LAW IF THREE( 60) Conscious Influences

LAW OF THREE (60)

CONSCIOUS INFLUENCES

"When the attention is not free and independent it is trapped in the world of duality lending its power to like and dislike, belief or not belief, and so on,   It feeds duality and cannot choose independently. When directed consciously it can become the gate through which conscious influences can enter creation."

J,G. Bennett

Freedom depends on our power of choice. Choice depends on our attention not being caught in the limitations of like-dislike, belief-non-belief, right-wrong, pleasure-pain, good-bad.

When the attention is not subject to the pairs of opposites it can become a bridge through which conscious influences can enter creation .

When we  give full attention to a person in need, we become a gateway through which the afflicted person can connect to the inner listener; we unable the speaker to become receptive to the healing power of his 'deeper self''.

In the ordinary state of our attention is lost or undirected.  St. Mark says: "Having ears do you not hear?" People may be speaking to us and although we are aware of their words, we may not aware of their meaning.   Suddenly a sentence may catch our attention, consciousness has entered, and both the speaker and the listener can hear. A new dimension has entered our awareness.

When our attention is free and independent we can direct consciousness to an issue, and in this voluntary act we become carriers of the neutral or reconciling force (3rd, force) aligning ourselves with the intelligence that transmits meaning (4th force). In this configuration what may arise is the solution to a deadlock, and lead us forward into a new direction.

LAW OF THREE (59) The Purpose of Thinking

LAW OF THREE (59)

THE PURPOSE OF THINKING

"...thinking must never be regarded as merely a subjective activity. Thinking lies beyond subject and object. It produces these two concepts just as it produces all others. When, therefore, I, as thinking subject, refer a concept to an object, we must not regard this reference as something purely subjective. It is not the subject that makes the reference, but the thinking. The subject does not think because it is a subject; rather it appears to itself as a subject because it can think.

Rudolf Steiner. Intuitive Thinking as a Spiritual Path.

Thinking is a human experience. Its usefulness depend on how conscious we are of the thinking process and to what use we put it. The clarity of our awareness determines whether we think our thoughts or our thoughts think us. The first is real thinking and the second fictitious thinking.

'That we are thinking is real, while what we are thinking may be a fantasy' A. Blake

Thinking can be seen as a dialogue between thoughts, feelings, and sensations. It may consist of what I am, what I wish, and what I do, each voice claiming an independent I and an independent will.

Thinking arises out of conflicting inner aims and desires. The need for discernment and reconciliation between conflicting aims and desires has given rise to the development of different psychological and spiritual methods and techniques.

From an intellectual view, thinking needs to evolve into understanding by the practice of conscious dialogue or formulation.   

LAW OF THREE (58) Sin and The Law of Three

LAW OF THREE (58)

SIN AND THE LAW OF THREE

"Sin comes from a Greek word meaning to miss the mark, 'a term from the art of archery' What does missing the mark actually involve? It presupposes a target, which is called the bull's eye. A bow is the means by which the archer tries to launch the arrow into the centre of the target. The purpose of the art of archery is to hit the target every time or to get as closed to doing so as possible." Thomas Keating. Heartfullness.

In the same context Thomas Keating says: 'The psychological experience of a separate self sense is the root of all sin; get rid of that and there won't be any more sin."

From the perspective of the Law of Three, sin is a dual experience in which the presence of the 3rd or reconciling force within is not felt. 

In Archery, when the archer, the arrow, and the target are in perfect alignement they become a unity. In this configuration the target does not exist as a separate entity: the target , as it were, enters creation when the archer is united with the target and the felt sense of separation no longer exists.**

Nearly three thousand years ago the 'omnipresence' of the bull's eye is explained in the Mahabharata (the sanskrit epic of ancient India)

"Dronacharya organised an archery competition to test the skills of his pupils. He kept a small wooden bird on a tree at a distance. He asked all the pupils to take aim at the wooden bird's eye. To every pupil he asked the question:'What do you see?

Each disciple replied the same: I can see the bird, leaves, fruits, sky, etc. Dronacharya's anwer was: 'put down the bow and leave.' 

The last one to be asked was Arjuna. Dronacharya asked him: 'what do you see?' He answered 'I can only see the eye of the bird', Dronacharya kept asking him if he could see other things but Arjuna replied,  'No teacher,  I can see nothing other than the eye of the bird.'  Dronacharya, happy with Arjuna's  response told him to shoot. The arrow sprang from the bow and went straight into the bird's eye."

**I am in God and God is in Me.

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LAW OF THREE (57) Attention, Carrier of the Third Force

LAW OF THREE (57)

ATTENTION, CARRIER OF THE THIRD FORCE

"We are carriers of the Third Force which we can bring into a situation through the power of Attention."      J.G. Bennett

Attention is not force in a triad, but the carrier of the 3rd force.  Attention directed to a point releases information.  If we put our attention to our left foot, information from our left foot will arise.  The information arising from the left foot will be the reconciling force of a triad. 

