Love and freedom, Part IV: The Root of Image

In the act of awareness, it isn’t the nature of the image that is formed that matters. 

It’s its source.

If I believe I’m the source of the image, I become God. In doing so, I at once render the inwardly formed perception—the imagined— as my slave. 

Because it is of me, it ought to obey me. 

The problems with this mode of perception are perhaps self-evident, but let’s examine them anyway. If the image is of me, but does not obey me—which must eventually and inevitably turn out to be the case, because my perceptive premise is fundamentally false to begin with—a cognitive dissonance arises. I become angry and frustrated, either with myself or events, because they aren’t obeying me the way they should.   

If, however, I recognize that the image is not mine, then I discover a relationship of a very different kind. For one thing, it’s stripped from the beginning of the assumption that I understand it. Understanding thus becomes a formative, foundational part of consciousness: the act of perceiving and forming an image becomes in the moment it takes place a curious exploration, rather than presumptive ownership. 

This matter of the moment of perception is quite critical. Gurdjieff said that the transformation of what he called “higher hydrogens,” the finer substances of the astral body, could only take place if the attention was intentionally placed at the point where impressions enter: that is, the place where imagination is active. In invoking this image of astral body, Gurdjieff is alluding to the metaphysical property of perception, rather than its physical properties. This is important because the physical is always a consequence of the metaphysical, not the other way around.

The inward image that’s formed is quite different if curious exploration takes the place of presumptive ownership. There is a difference between an experience of self that assumes it already knows what things are, and an experience of self that receives things of themselves, not of the self. The decision on how to perceive, the inner attitude, is always formed within the instant that an impression is received. Swedenborg’s choice between love of God and others versus love of self equally always takes place in the moment. Discrimination is perpetual; agency must always choose a perspective. The action doesn’t have a beginning and an end; it demands a state of active engagement in the formation of the image..

In this sense, our being is formed by imagination: the way we receive images and impress them into the conscious action of our awareness. We can equate our relationship to imagination, to the images formed in us, to the critical juncture where we perceive other things as they are, or things as we think they are. Whenever we perceive things as we think they are, we’re the prisoners of ourselves – enslaved by our assumptions. 

What is certain in this action is that things will not be what we think they are: they cannot be. They are other than ourselves and no matter how much we insist on it, they cannot acquire either our consciousness or our characteristics. 

Despite this objective fact, anyone who watches their mind and actions in conjunction with ordinary emotion will quickly see that we do exactly this all the time. Gurdjieff called this identification; confusing objects, events, circumstances and conditions with ourselves. I think the investigation in these essays offers some help and understanding how that mechanism functions in a more detailed and precise way, along with its obvious logical flaws.

Go. and sense, and be well.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.