It is a natural, yet incorrect, assumption to accept physical events
at face value. Influences come to us upon many varied levels, and the
visible, physical carrier or medium is the most superficial form. All of
life is a play of forces; we may call these ‘universal forces’ for they
act both within and beyond the physical. We have become accustomed to
giving personal forms to many of these forces, and we believe that we
are independent and free from their influence. The Greek-Armenian mystic
G.I. Gurdjieff used to say that humankind lives under 48 laws, of which
they are mostly unaware or ignorant of. This is a very precise number,
and it is not the numbers – the quantity – or the specifics that I wish
to focus on here, but the
quality. It may be necessary to have a ‘feeling’ for the forces of influence that populate our lives in the physical domain.
Most
people, most of the time, are not aware of the forces acting upon them;
and this is a natural condition. We all live our lives within a sea of
vibrations – thoughts, suggestions, influences, etc – and we are barely
aware of which ones belong to us and which we take to be our own. Let us
take a common example as an illustration: information. When a person
receives information, the general response is to consider the likelihood
of that information in relation to their belief sets and range of
accumulated opinions. The person then makes a response regarding whether
the information is ‘true’ or ‘false.’ Yet this is a limited
two-dimensional way to regard the relationship of the communication....<<<Read More>>>...
