the commitment and payment for his higher self, he is no longer an ordinary man. Rumi: The way is full of genuine sacrifice. The thickets blocking the path are anything that keeps you from that, any fear that you may be broken to bits like a glass bottle. This road demands courage and stamina, yet it's full of footprints! Who are these companions? They are rungs in your ladder. Use them! With company you quicken your ascent.

Figure 12- Heavenly Ladder (St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai)

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