Rebecca Nottingham > Quotes

“It can be very helpful if you keep a notebook to record your observations. It helps you to remember them more fully and with more accuracy. What did you say; how did you react; what were your motives; what were your actions; what emotional states were you in; did you pretend; did you lie by omission or by commission; were you insincere; did you justify yourself; did you gossip or slander anyone; did you have any moment of self-awareness at all or did you sleep-walk through your day wasting every opportunity to awaken?”
― Rebecca Nottingham, The Work: Esotericism and Christian Psychology

“Inner purification is its goal although it claims the aim is to raise your level of consciousness. That’s because it is through purification that your consciousness and Being are raised.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“Why, for example, is it necessary to struggle with identifying, with negative states, with imagination, with internal considering, with self-justifying and other forms of mechanical lying, with mechanical talking, and so on. Why should one try to observe and break buffers or notice mechanical attitudes, or detect pictures of oneself? Why must false personality be struggled with in all its unpleasant manifestations? Why should it be necessary to remember oneself?”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“When we are born we are nothing but Essence and our given body, however, being born among sleeping people we gradually begin to acquire a personality which surrounds Essence. This is a necessary development because Essence is weak and cannot grow past a certain point because it cannot get the right food from life. It is not childish or immature it is an expression of your innate characteristics and your purpose all of which can be overwhelmed by life influences.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“The Work teaches that the part of us that is the most real, the part we are born with, comes down from the stars, from above the level of life on this earth.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“Take quite simply this one single instruction: do not identify.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“It’s the version you are meant to be remembering when you practice self-remembering.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“the mechanical manifestations of Personality because it is not your real ‘I’. In part, this is how you can make Personality passive.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“Man consists of two parts: essence and personality. Essence in Man is what is his own. Personality in Man is what is ‘not his own’. ‘Not his own’ means what has come from outside, what he has learned or reflects, all traces of exterior impressions left in the memory and in the sensations, all words and movements that have been learned, all feelings created by imitation – all this ‘is not his own’; all this is personality.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“Because Essence cannot grow past a certain point, personality becomes a necessary external development acquired to enable us to contact outer life, do our jobs and live our life in the world. At first, Essence is active and it gets in contact with the world through the body but as personality is acquired Essence becomes passive and after a few years it is the personality that is active and in contact with the world.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“When you have just criticized someone, go over what you said carefully and apply it to yourself. This neutralizes poison in you.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“Essence is deathless. When the body of flesh and bones is laid aside it returns to the place from which it came, taking what it has received.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“The only aim that will take you on the path of self-evolution in the Work is the aim of expressing your love of God and desire to become a fitting vessel to accommodate and manifest His Holy Spirit.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“Personality must be formed and become active. A man must learn all about the life he is born into on this earth. Later, if he has magnetic center, and if he wishes, he may find the means of making his developed personality passive by long inner work. By doing so, he feeds Essence through inner struggle. So, the Work, which is the right second education starts with making Personality passive by inner separation, non-identifying, self-remembering, and so on." Maurice Nicoll”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“For a man to be told, for example, to work on habitual lying, will be useless. Only by observing in himself, alone, in secret inwardly and in silence, that he lies, can he work effectively on these lying 'I's in himself. His aim will be appropriate and real.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“To become more conscious of yourself is a strange experience. To become conscious of others is just as strange and even more strange. The life you yourself lead with passions and jealousies, meanness, dislikes and hatreds, becomes utterly ridiculous. You wonder, in fact, what on earth you have been doing all your life. Have you been insane? you ask yourself. Yes, exactly. In the deep sleep we live in, in the light of the Kingdom of Heaven, we are all utterly insane and do not know what we are doing.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“The purpose of the Work is to reverse the dynamic of personality being active and Essence being passive.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“Remember that Personality is a necessary development and not to be despised, just purified.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“It has been understood and it has been taught not only since the beginning of known history, which is only a brief portion of all human history, but long before it, reaching us only in legendary form, in myths and allegories.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“All these interests develop personality, and in time, from personality, especially false personality, other interests arise, which become part of human life and which again are A influences.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“Essence can only grow at the expense of personality which is why the Work is directed at the personality. You cannot work on Essence directly, but you can work on it by making personality passive, by working against the features of personality”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“So, all practical work is aimed at gradually making personality passive so that Essence can become active.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“It predates all religions and all legitimate religions have this teaching at their inception. It springs from the unarticulated desire for re-union with the creator which is inborn in every human being. That means that any and every pathway that leads to the level of spirit above is the same pathway, no matter what it is called. They are all one and the same because there is only one pathway that leads to Spirit, that is inner purity. No matter the dress, the form, the name, or the popularity, the way is one.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“The experiment of religion in trying to convey this teaching to the human race has largely failed and it’s more important than ever that the teaching, which is universal, survives as it was given, reflecting accurately the pure unaltered teaching from conscious influences.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“which are purely acquired psychological formations in you. Acquiring this personality that you take as yourself is called the first education, and although it is necessary it is not all that is available to Mankind. The Work is a second education for those who are not fulfilled by the satisfactions of life. Essence is the point from which the real person can grow but it can't do so as long as personality is active and controls the Inner Life. You can’t retain your full-blown personality and develop Essence at the same time.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“can’t emphasize this strongly enough. The Fourth Way Work is not a religious path. It predates and transcends all religions, traditions and their practices and is always the same teaching about a human being’s possible evolution through the development of consciousness as taught in the Fourth Way Work of inner purification.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“The body exists in the three-dimensional world but the Essence is different. The body perishes but Essence does not, it is eternal.”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“Lies kill Essence. Truth develops”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way

“This acquired machine of Personality works mechanically, automatically, without thought or effort. However, you are not this machine. It is your Personality that reacts mechanically and this is what you have to observe in yourselves. You have to begin to verify the mechanical nature of your Personality through self-observation according to the Work teaching so that you can see that "It" does, "It" reacts, you do not. And then you must learn to say "This is not ‘I’ to”
― Rebecca Nottingham, Finding the Divine Within: Wisdom of the Fourth Way