The Hyphae of Being

 

In the last essay, I compared the “rootlets” that connect all the different impressions of Being to the hyphae of fungi. This is a quite exact analogy, and anyone that doesn’t appreciate why needs to read Merlin Sheldrake’s fine book, “Entangled Life.”

Human beings have three different major bodies that exist on this level and express themselves in physical substances. The other important bodies, which Gurdjieff called “higher being-bodies”are metaphysical bodies and the subject for a different discussion. The "physical" being-bodies are three, as I said: 

1. The Body of Intellect

2. The Body of Feeling

3. The Body of Sensation. 

I use the term "body" here in the sense of the main or central part of something, not just the physical structure, but the center of gravity or locus of its nature. A body, as in a body of collected works, is not an atom, as it were—that is, a single thing unto itself with an essence of its own that cannot be divided—but a molecule: a collection of many different atoms in relationship. These atoms and molecules arise from quanta: packets of energy that exist as both waves of movement and particles of existence.

It’s important to understand the quantum, atomic, and molecular nature of these three bodies, since they are the expressive mechanism through which all of experience arises on the physical plane. While it may not seem useful to have this thought at this particular moment, the thought you are having as you read this — the comprehensive sum of your ability to take it in, correspond to it, react to it, understand it, and so on — are a gathered expression in our space/time-continuum of quantum, atomic, and molecular forces that are at this very instant in operation to create your Being. 

The very fine texture of this fabric of energy should be appreciated as we continue to explore the subject. You and I are not some separated events able to study this clinically from a distance: we are in it as we raise the questions about it.

The three bodies of intellect, feeling, and sensation weave their own separate integrated networks according to their own natures. Yet there is also a fabric, a connective tissue, that binds them together into a single thing. This network of roots that I speak of begins, like everything else, on the quantum level; and it is a network of relationships — energetic and physical relationships — between Atoms, Molecules, and Quanta— which just so happens to be the title of the once-famous (and now very expensive) quantum physics textbook my grandfather Arthur Ruark wrote with his partner Harold Urey. 

The point is that what we are as beings emerges from this fabric; and so thought, feeling, and sensation are bound together by it. 

It is strictly scientific to say that this field of atoms, molecules, and quanta exists as a rate of vibrations, harmonic relationships between various energies. 

We experience them as thought, feeling, and sensation; yet they are bound together at their roots by their energetic relationships, not the names we put on them, which are gross approximations of much finer events.

Over the course of a lifetime, impressions are recorded in this field of harmonic vibrations and they create “notes” or resonances that reverberate and repeat throughout the course of a lifetime. Some are stronger; some are weaker; some have great influence over others, and others are overwhelmed and helpless. It is in the nature of awareness to be able to reinforce the harmonics, consonances, and resonances of this environment: and that is what produces character. The nature of the person’s Being is according to their action as the conductor of this molecular orchestra. 

It is well, in this sense, to think over your actions quite carefully, because each one of them has an influence, no matter how subtle, across the entire range of the whole. How they work together matters a great deal, even though each action we take seems to be nearly inconsequential to anything but external circumstances. In fact, each action we take is incredibly consequential to internal circumstances, but we act without intelligence or consideration and generally fail to recognize this fact. 

In this way we may become fools, buffoons, or charlatans; such fates are commonplace, and every human being ends up collecting a set of experiences within the three bodies of Being that occasionally end up playing these roles.

The intricate blending of the energies of the three bodies of experience is a cumulative one, whereby the weight, impetus, and momentum of the whole becomes more and more determined over the course of a lifetime. It takes a highly trained and acutely sensitive engineer to drive this locomotive; and so we see that most of us, as we grow older, become less and less able to influence various directions which we took up when young and did not understand the consequences of. The old folk saying, “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” is a superficial rendering of this essentially metaphysical problem of Being. One of the points of observing yourself is to understand this problem at its root. We are what we are; as Gurdjieff once said, “for one thing to be different, everything would have to be different.” The increasingly determinate nature of Being within the context of age thus takes place according to laws that constrain development in random or in new directions; so direction has to be chosen carefully, at every moment, less the chosen direction turn out to be both unprofitable and impossible to redirect.

 Without an understanding of this situation and the laws that govern it, one is inevitably prone to stumble through life like an idiot from one event to another, imagining that one has control over things while instead being enslaved and ruled by circumstances. This is a typical picture of how we are, one that Gurdjieff presented to his pupils many times. He called it the action of “being mechanical.”

All this by way of understanding how fine, how intricate, how delicate and how exquisitely intelligent the network of Being within ourselves actually is. That network is an expression of consciousness that transcends material reality; traditionally, it is called the soul, and again traditionally, it touches God. That is to say, this ineffable and inexpressible quality of Being that binds our impressions, experiences, memories, feelings, sensations, and the facts we encounter is part of an energetic fabric that creates the entire universe and everything in it. The way that we mature as beings has a great deal to do with how finely our inner planetary system is formed.

A great gathering together of Being takes place over the course of a lifetime. It is an alchemical process whereby many different kinds of substances which we might call elements are gathered, brought into relationship, reacted, distilled, reconfigured, and then brought into new relationships yet again. Those substances are the impressions of the three different bodies. Eventually they concentrate themselves into an entity that human beings call a “lifetime.” 

Yet the lifetime itself is not just what a human being experiences, but a metaphysical substance connected to a fabric of energetic resonance we do not understand and have little direct contact with. It is an intelligence of its own composed of the “particles” of intelligence of which each of us represents an infinitesimally tiny fraction.

While all of this seems quite technical, it brings us back to an action that is commonly known among human beings: the contemplation of one’s life in its entirety as one ages. There is a need for awareness — which is a distinct body separate from the bodies of intellect, feeling, and sensation — to understand itself and to create a summary of what it is. The kingdom of heaven, which is a metaphysical entity expressing a quality called insight, is accessible only through this action. Insight opens doors to the selfsame metaphysical bodies I mentioned earlier, which otherwise remain closed (with the possible exception of chemical assistance such as psilocybin and or other psychedelic drugs.) 

If we look at a group of different plants growing together near each other— for example, a maple tree, a juniper, and a pear— we can’t see the very fine network of fungus that connects all of them to one another and has a direct influence on every single one of them: their nutritional health, their size, their responses to one another (and yes, they do have such responses — go read the book.) Yet it is this fine unseen network connecting all of the large bodies that ultimately regulates their health and growth. Without the network, each one of them would just die, because no plant can survive without the partnership of its mycelium.

We have exactly the same situation inside ourselves. This fine tissue that connects our parts to one another is always vibrating; it is always alive; it is always nourishing us. Every thought, feeling, and sensation that we have is a manifestation of the relationships in that tissue; and we ought to develop a much deeper respect for each of the thoughts, feelings, and sensations we have in order to avoid misleading  soiling, or even rending this very fine fabric of our Being.

Ponder that for a while.

May you be well within today.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.