One triad leads to another.  If the information received about our left foot is cause for concern we may feel the the need to visit the doctor.  Need will become the active force in a succeeding triad where the resisting force will be the reluctance see a doctor.  Contradictory circling thoughts may prevent the entry of a new reconciling third force in the form of decision. However the circling thoughts may be brought to an end by alarming new information entering in the form of an enormous swollen foot and the decision to visit the doctor is taken.  

Information may come from different sources.   It may come from the present or from the past.   It may come from memory or it may come from intuition.  It may come from the present or mat come from the past.

If we direct our attention to our hand for a couple of minutes, we notice all kinds of information and commentaries entering our awareness about the hand.  Information from the past may come in the form of thoughts like: 'what a worn out hand this is', etc.  However if we allow all the recorded past memories about the hand to pass by,  a new vision from a deeper source may arise like: the extraordinary miracle of the sudden apparition of 'this hand'.

LAW OF THREE (56) The Third Force

LAW OF THREE (56)

THE THIRD FORCE

"Imagine how the energies of our planet would shift if we as Christians took seriously our obligation to work with the Law of Three as our fundamental spiritual praxis. Face to face with the vast challenges of our times -environmental, economic, political - we would avoid making judgments (because according to the Law of Three, the denying force is a legitimate player in every equation), set our sights higher than "winers and losers" (or even negotiated compromise), and instead strive in all situations to align our minds and hearts with the Third Force."

Cynthia Bourgeault

What is the significance of the Third Force?

The Third Force 'allows' the power of 'direction' to enter all spheres of creation.

In a car the accelerator (active) and the brakes (passive) are forces that go against each other. Only the presence of the steering wheel (reconciling force), can reconcile the accelerator and the brakes and direct the car in the deciding 'direction' *

* Accelerator, brakes, steering wheel represent three distinct and independent movements in a triad working as a unit. At the centre, the driver (the will) decides in every moment which of the three forces will be active,

LAW OF THREE (55) The Observer

LAW OF THREE (55)

THE OBSERVER

"In non-duality the separate self sense is greatly reduced and even disappears. Everything that happens is the direct experience of reality. It is being able to lead ordinary life without thinking of oneself. When you look at a tree, it is a tree, and not you looking at a tree. The latter is the response of our rational intellect.  "Thomas Keating 

Who is observing a tree?

"That which makes the eye see, but needs no eye to see, that alone is Spirit."  

The Kena Upanishad:

The observer that can be observed is not the observer.

David Finkelstein

In observation' we can discern three independent forces: the seer, the seeing, and the seen.  Our individual power of attention enables us to exert the power of seeing just by focusing the attention to an object  However the source of sight does not come from ourselves. The power of 'seeing' is given. 

Full attention without reference to the ego (felt-self-sense) gives rise to the rare experience of seeing without thought. In the absence of thinking you are simply seeing.You see the tree and not you looking at a tree.  You experience of the unity of seer-seeing-seen (without being identified with the seer).

LAW OF THREE (54) The I and the Will

LAW OF THREE (54)

THE I OR THE WILL

"We have various, of what Gurdjieff called, 'centres' or 'intelligences'; but, ordinarily, these are in 'discord' They do not agree with each other in what they see or want. They are at cross purposes. The aim of 'work on oneself' was to clean up the centres and bring them into a co-operative state. It is so that they then coalesce and create something new, this is to create or realise one's true 'I'."

Gurdjieff's psychology

From the perspective of the Law of Three we may consider a car to be a three-fold unit in which three independent and mutually necessary forces give rise to an instrument capable of operating in the world of time and space. In this example the accelerator is the active force, the brakes the resisting force and the steering wheel the neutralising force. When these three powers are in tune, the driver, that is, the true I or the will, can direct the car in the direction he choses. We may consider the driver to be a 5th force which can only operate when the three sides of the triad are brought into a co-operative state (a triadic unit or No.4)

Why the 5th force?

Gurdjieff's example of Man, ( numbers 1,2,3,4,5 etc in blog 47) may help to answer this question. According to his scheme man number 5 can only manifest when Man, nos. l,2,3 are in balance giving rise to Man No.4. When the three have become one, at Man no 4, Man no. 5, a true "individual" or 'will' can operate.

Another useful example of three forces giving rise to one unit or 'articulation' can be found in the arising of understanding. In the arising of understanding, when sensations (no.l) feelings (no2) and thoughts (no.3) have become one, 'understanding' (no.4) , then the I or the will (no.5) can enter and act.

Metaphorically speaking...

If I can manage my three energy centres I can manage everything else. If I cannot, then everything is hard and has to be forced. If I do not know that the engine can take a car from one place to another, I have to push it, and this is how most of us do things: we push our body machine about,  like a person pushing a motorcar, and then it can easily happen that the steering wheel is out of reach.