Thought and the Word

 

Oct. 9, Sparkill, NY

Sometimes it’s necessary to conceive of the universe very differently in order to understand it.

Gurdjieff explained to us that the sun has emanations it emits, which can be felt instantly throughout the solar system when they take place. 

What he did not explain is a cosmological context I will now pass on to you.

First of all, what Gurdjieff said was not an allegory. It was an actual fact about cosmology and astronomy that cannot be appreciated without understanding that solar systems are, taken in their entirety, a living creature, with a metaphysical body that shares its cosmological and structural identity with the human body. We're simply built on a smaller scale.

The influences of the sun are felt throughout the solar system; and they aren’t directed at any single planet as an individual per se, because the whole system is a single functioning organism. Each emanation of the sun has a functional purpose according to relationship throughout the system. The overall functioning is identical to that of a human being’s body: the regulatory systems that, for example, direct the way our liver works may seem to be directed towards the liver and for the liver, but actually they serve the whole body. Nothing in the liver takes place outside the context of its relationship to other organisms.

In the same way, solar emanations that may seem to affect the earth in one way or another (as Gurdjieff indicates in his descriptions of solioonensius) actually serve the comprehensive cosmological entity we call the solar system by attempting to bring the earth into alignment with the rest of the system. There are other emanations that affect the other planets; but taken together, it's all part of one thing.

Solar emanations are actually the language of the body of the solar system. 

Each emanation is a word that is spoken; yet this is a bit more than that, because each emanation is actually a thought of the sun’s, a directed impulse that is shared by the entire body in the same way that a thought in the mind arises in man and has an impact on the state and action of the whole body.

Think, for example, of the way an athlete hits a tennis ball. The thought that animates this action is a comprehensive form of thinking, undertaken in large part by the thinking part of moving center, and it spreads through the whole body instantly to coordinate a specific, intentional set of actions.

This situation explains why even though the sun may be facing away from us when a sunspot erupts a flare, or we may be facing away from it at the time this happens — it can happen, of course, in the middle of the night — that emanation has an impact that flows directly into us in that instant, no matter where we are and no matter what position the sun or the planets are facing in. 

The thoughts that the sun emits are comprehensive and universal within the solar system; they reach us regardless of which direction the flare appears to be pointed in, or the direction the earth is facing when they take place. They travel in the same way that impulses travel through neurons; for all intents and purposes, they are instantaneous. The physical presence and attitude (location, inclination and direction of movement) of the planets presents no obstacle to the movement of thought, any more than the heart gets in the way of the functions that are directed towards the liver. By further analogy, thought reaches the arm of the tennis player and directs it no matter what position it is in. 

There is enough here for any thinking creature to ponder in regard to the whole situation. The important thing to remember is that we are part of a much larger body. In this model, the Earth is an organ, Jupiter is an organ, and so on. 

We don’t need to worry so much about that; the body takes care of itself. It’s seeing our place that is helpful here. 

We receive emanations from the sun which can animate our being. 

We are in this sense tiny representatives of the overall thinking function of the solar system. We have an important role to play in this regard; reciprocally, the solar system is "our" whole body on the larger scale, and our actions, thoughts, feelings, our physical presence itself, are all a part of that system. We are the microbes in its gut that help it digest its food. All of the electrical and electromagnetic phenomena in the atmosphere of the earth and other planets and the sun—flares, solar winds, auroras, sprites, lightning— are signals from the nervous system of the solar system. They're a form of communication within the living creature of the solar system; the same phenomenon as the exchange of energies between our cells.

Every atom, molecule, and quanta in the solar system is a part of that system and they all participate together and play various roles in the functioning of the astrological and astronomical body of this particular system.

Solar systems, by the way, play the same role in regard to galaxies. And galaxies play the same role in their relationship to the cosmos. Galaxies have emanations that represent the sum total of the function of their solar systems. These emanations are the way the various parts of the body of the universe communicate with one another. They are not just dead physical substances that race around bashing into one another; they are part of an active thought. The vibration of the One Word of God (Θео-мерт-ма-логос , Gurdjieff’s Theomertmalogos) that resonates throughout the universe is present within these emanations, no matter where they take place. The vibration adumbrates from the entirety of its body into the smallest of its constituents in the same way that our own awareness is able to grow roots down into the molecular presence of our being.

On our own scale, it is entirely possible for a human being to become open to and under the influence of these thoughts, that is, the emanations, of our sun. These thoughts are of a much finer quality than our own thoughts and carry a great deal of spiritual food for being. They are part of what helps form the roots that connect us to the organic sensation of being.

One aim of inner work is to become open to those influences so that they penetrate the molecular structure of being much more intimately and concentrate themselves within us. The effects of this are extraordinary and do not have anything to do with us, in a certain sense. We are merely custodians and stewards with an obligation to help. This is that same astral “help” discussed by Gurdjieff in Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson in the chapter The Holy Planet Purgatory.

One might say that these are mysteries that cannot be approached through intellectual understanding; but that simply isn’t true. The deepest mystery can never be revealed, but the functional and structural nature of various laws that express it conform in such a way that they can be understood. This is part of Gurdjieff’s obligolnian striving to know evermore and more about the laws of world creation and world maintenance.

We have, you see, a very different place and purpose in the function of nature, the planet, the solar system, and the universe itself then we conceive of. We are so distracted by the mechanistic rationalism of our culture and the imperatives and greed that drive our own survival that we forget these things. They were known in ancient times; but now they seem like quaint myths.

If one awakens organically to the “quaint myth” one discovers that reality is quite different than what one thought it was when one first reached for the cudgel of one’s intelligence to "conquer the world."

 Ponder that for a while.

May you be well within today.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.