Fourth Way
Used Esoteric Books

The spiritual life story of Ethel Merston based on her diaries and recollections is an important historical work, as well as a keen insight into many of the seminal teachers of her times. Merston was one of Gurdjieff's first English pupils and lived at the Prieuré from 1922 until 1927. Her seriousness and organizational abilities led Gurdjieff to put her in charge in his absences. Fritz Peters gives a wonderful account of what she had to put up with (he gives her the name Miss Madison) in his Boyhood with Gurdjieff. In India, she lived at Ramana Maharshi's ashram for many years. She gives a first-person account of his death and also the meeting between The Mother and Sri Aurobindo and Anandamayi Ma (with whom she often traveled). She also attended many of Krishnamurti's talks and seminars in the 1930s, was a friend of Sunyata, Alain Daniélou, Krishna Prem and Swami Omananda. In the 1950s she was initiated into Subud by Pak Subuh at J. G. Bennett's Coombe Springs study house. At Mendham, she met again her friends from her Gurdjieff days—Mme de Salzmann, Mme Ouspensky, Olga de Hartmann and Peggy Flinsch—and was introduced to Lord John Pentland.

"The life of a seeker of truth, Ethel Merston, is recounted in this English language book. Her extraordinary quest for enlightenment which led her to meet many of the eminent spiritual figures of the last century: G. I. Gurdjieff (and others in the Fourth Way, to which she remained faithful her whole life—P. D. Ouspensky, J. G. Bennett, Mme de Salzmann and Lord Pentland), Krishnamurti, Anandamayi Ma, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, Ramana Maharshi, to name only a few. We follow her on her voyage from bourgeois England to the heart of India, a voyage as much exterior as interior. Her journal, kept daily, serves as Ariadne's thread for the author of the biography, who presents Ethel Merston's impressions and comments restored to us in all their freshness, and what each encounter brought forth in her. With Gurdjieff, she learned of the separation between the "I" and the "it," that is to say to realize that "it" thinks in us, that "it" moves, that "it" reacts, all automatically. This teaching was for her a valuable tool of discrimination in all her future encounters. She wasn't touched by Krishnamurti's teaching, although she found in it emphases on the conditioned mental process familiar to her. Of particular interest are her direct accounts of a meeting between Krishnamurti and Anandamayi Ma, who questioned Krishnamurti about the reason for his refusal of gurus, and the meeting between Anandamayi Ma and The Mother of Auroville. But it is Ramana Maharshi who made the greatest impression on her: "The idea of time is only in your mind. It is not in the Self. There is no time for the Self. Time arises as an idea after the ego arises. You exist even in the absence of time and of space." Of this Ethel Merston wrote: "All was new for me." She would return regularly to Ramana Maharshi's ashram, even being present at his death. The biography makes clear the differences between the teachings, and the bearers of these teachings, as experienced by Ethel Merston. It is thus a first hand testimony of evolved beings, with strong references to contemporary spirituality, as well as the impressions of a woman animated by the wish to awaken, with her doubts, incomprehensions, rejections and resistances, and her flashes of understanding, her maturing. An interesting work, reflecting an epoch and a search."
—Revue 3e millénaire

"There are few comprehensive accounts of individual Western pioneers who were interested in Indian spirituality in the first part of the 20th century. Ethel Merston left an intimate record of her journey as she constantly questioned and searched for a remedy to relieve the malady of her soul. We owe to Mary Ellen Korman our appreciation for chronicling that time and bringing to life many of the people Ethel Merston encountered, and who we never quite knew as fellow seekers committed to the search for higher truths."
—The Mountain Path, The Journal of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi

"I found Ethel Merston's life story fascinating. The narrative completely absorbed me and I was captivated from the first sentence by both substance as well as style. Ethel Merston was an exceptional individual and it is wonderful that her story has finally been told. An important work with considerable research."
—Ram Alexander, Author, Death Must Die: A Western Woman's Life-Long Spiritual Quest with Shree Anandamayee Ma

"The prose is seamless. Mary Ellen Korman has done exemplary work combining her own writing with that of Miss Merston who kept a diary of her life, travels, and reflections. Passages from this diary and other works are introduced into the narrative. The two voices are one voice, rather like the chanting of one of those Tibetan monks who is able to intone both a tone and an overtone in one breath simultaneously."
—John Robert Colombo, author, Poems of Space and Time and O Rare Denis Saurat