Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky) · 185 of 225 · tr. Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon
Chapter XXII (part 13)
Then the understanding of such a man receives from the Holy Spirit the highest and hidden mysteries which according to the divine Paul, neither the human eye can understand nor the human reason comprehend unaided.
(Ii Corinthians ii, 9).
And that thou mayest understand how our reason sees them, try to apprehend that which I shall say to thee.
Wax, when it is placed far from fire, is solid, and it is possible to take it and hold it, but as soon as it is thrown in fire it immediately melts, takes fire, burns, blazes and ends thus in the midst of flames.
So also is human reason when it is alone by itself, ununited with God; then it comprehends in the usual way and according to its power all things surrounding it; but as it approaches the fire of Divinity and of the Holy Ghost, then is it entirely enveloped by that Divine fire, and immersed in Divine meditation, and then in that fire of Divinity it is impossible for it to think about its own affairs and about that which it desires.
( Superconsciousness , p.
370) St.
Basil the Great says about the revelation of God: Absolutely unutterable and indescribable are the lightning-like splendors of Divine beauty; neither can speech express nor hearing apprehend.
Shall we name the brilliance of the morning star, the brightness of the moon, the radiance of the sun—the glory of all these is unworthy of being compared with the true light, standing farther from it than does the gloomiest night and the most terrible darkness from midday brightness.
This beauty, invisible to bodily eyes, comprehensible to soul and mind only, if it illumines some of the saints leaves in them an unbearable wound through their desire that this vision of Divine beauty should extend over an eternity of life; disturbed by this earthly life, they loathe it as thought it were a prison.
( Superconsciousness , p.
372) St.
Theognis says: A strange word will I say to thee.
There is some hidden mystery which proceeds between God and the soul.
This is experienced by those who achieve the highest heights of perfect purity of p.
288 love and faith, when man, changing completely unites with God, as His own, through ceaseless prayer and contemplation?
( Superconsciousness , p.
381) Certain parts of the writings of Clement of Alexandria (second century) are remarkably interesting.
It appears to us that painting appears to take in the whole field of view in the scenes represented.
But it gives a false description of the view, according to the rules of the art, employing the signs that result from the incidents of the lines of vision.
By this means, the higher and the lower points in the view, and those between, are preserved; and some objects seem to appear in the foreground, and others in the background, and others to appear in some other way, on the smooth and level surface.
So also philosophers copy the truth, after the manner of painting.
1 Clement of Alexandria here reveals one very important aspect of truth , namely, its inexpressibility in words and the entire conditionality of all philosophical systems and formulations.
Dialectically truth is represented only in perspective—i.e., in an inevitably deformed shape—such is his idea.
What time and labor would be saved, and from what enormous and unnecessary suffering would humanity save itself, could it but understand this one simple thing: that truth cannot be expressed in our language .
Then would men cease to think that they possessed truth, would cease to force others to accept their truth at any cost, would see that others may approach truth from another direction , exactly as they themselves approach it, by a way of their own.
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
Uses the metaphor of wax melting in fire to describe the transformation of reason.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
Reason becomes impossible to think about its own affairs when immersed in Divine fire.
Ecstatic, non-rational receptivity to the divine figured as drunkenness — Plato's symposium wine, Rumi's sukr, Eckhart's 'sober drunkenness'; the passive/receptive metaphor for divine encounter, distinct from divine_madness's active possessing rapture.
Reason is enveloped and burns in the Divine fire, suggesting ecstatic receptivity.
Ecstatic irrational rapture — Plato's mania, Bruno's furore — by which the soul transcends ordinary reason and attains direct contact with divine reality; madness reframed as higher knowledge.
Reason melts and burns in the fire of Divinity, transcending ordinary comprehension.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
Human reason melts and burns in the Divine fire, becoming unable to think about its own affairs.
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.
Describes human reason alone by itself as limited compared to divine union, consistent with Ouspensky's context.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
Refers to Divine meditation and contemplation as states of approaching Divinity.
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.
Earthly life is described as a prison that saints loathe due to their desire for Divine vision.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
Man unites with God as His own through purity, implying transformation into divine nature.