A Tissue of Awareness

Abbey of Villelongue

Photograph by the author

Eventually, the awareness of sensation begins to form substances within the physical body that are of the physical body but bring new organic capacities to it.

The awareness of sensation is connected to the development of the astral body; but without getting into the metaphysical principles here, which are admittedly important, one needs to discuss the function what else sensation can help take place. 

Practical matters.

We all know that we have three centers – at least, those of us who have study this question seriously have eventually developed some capacity for understanding how we dwell within one of the three centers most of the time; and perhaps we have even developed a capacity that can see each of their operations separately.

Sensation helps to grow a tissue within the human body that connects the centers. That tissue is a physical thing, a new and different network of neurology that consists not just of physical nerves, but roots that grow through the body. 

And what, you might ask, do we need these supposed roots for?

These roots are quite physical things, energetic pathways that form between the centers. The tissue is a connective entity that allows the centers to communicate with one another in a quite different way. When Gurdjieff speaks of the idea that the three centers come together to form a fourth entity, he is absolutely correct: and yet what he doesn't explain is that this entity can't form or exist without the connective tissue that allows them to coexist as equal awareness is.

Some readers of this piece, even experienced students of the Gurdjieff method, may argue that one can't actually see the differences between the centers or be precisely aware of them, and so on. I had an highly experienced friend tell me recently that all this was subjective and that we're just making it up. (!)

If you're having this reaction, your work on the question has been theoretical so far and you need to throw away everything you understand and start over. Or just leave the Gurdjieff work; it has done and can perhaps do little for you. You're possibly better off somewhere else, perhaps a Zen practice or whatnot.  And may God truly bless that new effort.

There is nothing theoretical about this question; and unless one has a truly three-centered experience, one doesn't at all understand what the function of an awareness of sensation and an awareness of feeling bring to the table. 

These two particular awarenesses are essential functions of the beginning of Gurdjieff’s intentions for us; and nothing that is truly awake or aware or conscious ever takes place in a us unless the active awareness of these two other centers begins to participate.

Even after the active awareness of sensation begins to participate in a voluntary way in the action of Being, and feeling begins to enter, the growth of any substantial amount of connective tissue between the centers takes many years. There may be ways to accelerate it; but one always runs the risk, when doing that, that the tissue will not form in a harmonious way. It is a quite delicate thing and it needs time to grow and form the right connections between the parts. There are 10,000 different ways this can go wrong. The best way to approach it is to engage in a gentle, intimate, and attentive inward work over many years and allow this particular capacity for conductivity to grow naturally. It has a much better understanding of the way to connect the centers than any theoretician, guru, or Yogi can bring, because it is inherently intelligent in its own right.

When I say that this connective tissue is composed of roots, I mean it quite literally. Once these roots are properly developed, they become an integral part of organic sensation. There is no need to search for them or attempt to invoke them; they’re as natural to the action of awareness as roots are to a plant. The analogies with the natural world of plants are nearly endless, because as they form, they form symbiotic relationships with the essential components of inner awareness, incl. molecular awareness, in the same way that plants form relationships with bacteria and fungi. 

These relationships become sustaining forces in the growth of Being. In the same way, they draw the water of awareness upwards into the centers, feeding them with substances that help them to grow, to spread their leaves, and to blossom. 

This is just a description of the physical process. The connective tissue I speak of is an energetic entity that also helps to inwardly form all of our psychic and spiritual life. It makes contact with all of our memories and begins to weave our inner life and all that we have ever been together into a single whole through the network it creates. The energy of our Being begins to flow along these roots and weave our inward life together in exactly the same way that piece of fabric is woven. 

We begin to inhabit ourselves –this fabric is something that we wear to clothe our psyche, but we wear it inwardly. We begin to see that the the Emperor with no clothes was always an inward entity in the first place, not an outer one; and that what was always lacking in the first place was this connective tissue, which is not an entity in its own right, but a means of communication between the parts.

Wishing the best for you on this day,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.