Purgatory, Gurdjieff, and Meister Eckhart: Part 3

Illustrations are from the Tympanum of Conques Cathedral in Conques, France.

An esoteric abstract on the details of the Tympaum is available for free, on request from the author.

And when a great many of these perfected independent Sacred Individuals had been assembled on the Most Most Holy Sun Absolute, then between the emanations of these Sacred Individuals and the atmosphere of the Most Most Holy Sun Absolute there was established what is called a 'geneotriamazikamnian contact, ' which brought on this terrible misfortune for the 'perfected highest being-parts' of which I have just told you.  

Geneotriamazikamnian contact means, roughly translated, “contact brought about by individual entities joined together in action by the law of three.” You can see why he coined a special term for it. 

"To be sure, the action of the results of this 'geneotriamazikamnian contact' soon became harmonized with the already existing action of our Most Most Holy Sun Absolute, and, from then on, the emanations of the sacred Theomertmalogos had to be changed, and the first consequences of this disastrous contact brought about a change in the harmonious movement of many solar systems and produced a disharmony in the inner functioning of certain of their planets.  

The collapse of the functions of individual impressions in the formation of being and the introduction of subjectivity into the wholeness of being began to disrupt the proper functioning of centers in mankind. This is what Gurdjieff means when he says that the disastrous contact brought about a change in the harmonious movement of many solar systems. Our inner cosmos is in disarray as a result of the admixture of these multiple subjectivities, each one of which formed according to law, but has a subjectivity at its heart that presumes its own authority.

Lest we begin to doubt that Gurdjieff is speaking in this allegory about the creation of our inner cosmology, about anything other than that — any literal understanding — he specifically mentions the following event:

"It was just then that there broke away from the solar system Khlartoomano that famous planet with quite exceptional particularities, which exists alone in space, at the present time this planet is called 'Remorse of Conscience.’

There cannot be any doubt that Gurdjieff refers here, as he does in other places, to the event whereby conscience became buried in man’s subconsciousness, which protected it from the admixtures in the psyche which damaged mankind’s ability to follow God’s commandments. This is why the planet “Remorse of Conscience” exists alone in space. 

It is, perhaps, a sobering thought that per Gurdjieff’s cosmology, in order to be at all, we must eventually go there. 

It does not have its own sun to give it light: it is, like Beelzebub himself, in exile.

Of final note — and I will not say much about it here — we should note that according to Gurdjieff, the collapse of the inner functions of man’s psyche into egoism was a terrifying event — that is, it inspires great fear. While the word is tossed off almost as a dramatic aside in the text, I believe it is worthy of much deeper contemplation, since fear forms so much of what we are. 

Inevitably, that fear must arise because of the competing force of the various individual kernels of ego within us, each one of which — as Meister Eckhart probably would have told us, were he here — wants to preserve its own existence at all costs, even if it needs to do inner violence in order to do so.

While the functional relationships that ME expounds in his explanation of the mechanics of interaction between God, the soul, and the outer world are the subject of Gurdjieff’s breakdown — and certainly more could be said about this — it’s notable that ME, while he mentions suffering in the key sermons that discuss the subject, does not bring us to the question and the role of feeling and remorse in the same way that Gurdjieff does. This is notable to me because remorse is the most important and inevitable of functions engendered by the awakening of sensation; and of course it is next to impossible to understand any of Gurdjieff’s practice without understanding the role of sensation, which is entirely absent from ME’s teachings. Eckhart thus stands closer to Zen in his description of an intellectual path of abandonment, which might be more like into the way of the yogi than that of the fakir or (ironically) the monk. 

As such, the chief benefit of an examination of ME’s functional description of the action of God’s word (Gurdjieff’s Theomertmalogos), the soul, and the outer world here is in the way it corresponds to Gurdjieff’s description of man’s inner cosmos and its dysfunction. 

In Gurdjieff’s view, the soul is broken: and perhaps this is why he says man as he is “doesn’t have one.” ME does not propose the lack of a soul per se; but he certainly joins Gurdjieff in a view of it as in absentia as regards to proper function. 

Is there really a difference?

While it is highly doubtful, in my opinion, that Gurdjieff derived his observations in any direct way from ME’s comments on the subject, it reveals an underlying esoteric tradition of great power which must be very ancient, and has informed successive views of the derangement of man’s psyche relative to the higher. 

We touch here on ancient Babylonian myths of the Tower of Babel, medieval discussions of the function of the soul as intermediary, and a modern Master’s ingenious spiritual allegory couched in the form of a new cosmology. All of them are related; and every one of them calls us to an intimate examination of the nature of our outer life, its contact with the soul, and the consequences for all of our parts.

 May you be well within today.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.