Notes on Laws of the Inner Cosmos, part IV: The Law of Catching Up

in the meantime they had come under the cosmic law called “Law-of-Catching-up” and were entirely subject to its influence, and they would therefore now make regular elliptic orbits around their fundamental piece, just as the fundamental piece, namely, the planet Earth made and makes its orbit around its sun “Ors”.

“ ‘And so it will always continue, unless some new unforeseen catastrophe on a large scale changes it in one way or another.

This law is a fragment of a larger discourse about the origins of the moon. 

In contemplation of this law in relation to our inner nature, consider the following. 

We’re habitual. Everything we do is automatic; the atmospheres of our various inner planets keep tugging our ship in unwanted directions.

Suddenly there is a huge shock—a collision of some kind. The ”comet Kondoor,” for example, which might be someone in the family dying… or a rather profound religious experience. Whatever it is,  in this case it’s huge.

The collision has a great impact on our day to day Being, galvanizing all our inner parts and sending shattered fragments into the stratosphere of our Being. Great shocks of this kind often product great insights, even if they’re painful. For a moment, perhaps, we’re elevated.  

However, even if various parts of ourselves thereby escape the lawful grip of our ordinary inner being and what we are, they still ultimately remain under our influence. These “elevated” (highly energized) fragments  gradually fall back towards our planet. Although they never fully re-incorporate into our “absolute“ ordinary self, they remain in orbit around us, where they’re essentially useless. This can be taken as an apt description of the endless series of efforts we make to break free of what we are—every one of which is eventually captured by the ego and woven back in to orbit around it.

A second possible interpretation of the inner meaning of this law is the idea that we “catch” things from a higher level and then incorporate them into our lower selves in such a way that they no longer retain their connection to the higher. They look like they’re above us; yet they’re actually enslaved by us, which is an apt description of objects captured in orbit. In this state, it’s easy to mistake ordinary parts of ourselves which have been lifted to a higher orbit for actual higher influences. In this state one finds oneself in a delusional spirituality, staring at the clouds.

The image of orbit furthermore indicates a kind of stasis—a freezing in place of material which circulates with great vigor and looks very impressive, but never goes anywhere.   

It’s worth noting that the moon itself was formed by the coalescing of materials from the impact of the comet Kondoor. The idea behind this suggests it’s our task to bring this “orbital material,” these fragmented parts of our Being, into a denser and more compressed collection of material, so that it gains weight and exerts a meaningful influence. 

Gurdjieff told his pupils at various times to “make moon” in themselves: by this, was he referring to just such an intentional gathering of fragment psycho-spiritual materials, a concentration of otherwise useless orbital material, which might serve as a gravitational anchor for our inner work? Is the action of self—observation aimed at this effort?

In examining this law from an inner perspective, I can consider these questions of shock, fragmentation, orbit and condensation in terms of my psychology and my attitudes. 

The third obvious inference in this law comes from the last statement: and so it will always continue... 

which suggests that most of what happens that can change us happens by accident...

Or, conversely, that only very great shocks can have any significant effect on our inner planet: 

shocks that by their nature cause suffering...

May your heart be close to God, 

and God close to your heart.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.