Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky) · 171 of 225 · tr. Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon
Chapter XXI (part 9)
There cannot be anything which is measured by years, days, hours—there cannot be before, now, after.
Moments of different epochs, divided by great intervals of time, exist simultaneously, and may touch one another.
Along with this, all the possibilities of a given moment, even those opposite to one another, and all their results up to infinity, must be actualized simultaneously with a given moment, but the length of a moment can be different on different planes.
2.
There is nothing measurable by our measures, nothing commensurable with our objects, nothing greater or less than our objects.
There is nothing situated on the right or left side, above or below one of our objects.
There can be nothing similar to our objects, lines or figures and at the same time exist.
Different points in our space, divided for us by enormous distances, may meet there.
"Distance" or "proximity" are there defined by inner "affinity" or "remoteness," by sympathy or antipathy, i.e., by properties which seem to us to be subjective.
3.
There is neither matter nor motion.
There is nothing that could possibly be weighed or photographed, or expressed in the formulæ of physical energy.
There is nothing which has form , color or odor —nothing possessing the properties of physical bodies.
Nevertheless, the properties of the world of causes, granted an understanding of certain laws, can be considered in enumerated categories.
4.
There is nothing dead or unconscious.
Everything lives, everything breathes, thinks, feels; everything is conscious, and everything speaks.
5.
In that world the axioms of our mathematics cannot be applied, p.
269 because there is nothing finite .
Everything there is infinite and, from our standpoint, variable .
6.
The laws of our logic cannot act there.
From the standpoint of our logic, that world is illogical .
This is the realm the laws of which are expressed in Tertium Organum .
7.
The separateness of our world does not exist there.
Everything is the whole .
And each particle of dust, without mentioning of course every life and every conscious being, lives a life which is one with the whole and includes the whole within itself.
8.
In that world the duality of our world cannot exist.
There being is not opposed to non-being .
Life is not opposed to death .
On the contrary, the one includes the other within itself.
The unity and multiplicity of the I; the I and the Not-I; motion and immobility; union and separateness; good and evil; truth and falsehood—all these divisions are impossible there.
Everything subjective is objective, and everything objective is subjective .
That world is the world of the unity of opposites .
9.
The sensation of the reality of that world must be accompanied by the sensation of the unreality of this one.
At the same time the difference between real and unreal cannot exist there, just as the difference between subjective and objective cannot exist.
10.
That world and our world are not two different worlds.
The world is one.
That which we call our world is merely our incorrect perception of the world : the world seen by us through a narrow slit.
That world begins to be sensed by us as the wondrous , i.e., as something opposite to the reality of this world , and at the same time this, our earthly world, begins to seem unreal.
The sense of the wondrous is the key to that world.
11.
But everything that can be said about it will not define our relation to that world until we come to understand that even comprehending it we will not be able to grasp it as a whole, i.e., in all its variety of relations, but can think of it only in this or that aspect.
12.
Everything that is said about the world of causes refers also to the All .
But between our world and the All there may be many transitions.
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 relationship where the particle includes the whole implies a structural correspondence between scales.
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.
Distance in the higher world is defined by inner 'affinity' or 'remoteness,' by sympathy or antipathy.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Good and evil divisions are impossible there, suggesting they lack substantial reality in the higher world.
The doctrine of the universe as boundless and without center or circumference, populated by innumerable worlds — Bruno's rejection of the closed Aristotelian sphere; the divine and the cosmos as ontologically infinite.
The text asserts that in that world 'everything there is infinite' and nothing is finite.
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 reference to 'incorrect perception' aligns with Ouspensky's concept of ordinary humans living in a state of waking sleep.
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.
[auto] It states that each particle of dust includes the whole within itself, mirroring the macrocosm in the microcosm.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
Our world is described as an incorrect perception through a narrow slit, implying separation from the true whole.