Saturday, May 5, 2007

The Three Gunas, Part Two

Now that we have talked about the three forces and began to understand how they operate, we're going to anthropomorphize certain objective phenomenon and we are going to use adjectives and descriptive terms to deepen our understanding of how the cosmos runs.

Remember that we had seen that the three forces can be thought of as centrifugal, centripetal or revolving. For anything to exist, these three forces must be present, although they are always shifting in their balance amongst the three, so that one may be seen to have the upper hand at various times.

Now I'm going to give the three forces new names. You will know these words and you will think you have an understanding of what they mean. There are ordinary words which are used far too much. And I can assure you that you do not know what they mean. Just please indulge me -- pretend you do not really know what the following words mean. That will allow me to help you to come to a deeper understanding.

The centrifugal force we are going to call Love.

The centripetal force we are going to call Peace.

The revolving force we are going to call Prosperity.

I am going to declare that these are the only three forces operating in the universe. Now you are supposed to object! You say that it cannot be possible for the universe to be run with nothing but these three, and I am saying that it can. Please bear with me while I sort through the reasoning and sort it out for you:

Love ought to be only going outwards -- it should be entirely centrifugal.

Peace ought to be going inwards -- it is meant to be centripetal.

Prosperity is the revolving force. Prosperity has much movement in it -- in fact, it is responsible for all movement whatsoever. Period.

Now let me make an audacious statement, and then we will examine it. We will turn it and look at it as if it were a precious gemstone, and we will turn it over like a child turns over rock to see what creepy crawler worms might be under it. Here is the statement:

War is defined as the rapid movement of prosperity. I will say that again, louder:

WAR IS THE RAPID MOVEMENT OF PROSPERITY.

Now, war is also emotional. It happens when men's instinctual center is threatened and sets into a course of action designed to protect the organism and to improve its status with respect to prosperity. Remember that when we talked about the emotional center we said that it was connected to the atmosphere and subject to weather. While here we have something of the same thing: prosperity is like the atmosphere in that it is subject to weather. One guy is rich and one guy is poor, and the next day something happens and there is a reversal of fortune and the rich guy loses all of his loot and the poor guy suddenly gets an inheritance, and all that has happened balls under the purview of prosperity. Prosperity moves. It never stands still.

War is the leading-edge or storm surge of a hurricane or tornado within prosperity. There can be no loss of prosperity, because nothing ever disappears completely off the face of the earth, and according to Isaac Newton and his wonderful laws which still stand as true even though people would like to think that Einstein has supplanted him. I wag my finger and I say no no no. Tis not true. Anyway that's irrelevant or nearly so to the subject we have at hand. Have you ever seen the pictures of (why, of course you have) tornado damage or hurricane damage? This is identical to the damage seen in war. Exactly the same. Remember that the emotional center is subject to weather. So this is exactly that -- on a big scale.

Remember when Gurdjieff said "war or no war, we always turn a profit." Well, this is common sense. If there is a strong movement of prosperity -- something like a barometric pressure change -- storm clouds ahead, then there is an enormous chance for benefiting from that energetic change. That's one of the reasons why Mr. Gurdjieff always headed towards places of greatest conflict. The Chinese, who practice Qigong, say that the two times of the day which are best to practice in our when the dew which has condensed upon the ground overnight gets lifted back into the atmosphere by the warmth of the sun and the opposite time when the dew falls.

OK kids (I am not being condescending or patronizing -- I am a child too). That's it for this time. There's a lot to think about. I don't want to overload you. If you happen to find me either on the web or in person, please feel free to discuss these ideas with me. It's really a lot of fun.

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