Just a Pack of Cards!

Just a Pack of Cards!

In a recent post called “Self-remembering and Organizing the Functions,” David Tuttle explains that “We need to organize [the lower centers] so that they support the work … We must develop discipline in the four centers - not mechanical discipline, but conscious discipline, that is, one based on self-remembering.”

In our School of the Fourth Way, we use a common English deck of playing cards to help organize our thoughts and observations about the four lower centers. Each suit represents one of the lower centers. Clubs represent the Instinctive Center, Spades represent the Moving Center, Diamonds represent the Intellectual Center, and Hearts represent the Emotional Center.

You might recall in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” that some characters were from a deck of cards. The different suits held duties corresponding to nearly the same distinctions we use in the Fourth Way. In Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland, the suit of Clubs represents the soldiers (Instinctive Center), Spades represents the gardeners (Moving Center), Diamonds represents the courtiers (Intellectual Center), and Hearts represents members of the royal family (Emotional Center).

Familiarizing myself with – and observing – the distinctive flavor of my four lower centers facilitates orderliness and discipline when making observations of the I’s that can be traced back to a particular center. Following are a few simple examples of categorizing the many I’s: “I wish he would leave the room when he coughs” or “I am comfortable sitting in this chair” come from the instinctive center; “She was very apologetic for hurting my feelings” or “I enjoy spending time with my friends” come from the emotional center; “I have cabin fever and need to take a walk” or “I need to rest after my exercise class” come from the moving center; “I agree that we should verify those facts” or “I disagree and I am convinced that we do not need to do further research” come from the intellectual center.

In addition to the main categories of these four lower centers, each suit can be further subdivided such that the Kings represent the Intellectual part of each center, the Queens represent the Emotional part of each center, and the Jacks represent the Moving/Instinctive part of each center. Here are a few examples: when excited about physics or ideas, this suggests the emotional part (the Queen of Diamonds) of the Intellectual Center; when greeting someone and saying “Hello, how are you?” this often emerges without attention in the moving/instinctive part (the Jack of Hearts) of the Emotional Center; when packing the trunk of the car, the careful attention brought to spatial relationships dwells in the intellectual part (the King of Spades) of the Moving Center; and the part in us that is least attracted to giving attention to consciousness is the intellectual part (the King of Clubs) of the Instinctive Center. The King of Clubs is almost exclusively concerned with our health and the survival of the machine – it can be experienced as eyes in the back of our head when walking in a dark alley.

It is important to remember that every part of the four lower centers has its right work and place. When all of these parts are intentionally disciplined, organized, and balanced we are able to attain our higher endeavors. The many I’s which come from the four lower centers can be neutralized by the light of observation. In that light, they lose their power and we can then put our identity into something higher. The leaks of energy that result from wrong work of centers are minimized and the otherwise wasted energy can be redirected into the fuel for higher centers.

Of course, people in the past have become conscious without this detailed knowledge of the four lower centers, but this is one of the departure points in the Fourth Way. The Fourth Way is practiced in our daily lives and combines the wisdom of all three ways: 1) the way of the fakir – instinctive way, 2) the way of the monk – the emotional way, and 3) the way of the yogi – the intellectual way. By simultaneously using all three ways of wisdom, our efforts towards consciousness and development is thereby strengthened and our chances of living our highest potential are increased to receive the gift of higher centers.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” ─ Socrates

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English Deck of Playing Cards