Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky) · 134 of 225 · tr. Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon
Chapter XVII (part 7)
The activity of the life of such a composite being as a forest is not the same as the activity of different species of plants and animals, and the activity of the life of a species is again different from the life of separate individuals.
Moreover, the diversity of the functions expressed in different life-activities reveals the differences existing between the psychic lives of different "organisms." The life-activity of a single leaf of a birch tree, is of course an infinitely lower form of activity than the life of the tree .
The activity of the life of the tree is not such as the activity of the life of the species, and the life of the species is not such as the life of the forest.
The functions of these four "lives" are entirely different, and their rationality must be correspondingly different also.
The rationality of a single cell of the human body must be as much lower in comparison with the rationality of the body—i.e., with the "physical consciousness of man"—as its life-activity is lower in comparison with the life-activity of the entire organism.
p.
208 Therefore, from a certain standpoint, we may regard the noumenon of a phenomenon as the soul of that phenomenon, i.e., we may say that the hidden soul of a phenomenon is its noumenon.
The concept of the soul of a phenomenon or the noumenon of a phenomenon includes within itself both life and rationality together with their functions in sections of the world incomprehensible to us; and the manifestation of those in our sphere constitutes a phenomenon.
The idea of an animistic universe leads inevitably to the idea of a "World-Soul"—a "Being" whose manifestation is this visible universe.
The idea of the "World-Soul" was very picturesquely understood in the ancient religions of India.
The mystical poem, The Bhagavad Gitâ gives a remarkable presentment of Mahadeva , i.e., the great Deva whose life is this world.
Thus Krishna propounded his teaching to his disciples.
.
.
.
preparing them for an apprehension of those high spiritual truths which unfold before his inner sight in a moment of illumination.
When he spoke of Mahadeva his voice became very deep, and his face was illuminated by an inner light.
Once Arjuna, in an impulse of boldness, said to him: Let us see Mahadeva in his divine form.
May we behold him?
And then Krishna .
.
.
began to speak of a being who breathes in every creature, has an hundred-fold and a thousand-fold forms, many-faced, many-eyed, facing everywhere, and who surpasses everything created by infinity, who envelops in his body the whole world, things still and animate.
If the radiance of a thousand suns should burst forth suddenly in the sky, it would not compare with the radiance of that Mighty Spirit.
When Krishna spoke thus of Mahadeva, a beam of light of such tremendous force shone in his eyes, that his disciples could not endure the radiance of that light, and fell at Krishna's feet.
From very fear the hair rose on Arjuna's head, and bowing low he said: Thy words are terrible, we cannot look upon such a being as Thou evokest before our eyes.
His form makes us tremble.
1 In an interesting book of lectures by Prof.
William.
James, A Pluralistic Universe , there is a lecture on Fechner, devoted to "a conscious universe." Ordinary monistic idealism leaves everything intermediary out.
It recognizes only extremes, as if, after the first rude face of the phenomenal p.
209 world in all its particularity, nothing but the supreme in all its perfection could be found.
First, you and I, just as we are in this room; and the moment we get below that surface, the unutterable itself!
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The text asserts that rationality corresponds to life-activity levels across different scales of existence.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The reference to Fechner and a 'conscious universe' implies hidden affinities binding all parts of the cosmos.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The text explicitly outlines a hierarchy of life-activities and rationality ranging from cells to organisms, species, and forests.
Gurdjieff and Ouspensky's claim that ordinary human beings live in a state of waking sleep, reacting mechanically without unified will or consciousness, and that the spiritual path begins with recognising this condition.
The text contrasts the rationality of a single cell with the 'physical consciousness of man,' a key term in Ouspensky's system.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The passage draws structural parallels between the cell and body, leaf and tree, and species and forest to illustrate levels of being.