Notes on Laws of the Inner Cosmos, Part V: The Law of Heteratogetar

The Law of Heteratogetar —you don't hear this one mentioned much in casual Gurdjieff conversation!—is described as the-result-of-the-manifestation-is-proportionate-to-the-force-of-striving-received-from-the-shock.

Introduced on the heels of the law of catching up, we find a reference to a shock, analogous to the action of the comet Kondoor on earth. 

Each impression that arrives in us serves, in its own way, as a shock: the arrival of an incoming object, as it were, on the surface of our planet. In this sense we view ourselves much like the moon or the earth: under a constant stream of bombardment from foreign objects which enter our field of gravity (our Being), are incorporated into our in our solar system, and remain forever after on the surface of our planet. If such an object is made of nickel and iron on earth, it's called a meteorite; so think of incoming impressions as “meteorites.” Most of these are tiny and burn up on entering our atmosphere: bits of dust, flecks of this and that. But the larger ones create an impact.

In this model, the shocks of incoming impressions create a force of striving. Here we see the actions of the first two forces shown on the enneagram: material (impressions) entering at the note re creates desires at the note mi. This represents creation itself throughout all the iterations of the diagrams; and in this case, it represents the creation of our Being, which is founded on its search for meaning, that is, striving. (Metaphysical Humanism investigates this question in more detail.) 

What this law tells us is that impressions fall into us with a force that produces a reciprocal response related to desire. At this stage in development of Being, the manifestations of desire are reflexive and tied strictly to the impact of the material on one’s Being. Little impressions produce little desires; big impressions produce big ones. This is a lawful and automatic function.

It's worth considering the way in which my desires are reflexes that respond without a great deal of thought to the external stimulus they encounter. Since Gurdjieff claimed that he took etymological considerations into account when he was crafting the word used in various languages for his book, it's worthwhile examining the roots of the word striving, which comes from a French root estriver meaning to quarrel or dispute, related to the word strife. 

This etymological root carries important implications in examining the idea of the five obligolnian strivings, which turn out not to be just desires or wishes but elements of a struggle. 

While recapping the etymological root of words in this law, let's remind ourselves of the meaning of the root -hetero, which in its various forms always means the other, or of that which is different. We're seeing a reference to a struggle with that which is different, that which is not us. In a nutshell, this describes every impression we take in from outside.

…What does this mean to our inner psychology? 

It's intimately tied to the way our ego reacts to new and incoming information. In the first place, our ego reacts mechanically and reflexively; that's basically what this law is telling us, that we're machines that react to what takes place, and that we react proportionally. Our ego reactions are lawful consequences of the fact that we take in impressions of the world. It isn't because our ego is good or bad; it's because it lawfully acts in this way.

In the second place, it shows that a struggle arises from this incoming flow of impressions. This isn't necessarily any new piece of information; the ego struggles with everything it encounters, because all that is foreign to it — the impressions that flow in — is a potential threat. The animal is built this way. No conscious actions need to take place in order for the animal to evaluate outside impressions in this manner. What comes in to me is not of me; it may be a threat to me. 

I struggle with what arrives; I must either incorporate the impression or reject it, but either way, it has to be dealt with. What I don't see is that this is actually taking place on a molecular level with every impression that arrives. I may think that the impression, for example, of a motorist cutting me off is that single big thing that creates my negative reaction, but my negative reaction is composed of reactions from every molecule in my body, each one of which in its own way has received this incoming impression as a potential threat and decided to respond to it. It is not just my "mind" or my "emotions" that react to what arrives: it is all of me, every single tiny bit of me, that is, the totality of my living being. 

This means that literally trillions of cells, along with their biological partners such as my gut bacteria, are all collectively responding at the same instant. 

These reactions, or strivings, are proportionate by law; they produce a struggle in me by my nature. What appear to be my desires, what I wish for, turn out to be struggles with the other. It appears to me that desires are struggles within myself, with what I want; but in fact those selfsame struggles are actually about what is outside of me and the way that it enters my inner solar system.

 What "it" likes and does not like is centered around my perceptions of self and not-self, and the reactions that ensue from incoming not-self perceptions. 

My anxiety about life— my fear— arises lawfully from these circumstances.

All of these thoughts, mind you, from this single phrase—which was without any doubt intentionally constructed by Gurdjieff to yield at least this much insight into its nature with the application of any concise thinking whatsoever. 

Not only does this otherwise cryptic law yield these insights; we can see by now that the laws, in the order they’re introduced, are carefully constructed and introduced to build a picture of a human Being according to the laws of the inner cosmos. That the picture is meticulously assembled piece by piece to show a progression of events. 

May your heart be close to God, 

and God close to your heart.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.