Reciprocal Feeding.

Dear Ones,

As we explored at the beginning of the month, Gurdjieff's Ray of Creation is his re-imagining of the ancient Great Chain of Being. It is a cosmological map of reality found in Neoplatonic, Sufi, and Christian mystical traditions. It describes how existence unfolds as a descending emanation from World 1: the Absolute (God) into the multiplicity and tangibility of creation—each successive world subject to more laws, greater density, and mechanicalness. At its root, this is not simply a spatial model but a vibrational or energetic scale (Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous, p. 122).

Gurdjieff emphasized that the Ray is governed by two universal laws: the Law of Three, which governs how anything arises through the interplay of affirming, denying, and reconciling forces, and the Law of Seven, which describes how processes are maintained through predictable sequences and necessary “intervals” or shocks (Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World, p. 74).

Originally, the Most Holy Sun Absolute existed as a closed system, perfectly sustained by these laws. Yet, as Gurdjieff explained, a closed system eventually risks entropy and decay. Therefore, God introduced “irregularities” into the cosmic structure, making it an open system—alive with chance, movement, and flow (Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, p. 752). This openness enables the reciprocal exchange of energies, “everything feeding everything else,” where each world both gives and receives, nothing existing for itself alone (p. 759).

Within this dynamic exchange, organic life— and particularly human beings—serve as “transmitting stations” bridging higher and lower worlds. As we digest the “three foods” of ordinary life—food, air, and impressions (everthing taken in by our senses)—we are capable of transforming them into finer substances. Through conscious labor and intentional suffering, we generate the sensitive energy (a half-waking state of consciousness with awareness of existence and the functional activities of thoughts, feelings, body, sensation giving us the possibility of separating from our automism) and conscious energy (a subtle, higher form of energy accessible through intentional self-awareness and the harmonious functioning of the body, emotions, and mind allowing a person to become present, unified, and capable of transformation and conscious action) which nourish our underutilized higher emotional and intellectual centers and offer themselves back to the larger cosmic whole (Bennett, Energies, p. 66).

“Everything eats and is eaten,” Gurdjieff would often say (In Search of the Miraculous, p. 97). This stark phrase points us to our intrinsic responsibility. We are both recipients and participants in the vast cosmic ecology of reciprocal feeding. Our suffering, when willingly engaged, becomes food for transformation. Our attentiveness, when sustained, makes us a vessel through which creative, unitive, and transcendent energies can circulate.

The Ray of Creation “follows ancient traditions—Judaic, Vedic and Hermetic, for instance—which say in their various ways that ‘[humans are] made in the image of God’ — ‘the universal and the individual are not different’ — ‘as above, so below’ — ‘the microcosm reflects the macrocosm’” (Colet House).

With this in heart, we can see how the Ray maps directly onto our inner life:

• World 96 (Moon): False I’s or personality, imagination, identification, mechanical reactions. Here we live ruled by outer influences and unconscious mechanical energies, with some life energies.

  
  

• World 48 (Earth): True personality, the attempt to find truth through the intellectual center, with the possibility of beginning to work from sensitive energy.

  
  

• World 24 (Planets): Essence, self-knowledge, and presence. Here we taste “I Am” and operate from sensitive and conscious energy.

  
  

• World 12 (Sun): Higher emotional center and the right use of emotional and sexual energies. Real I emerges here, operating largely through conscious energy and creative energy.

  
  

• World 6 (All Suns): Higher intellectual center, vast perception beyond time, operating on creative and unitive energy.

  
  

• World 3 (All Worlds): Differentiation close to unity, where the three forces interact according to the Law of Three. Operates on unitive and transcendent energy.

  
  
  
  

• World 1 (The Absolute): The undivided root source, the Will of God, operating as transcendent energy.

As William Page writes: “The Ray of Creation describes a very specific octave that begins with the Absolute and ends with our Moon.” This octave includes two essential “bridges”:

• The Si/Do interval, bridged by the Will of the Absolute, initiates creation’s descent.

  
  

• The Mi/Fa interval, bridged by organic life, enables the infusion of new energies essential for evolution and biodiversity (In Search of the Miraculous, pp. 130–132).

  
  

The Work teaches that although the higher centers are innate, they are latent and must be developed and filled with experience, just as the lower centers are. True spirituality depends on our ability to sustain contact with these higher vibrations.

William Page notes:

“There are many changes we need to make in order to come to a regular experience of higher worlds. These changes can be best described as a change of being… Self-remembering at its root is a method of focus… Not identifying is a method of keeping our lower selves from interrupting the flow of the energy of higher centers… These exercises… help us not only bring higher centers to the forefront of our consciousness, but also stay longer in higher centers when they appear. In the long run that is our aim: to be able to live as much of our lives as possible while inhabiting higher worlds.”

Without human participation in this reciprocal process, creation itself cannot continue its ascending movement. Bennett reminds us: “Man is fuel for the higher cosmic energies… Conscious labor and intentional suffering prepare and open us, making possible the transformation of energies so that higher processes can act through us” (Energies, p. 66).

As Page also observes:

“The Ray of Creation explains many things that religion leaves unanswered. It explains, for instance, why God does not intervene on our level—why he doesn’t relieve human suffering. The forces or laws that cause our suffering cannot be changed without changing all the other laws that are necessary… Suffering, as we generally think it, enters at the level of World 24, as a necessary part of having a physical body.”

