Cosmic Cliffs, the star-forming Carina Nebula,
James Webb Space Telescope, NASA, 2022
The Lord begot me, [Wisdom,] the beginning of his works,
The forerunner of his deeds of long ago;
From of old I was formed,
At the first, before the earth.
When there were no deeps I was brought forth,
When there were no fountains or springs of water;
Before the mountains were settled into place,
Before the hills, I was brought forth;
When the earth and the fields were not yet made,
Nor the first clouds of the world.
When he established the heavens, there was I,
When he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
When he made firm the skies above,
When he fixed fast the springs of the deep;
When he set for the sea its limit,
So that the waters should not transgress his command;
When he fixed the foundations of earth,
Then was I beside him as artisan;
I was his delight day by day,
Playing before him all the while,
Playing over the whole of his earth,
Having my delight with human beings.
- Proverbs 8:22-31
"That day I saw, beneath dark clouds,
The passing light over the water
And I heard the voice of the world speak out.
I knew then, as I had before,
Life is no passing memory of what has been
Nor the remaining pages in a great book waiting to be read.
"It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far-off things seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years of secret conversing,
Speaking out loud in the clear air.
"It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes as if to enter heaven
And finding himself astonished, open at last,
Fallen in love with solid ground."
- David Whyte, River Flow: New and Selected Poems, "The Opening of Eyes," p. 31
Last week we explored the Octave of Transformation and the second conscious shock, key Work ideas that can lead us to what Jeanne de Salzman described as "new understanding, not born from opposites … a feeling that embraces everything, a feeling of unity, of being" (prior week's email). Now, we consider these possibilities of awakening from the Work idea of the seven types of Man, rooted in the teaching of the Great Cosmos with which we began this year's curriculum.
Mr. Gurdjieff emphasized the inextricable link between the Great Cosmos and our spiritual growth, stating that "the possibility of broadening man's consciousness and increasing his capacities for knowledge stands in direct relation to the teaching on cosmoses. … It is impossible to study the system of the universe without studying Man. At the same time, it is impossible to study Man without studying the universe. Man is an image of the world. He was created by the same laws which created the whole of the world. By knowing and understanding himself, he will know and understand the whole world, all the laws that create and govern the world. And at the same time, by studying the world and the laws that govern the world, he will learn and understand the laws which govern him. … The study of the world and the study of Man must therefore run parallel, the one helping the other" (P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of The Miraculous, pp. 207, 75). This week, we will focus on the relationship between the seven types of Man and the cosmos, in order to see the necessity of integrating the cosmological and psychological sides of the Work within ourselves.
Number 1, 2 and 3 Man
Although Number 1, 2 and 3 Man differ from one another, they are all equally unconscious. Man 1 experiences the world predominantly through the moving center, Man 2 through the emotional center, and for Man 3 the intellectual center. From the point of view of the cosmos, Man 1, 2 and 3 are the same because they are each alienated from the cosmos. Perhaps we get overwhelmed by talk about something so vast, or find it somewhat interesting but irrelevant to our daily lives. As Ilia Delio often puts it, we tend to treat the earth and the heavens as a mere backdrop for our lives. The Book of Genesis describes our state as being "cast out" of our birthright of deep connection with the rest of the universe, caught in the painful illusion of separation. As a result of this disconnection from the cosmos, we feel fragmented, isolated, and impoverished in the tiny world of our own preferences, opinions, and beliefs. You may refresh your understanding of these mechanical levels of humanity by again reading the email from February 11, 2021.
Number 4 Man
Mr. Gurdjieff describes the path out of this predicament as one rooted in our understanding of "the sphere of activity and life of two other cosmoses simultaneously, the one above and the one below; that is, the one larger [the Tritocosmos, or 'all planets'] and the one smaller [the Microcosmos of the atom]. The broadening of consciousness does not proceed in one direction only, that is, in the direction of the higher cosmoses; in going above at the same time it goes below" (Ibid., p. 207). Although we may imagine the spiritual journey as a one-way elevator up and out of our ordinary feeling of I, the Work points to a simultaneous movement within and without, a continuous unfolding process of surrender, perception and integration into the greater whole.
This movement of integration begins with Number 4 Man who becomes more attuned with the cosmoses. The Work ideas are infused with the cosmos – the Ray of Creation, the lateral octave of the Sun, hydrogens, carbon, digestion, and so on. Man itself is a cosmos in the Work, one that like all the other cosmoses "lives, breathes, thinks, feels, is born, and dies." As our view of reality expands beyond the limited domain of our seemingly finite and separate self to encompass the reality of these cosmoses within and surrounding us, we become more aware of our participation, and the participation of all matter, in these greater cosmoses.
