Contemplation of the Great Potato, Part III

 

Bovina, NY

Sept. 2020

To the extent that a center develops its own impetus, it is called voluntary. The work the center needs to do is undertaken not because of some outside provocation, some artificial demand imposed by intellect. Demands from intellect, no matter how lofty their inspiration or motives may be, are always theoretical and hypothetical. Now, it isn’t that we don’t need theory and hypothesis; far from it. They are in fact quite necessary. Yet we keep deploying them on their own, as though we could direct the campaign of consciousness from our armchairs. A voluntary action within a center arises because the center has formed, through suffering, three conscious parts of its own:

Authority. This is the intellectual part of a center, and if it develops as a voluntary force, it can recognize itself and undertake critical evaluation of its actions. It’s usually the affirming part of Being.

Presence. This is the physical mass that both anchors and receives impetus towards momentum. This principally functions as the denying part of Being. 

Care. This is the part that embodies conscience, that is, a care for what is done—connected, at its most intimate root, to God’s wish. This is the reconciling part.

Despite their principle character, all of these parts of Being are able to play affirming, denying and reconciling roles depending on circumstances. Perhaps if we think about it a bit we can see how the polarity of intellect and body interact in the contradiction between the expectations of the intellect and the suffering of the body. Some folk think, for example, that if there is suffering, there can be no merciful God; such a being would not allow it. Yet the polarity is what ultimately binds intelligence to body: it arouses inquiry into the relationship. 

This is a complex subject worthy of much further discussion; and again, Christ’s example becomes a foundation for that exploration.

Each one of these voluntary parts is actually connected, at the quantum level, to the roots of God’s creative and originating action at the base of creation. We spend far too much time considering the crown of creation to realize that its greatest beauty lies not in the pinnacles of its achievement, but the foundations it’s built on. As human being we’re much closer to those foundations; and the dazzling ability to contemplate the heavens often distracts us from that part of creation we are closer to and better equipped to come into relation to. 

Perhaps it will come as a disappointment or a shock to folks to be told that that is in fact our role; we are lowly things and destined, should we choose to meet our fates responsibly, to come into into a closer spiritual relationship with the roots of the cosmos. 

In this sense we are much like the mycelium of fungi, which penetrate the roots and cells of every single plant on the planet—as all the animals—creating an essential symbiotic relationship without which life could not exist. (Read the book at the link! It will blow your mind.)

Fungi remain mostly unseen; yet they perform many miracles. 

Our souls are like this too and perform a similar function. It is a subject for very much contemplation.

Authority, momentum, and care are all essential; yet without momentum in a center, authority and care are relatively helpless. It is the presence of impetus that imparts momentum; and once momentum is there, it is done.

What, you may ask, is “it?”

One speaks here of God’s Will. To the extent that we inhabit being and that the parts come voluntary, so much more so does God’s Will, not one’s on, form and direct Being. The practice of presence is an effort in this direction. In such a state, a voluntary state, the root of Being functions according to a different, higher set of laws:

What is to be done is understood organically, instinctively.

How is should be done is equally understood in an organic manner.

The response to the outer world is also instinctive and organic.

In each case we speak here of what is not automatic but conscious. Voluntary action arises from true consciousness: not the reflexive reactions of the couch potato, but an active response by the voluntary  awareness of each center, functioning in its own right according to the work rightfully apportioned to it. 

Consciousness is not some pompous faculty collected in the thinking center which thinks it is better than others or should rule over them; it knows its own business and sees to it. To have parts that know their own business and see to it is to be free, to be new, to be different. It involves an unfamiliar alignment of attitude. Attitude in this case is born from the authority of a center, not my opinions. Centers are designed, at their heart, to deal with the facts of existence, not beliefs about it. Beliefs are like infections, diseases that create fevers in the parts of centers and cars them to engage in aberrant behaviors. Centers, by themselves, don’t have bad attitudes; as Gurdjieff said, there is no actual “negative center” in man. Negativity in us arises because of the tension created through inattentive centers. 

It can be a wonder to discover one’s self in the midst of the active work of centers. They know what to do. In this sense they are as intelligent as our digestion, which knows how to sort out the endless molecules it encounters and very selectively absorb exactly those which are needed in relatively distant parts of the body such as the lungs or brain. The digestion does this without us directing it.

Ou centers are equally capable off sorting out all the impressions we encounter and dealing with each of them in an entirely appropriate manner. Think about that: we have a set of engines in us which know how to sort out life.

We just aren’t using them. Or, alternatively: they aren’t using us. The point is not so much who uses whom, but that we ought to be in a reciprocal relationship with these functions which were designed to serve one another. 

Ponder that for a while.

May you be well within today.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.