To live consciously in the Ray is to remember that our lives are not self-contained but woven into a vast exchange. Our responsibility is not to escape this order but to embody it willingly—transforming, transmitting, and participating in the divine reciprocity at the heart of all things.

Let us live consciously...

With Love,

Heather

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Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses

*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*

Monday, September 15th

Reading: "To be pure in heart means literally to be purged in heart or cleansed ... It is about the inner and outer ... corresponding. It is about an emotional state that can be reached in which the reality of the existence of God is seen directly from the clear-sightedness of the purified emotional understanding.

"Then cleansed, the heart sees - that is, understands - the existence of the higher level, of God, of the reality of the teaching of Christ." – Maurice Nicoll, The New Man

Chant: Purify my heart, purify my heart, let me rest in you – Joy Andrews Hayter

Wednesday, September 17th

Reading: “Genuine human growth incorporates all that is good on the more primitive levels of consciousness as one ascends to higher levels. Only the limitations of the earlier levels are left behind ... The Gospel calls us forth to full responsibility for our emotional life.... to face the unconscious values that underlie the emotional programs for happiness and to change them.” – Thomas Keating, The Mystery of Christ

Thursday, September 18th with Tom

Reading: "What to do with this revelation of a Reality that is beyond reality? A Reality that is beyond being and nonbeing. A Reality that just is, and which has chosen to invite us to IS too. By just being, by just having been born, here we are automatically in relationship to That Which Is. Relationship and being are the same. Being is relationship. You can't be without being together with everything else that is. ... "This God is awesome but incredibly tender, close, loving, intimate, fatherly, motherly, sisterly, brotherly, friendly, engaged, soul friend, partner, companion, beloved, spouse, and the ultimate unity. We're never separate from God. We just think so. ... When you do Centering Prayer or something similar that cultivates silence, you're really cultivating intimacy with God, whoever that is. ..." – Thomas Keating excerpted from"Falling Into the Hands of the Living God" video, filmed in 2013

Chant: “Love be with you, Love be with you, O Holy One”

Friday, September 19th with Catherine

Reading: "Joining Jesus in The Prayer of Oneness," adapted from The Easter Mysteries by Beatrice Bruteau

It is reported of Jesus that he would go out into the hills and spend the whole night “in the prayer of God” (Luke 6:12).  This is how he got down to that foundation where meekness stands in balance, where he knows and is sure of his Father’s love for him and his Father’s powerful presence in him.  Let us use our imaginations to join with him in this meditation.

The town is sleeping.  The day’s work of preaching and healing and teaching is not yet begun.  Very early, while it is still dark, Jesus slips away to the hills outside the village.  He finds a flat spot with a bit of grass and a smooth rock behind for a backrest, where he can sit and see the stars.  There is room enough for us and we sit nearby.  

There is deep silence all around.  He lets himself be quiet, just be there, look at the distant hills, the broad sky.  We can feel the night wind and wrap a cloak around us.  We are in a good place.  On the earth, under the heavens.  Inside God.  Just be there.....

Feel the quietness in Jesus, the deep peace in him, the peace he gives us.  Realize that it is rooted in his faith and knowledge of God, in his desiring only God’s loving will.  He doesn’t dwell on the details of his life, the worries and concerns.  He is full of the confidence and strength that comes only when we align ourselves with God’s love.  Let this faith, security, restfulness, peace, confidence, strength, seep into you.  Catch his rhythm, resonate with his inner pulse.

When the mind wanders we simply return to Jesus’ Presence.  It isn’t that we deny or push away anything that comes into our awareness.  But his grace is stronger, more attractive to our attention, truer, more vital.  It fills our consciousness with healing and hope.

After awhile, we become aware that praying is going on.  The earth is praying, the rocks, the ground, the grass, the trees, the distant rivers and the sea.  The heavens are praying, the slender moon and all the stars.  The awareness of the reality, the presence and the dearness of God is becoming palpable.  We are all feeling it - the heavens, the earth, Jesus, ourselves.  The prayer of all the world lifts gently all around us, like a great heart beating, like a giant breath rising and falling in rhythm.  The prayer penetrates and permeates us. We rest in it and let it fill us...

It is God’s love.  God’s love in the earth, God’s love in the heavens, God’s love in Jesus and in us.  This is what we are, all of us; we are made of God’s love, breathing and beating, living gently moment by moment.

We become keenly aware of being made by and out of this pulsating divine presence.  It surrounds and cradles us as a Parent.  We feel a profound reverence for it, a reverence that reverberates through the whole creation and includes all these presences of God - in the earth, the heavens, Jesus, ourselves.  And the more we feel this reverence, the deeper grows our sense of reality, of sureness, security, and stability.  We are resting on the groundwork of reality in God’s love.

Here is everything we desire.  Here is where the heart finds rest and has no inclination to move to this side or to that.

The wind stirs softly, caressing our faces, sharing its breath with ours.  God’s breath, God’s Holy Spirit, blowing through us all about us, inside us, outside us....In and out, out and in...We in God, God in us."

Sunday, September 21st with Catherine

Reading: “Whenever new life grows and emerges, darkness is crucial to the process.  Whether it’s the caterpillar in the chrysalis, the seed in the ground, the child in the womb, or the True Self in the soul, there’s always a time of waiting in the dark.”  – Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits

Chant: Dance in the darkness, slow be the pace. Surrender to the rhythm of redeeming grace.                  

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