Enormous forces are locked up
Related post:
As always, posts assume familiarity with fundamental fourth way texts and concepts.
For full citations of references, see Introduction and Bibliography.
In the recent post from Volume I of his Commentaries, Maurice Nicoll had the following striking words:
. . . The ultimate or last point of Creation—World 96—is under many forces. This means enormous forces are locked up in creation. Through the action of the Law of Three the Universe is wound up. Sometimes in nature we can see these forces unwinding themselves, as, for instance, in the element radium.1
Although a number of references to winding up or down, in the context of length of life, are given in Gurdjieff's writing2 and those of his pupils,3 the expression and idea, "forces are locked up in creation," seems a little different. In addition to the usual picture of forces or laws (and Nicoll adds, influences or wills4) multiplying in a certain definite way at each descending stage of the ray of creation,5 and under which each cosmos is subject, there is now also a possible representation of each cosmos as a kind of treasure casket, holding within it forces or powers, as it were, that can be unlocked, perhaps consciously or unconsciously. The latter is done gradually or explosively by Nature and chance, for Nature's own purposes; the former is done, presumably, with a key. Perhaps this very key is also the law of three, and that as we unlock, through contact of the affirming force with the denying force, the direction of these forces is diverted, at least in part, from their natural involutionary process, to aid the process of evolution.
Nicoll's expression, "To will what happens to you,"6 seems very apposite here.
Continued in:
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Nicoll - Commentaries, Vol.I, p.118.
E.g., BT p.378, p.445.
E.g., Orage's Commentary on Gurdjieff's "Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson," p.269, p.280.
Nicoll - Commentaries, Vol.I, p.117.
E.g., ISM p.83.
Nicoll - Commentaries, Vol.IV, p.1407.