This takes a great deal of practical work and a surprising amount of suffering. The suffering doesn’t end; any illusion that one is going to obtain some hypothetical “freedom” by achieving this or that stage of "enlightenment" is mistaken.
The roots of humanity grow deep down into the emergence of material reality from the quantum level and life from the cellular level.
Humanity’s nature is, taken as a whole, an organism of its own that has multiple levels of awareness available to it, each one of which inhabits a different physical and energetic body. These bodies don’t have the same individual capacities for perception. The material body, as it stands, has one level of perception available to it which is irrevocably different in terms of understanding than the astral body. In turn, the astral body, which is formed in organic sensation, is irrevocably different than the mental body. The mental body is actually a feeling-body, not one of the intellect. It can’t grow until the astral body is well-formed, which under any ordinary circumstances takes multiple decades... or lifetimes.
Gurdjieff intimated this in certain remarks to P. D. Ouspensky, which can be found in “In Search of the Miraculous.” The distinction between the label of the mental body and its actual nature is not, however, clarified. Only practical experience can bring one to an understanding of this distinction.
The formation of the feeling-body consists of a refinement of the capacity for suffering. Suffering creates one of the finest substances available on the human level, a harmonic vibration essential to spiritual food and the consequent growth of the soul. Most of the suffering that we encounter is coarse and intense; suffering on the level of the physical body, the first body, encompasses suffering of the body, the emotions, and the intelligence, magnified and exaggerated in ways that are only appropriate to the level of the physical body. If one understands the nature of suffering from this perspective, it is all of the body and thus becomes a question of survival. The brutality that humans visit upon one another emerges reflexively because of the coarse nature of this particular material. What it means, from a practical point of view, is that most of what we think of as suffering from the ordinary level, the physical level, is a gross reflection of the finer kinds of suffering that are necessary for inner growth.
A finer suffering can arise. Most religious traditions, at their esoteric core, both recognize this and offer paths in that direction. Yet without the inflow of finer substances from a higher level, that suffering will not mature.
Spiritual suffering eventually becomes a trial against the negative influence of the ego, against selfishness. This is only achieved with the help of higher forces of which we know little and understand even less. Again, Gurdjieff intimated this in several of his very early talks. The ego itself is a metaphysical force, an entity produced by consciousness, and is what one might call the “holy denying” portion of awareness of the astral body. By its very nature, struggle against the ego is already a ground-floor entry into the metaphysical levels of feeling.
The growth of the astral body is rooted not just in organic sensation, but in the additional capacity of the awareness of one’s own nothingness. Gurdjieff’s aphorism, “like what it does not like,” is related to the growth of the astral body. Some of the things I allude to here I speak of in shorthand, and must be sought from within, as their implications do not submit well to translation into human language. It's a territory of faith, not intellect, that is, a territory that emerges from the subtle tissues of feeling that must grow within Being in order for it to mature and form a good connection to the soul.
The concept of the soul is intimately related to the question of the physical, astral, and mental body; feeling creates the roots that connects all these different bodies to one another. It evolves in refinement as it grows. This paradoxically removes one from imaginary ideas about spirituality and other levels, while enhancing the perception of one’s legitimate nature, along with the multiple bodies, on this level.
One eventually recognizes the simple fact that, as we are, we are confined to this level and must await death in order to discover the implications of our nature on the levels beyond it. This is why Gurdjieff saw death as a benefit for those who truly live, rather than a tragic end. The vision of death as a tragic end is a vision that belongs to the physical body. Already, the astral body, if it's inhabited, has a different understanding, and the mental (again, feeling) body yet another one.
As I’ve mentioned before, each of these bodies is an actual body that is inhabited and lived in, not an allegorical entity.
In a sense, then, our work is always a movement towards feeling.
Yet we navigate in the darkness of our coarsest and least helpful feeling; we navigate by touch, constantly distracted by the gross and overwhelming feelings of the physical body and its urges and desires. To make matters even more difficult, these feelings are entirely legitimate and need to be allowed to exist.
It's much like a small, thin person trying to control a very large dog on a leash. Without the right touch, we all know, what the dog will do is whatever it wants. There has to be a deft relationship with the dog, one that establishes mastery through sensation, love, and cooperation, not sheer force — because a small thin person will never have the force of a large dog.
It is, rather, the perception and intelligence of the small thin person, along with their touch on the leash, that can make a difference.
On a final note. My friend Livia and her crew have just premiered their Christmas show. Use the link below to see it; and please make a contribution to the Vanaver Caravan to continue its work.
May you be well within on this day,
Lee
Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.