A Planetary Sense of Being—Part II: A Relationship to the Planet

 Heraldic Angels, from the Tympanum at St. Foy in Conques

The body obeys the attraction of the earth, from which it draws its energy. The subtle force, a finer energy in me, obeys another attraction. 

When the body conforms to the attraction of the earth, the subtle force is freer, as if the two movements complement each other… I must accept this law from which my equilibrium comes, and let these forces act freely in me. 

When I obey the earth's attraction in a conscious way, the subtle force is liberated and my ordinary "I," my ego, finds its place, its purpose.

Jeanne De Salzmann, The Reality of Being, p. 64 

Moving on to the scale in which we live, which is the point of this essay, we see that the organic sensation of being is an awareness-expression of electromagnetism.

Animals are well-known to have a biological intelligence which provides the innate ability to navigate using the planet earth’s magnetic fields. While this is commonly seen and studied in migratory species, the likelihood is that almost all species have this ability in one way or the other. I say this simply because most would argue humans don’t have the ability, yet it turns out it’s definitely present. A recent article on the ability of human beings to sense the Earth’s magnetic field  shows that even mankind has an innate sensation of the Earth’s magnetic field.

What is definitely not known by science is the way in which an inner work can enhance the sensation until it becomes much more active within being, part of the conscious awareness of a human.  This marks the evolution of an astral, or planetary, sensation.

When Gurdjieff used the word planetary, he used it to refer to the world of all the planets of the solar system (In Search of the Miraculous, page 80.)  This corresponds to world 24, one level higher than Earth, which is at level 48 (same page in ISTOM.)  He comments on page 84,

 “If we could free ourselves from one half of these laws, we should find ourselves subject only to 20 laws, that is to the laws of the planetary world, and then we should be one stage nearer to the absolute and its will…  The study of the 48 orders of laws to which men is subject cannot be abstract like the study of astronomy; they can be studied only by observing them in oneself and by getting free of them.”

 To expand a little further on this, on page 88 he says,

  The seven worlds of the ray of creation represent seven orders of materiality. The materiality of the moon is different from the materiality of the earth; the materiality of the earth is different from the materiality of the planetary world; the materiality of the planetary world is different from the materiality of the sun, and so on.

 The observational study Gurdjieff speaks above of can only begin within the planetary nature of sensation, which is the first force we can encounter in Being that emanates from an astral level and belongs to it. An esoteric core of the Gurdjieff work has long associated the emergence of an organic sensation of Being with the development of the astral body—an experiential perception, to be sure, but at the same time entirely consistent with the nature of the phenomenon as it relates to Gurdjieff’s cosmology:

 This second body is composed of material of the planetary world and it can survive the death of the physical body…  If a man has the third body… it is composed of material of the sun and it can exist after the death of the astral body. (Page 94.)

 What Gurdjieff is describing here is our position between the moon and the sun, the way in which sensation anchors us to Being, and its foundational nature relative to the receiving of solar influences. Only after sensation concentrates itself sufficiently to awaken and be an actively participating force in Being can it begin to receive and inwardly concentrate the solar influences which Gurdjieff mentions.  Readers wishing to understand this from a theoretical point of view might consider first finishing this essay, then reading the science articles linked in the piece along with all of chapter 5 of In Search of the Miraculous.

Part three of five of in this series will publish on June 2. 

Wishing the best for you on this day,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.