As Maurice Nicoll describes it, "We can see, if we want to, that No. 4 Man or Balanced Man actually is the bridge between mechanical mankind and conscious mankind and is therefore of the greatest importance. …The Balanced Man sums up the teaching and explains its existence and, standing above the mechanical living of this life, is open to respond to another life, the living of which is our right – a right neither inborn nor acquired, but pre-existent in the essence by creation. For we were created to become conscious" (Commentaries, "The Idea of Balanced Man," December 1, 1951, Vol. 5, p. 1527).
Number 5 Man
As Man Number 4 evolves to the state known as Balanced Man, it comes to experience a different reality, which leads to a perception of wholeness that is the characteristic quality of Man Number 5. Man Number 5 has "whole, indivisible knowledge," according to Gurdjieff. "He has now one indivisible I and all his knowledge belongs to this I. He cannot have one I that knows something which another does not know. What he knows, the whole of him knows. His knowledge is nearer to objective knowledge than the knowledge of man number four" (Ouspensky, Op. Cit., p. 75).
Number 6 and 7 Man
We examine these last two stages or types of Man together, because Man 6 differs from Man 7 "only by the fact that some of his properties have not as yet become permanent." Man 6 and 7 are more deeply immersed in the cosmoses, such that these types, as Mr. Gurdjieff put it, possess "everything Man can possess; that is: will, consciousness, permanent and unchangeable I, individuality, immortality, and many other properties which, in our blindness and ignorance, we ascribe to ourselves" (Ouspensky, Op. Cit., p. 71). Man 6 corresponds to World 12, which according to Cynthia Bourgeault, is "the world of fully incarnate and embodied love, the fullest of what bodhisattva consciousness can look like in human form. It is the endpoint of the personal realms. And it is the world, I believe, in which we must locate what Teilhard envisions as the Omega Point, where all things are summed up in Christ – because this is the last world in which such a summation has any relevance" (Eye of the Heart, p. 35).
Teilhard's own description of his experience while gazing upon a painting of Jesus illustrates the perception of Number 6 Man: "To tell the truth, I cannot say at what precise moment it began, for it had already reached a certain degree of intensity when I became conscious of it. The fact remains that as I allowed my gaze to wander over the figure's outlines I suddenly became aware that these were melting away: It was though the planes which marked off the figure of Christ from the world surrounding it were melting into a single vibrant surface wherein all demarcations vanished. … From this initial moment, moreover, the metamorphosis spread rapidly until it affected everything. … transformed and melting into one another, together made up a harmony which brought me complete satiety" (Hymn of the Universe, Chapter 2).
Ilia Delio also points toward this state of embodied entanglement between Man and cosmos, where our sense of individual selfhood collapses into divine union with the Christ presence at the heart of all matter: "Deep within the cave of my heart, a depth that belongs to me alone, I recognize a fire that burns brilliantly and glows with warmth. Through that glowing fire I see the outline of a face, the face of Christ, but I also see my face, and then I begin to see Christ's face as my face. Sometimes I cannot tell Christ's face from my own face, and all at once I recognize a single face whose eyes are looking inward and outward. The word 'God' simply doesn't capture this infinite depth of my soul that stretches toward an endless horizon. By its sheer unlimited being I know it must be divine life, because it is life other than my own and yet entangled with my own life" (Hours of the Universe, pp. 48-49 e-book, Chapter 8).
Bernadette Roberts confirms that in the unfoldment of the spiritual journey these highest possibilities of Man entail the movement from separate-selfhood to participation in wholeness, as the trajectory and purpose of our spiritual journey and yet there is more: "Indeed, the very need for integration [of the self] is to come to a point of graceful disintegration; the need for personal wholeness is to pass into greater wholeness; and the purpose of having a self is to eventually go beyond it" (The Experience of No-Self, pp. 173-174 of the 1982 edition).
Homework
Observe non-critically your beliefs and attitudes toward the idea of the cosmos of the atom and the cosmos of all planets, or the solar system, and the idea of yourself as a cosmos between them. What connection if any do they seem to have to your spiritual journey?
Now try and sense the cosmos of the atom within you, within each organ and cell of your body. What are you in relation to the Microcosmos? Also sense the cosmos of the solar system in which you exist. What are you in relation to the Tritocosmos? See if you can sense yourself as a cosmos in between these two, interconnected and interdependent on both. Observe any changes in your feeling of I and the wonder of your existence.
October Practice: Standing Under Stars
This month, we are invited to take time at night, after 9:00 pm and before 6:00 am, to stand or lay underneath the stars on a clear night. Let the silence of the stars and their radiance speak to you in a wordless wonder about your being on Earth in this immensity of the All. What speaks to you?
Attend The Journey School Thursday Class Tonight: All are encouraged and welcome to attend tonight's class for a review of these teachings and, importantly, to produce a container of beings seeking to be more conscious and whose efforts assist one another: 7:00 pm Central Time via Zoom only.
