S2/EP4: Triads and Forces – Part 1

Hi, I’m Gary

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Welcome to a series of podcasts on achieving a peaceful and mindful state through mental  awareness exercises, and further, in gaining understanding into the laws of world creation and world maintenance, specifically as described within the works of George Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way, much of which was often cryptically buried within Gurdjieff’s writings.

Each episode in this particular series focuses upon a particular element of this teaching, and aims to bring simple understanding to what was frequently hidden in plain sight within the various subject areas covered in Gurdjieff and others writing.

Today, we’re going to talk about 

TRIADS:

Just to be clear, this is not a talk about organized crime groups, but about a group of three things, 

We learn from Gurdjieff that initially the Universe was governed by a system called the Autoegocrat.

Autoegocrat translates to, “Myself, I maintain.”

Auto-ego-crat. Technically it means, “myself, I hold.”

“Auto” – myself.

“Ego” – I,

“Krató” – to hold.

Myself, I hold. Myself, I maintain. I maintain myself.

The fellow in Texas likes to explain the idea using this model: Our Endlessness is living on the Holy Sun Absolute… and, His one lot in life is to stoke the fire of the Holy flame. That is His job. He has to keep the Holy flame burning. Sounds like a good job. 

He is immortal, living on this planet called the Holy Sun Absolute, just stoking the fire of the Holy flame.

In order to do that, He cuts down trees and throws them into the fire. When they burn, He cuts down more trees, and throws them into the fire.

And, after doing this for, I don’t know, billions of years, He says to Himself, “Sooner or later, I am going to run out of trees! That is a problem. I know it is a big planet, and there are a lot of trees, but, if I am going to be here FOREVER, and I keep cutting down and consuming trees to keep the fire going, then, oh My Me, sooner or later, I am going to run out of trees!”

Autoegocrat equals… I cut the down trees to keep the fire going. Myself, I maintain.

However, according to Gurdjieff, the system of the Autoegocrat was causing the Holy Sun Absolute to diminish in volume – similar to the fellow in Texas’s model of Our Endlessness running out of trees. So, God was forced to alter the system which maintained the existence of the Holy Sun Absolute, and changed it to the Trogoautoegocrat.

Trogoautoegocrat translates to, “I eat myself; I maintain.”

Trogo-Auto-Ego-Crat. Trogo is “I eat.” Thus, I eat myself, I hold. 

I maintain myself by eating. 

I exist by consuming my creation.

God said, “I know what I will do, I will make the light of this fire grow trees! If the light of the fire grows trees, then I can cut them down and keep the fire going, which will grow trees, so I can cut them down and keep the fire going.”

The Universe gets into a state of Reciprocal Maintenance, and the Holy Sun Absolute is elevated to the position of Eternal Unchanging.

Creation, itself, now grows trees that stoke the fire and continues creation, which grows trees that stoke the fire…. And thus, our Endlessness overcame His concerns, regarding the Holy Sun Absolute’s diminishment.   

Trogoautoegocrat, I eat myself; I maintain. 

We went from a system called Autoegocrat – myself, I maintain, to a system called Trogoautoegocrat – I eat myself; I maintain.

In Gurdjieff’s model, creation began when the two Laws, which maintained the existence of the Holy Sun Absolute, were changed. However, Gurdjieff does not tell us how they were changed. The only clue he left was:

That Our Endlessness actualized the greater change in the law of the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh.

Well, that at least gives us a place to start.

This idea of creating a Universe in order to stop the Holy Sun Absolute from diminishing in volume is a marvelous idea, and explains why the two fundamental laws had to be changed. 

In most philosophic, religious, and scientific beliefs, we find a very similar idea. That is, for whatever the reason, something changed.

In Christianity it was, “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” Oh my, things were one way… and then, suddenly, they changed; as a result the Universe was born. Wow!

In Physics it was, “All the matter in the Universe was at a single point, which was smaller than an atom,” and for some reason that point went Bang!  And, it was a BIG Bang.  But it is still a model that says, “Things were one way… and then they went bang;” they changed. We do not know why they went bang. We only know that they did.

In the Hindu religion, there was this God called Brahma, and one day he decided to breathe out the Universe!  Thus, the Universe was created from the breath of Brahma. That too was a change. Things were one way… and then they changed.

In Hinduism, the change was the breath of Brahma; in Physics, the change was a Big Bang; and, in Christianity the change was the Spirit of God moving and saying let there be light.

These models all express something similar; before creation, the system of the Universe worked one way… and then, it changed to a new way.

It is hard for me to fathom the Spirit of God moving and saying, “Let there be light.” It is also hard for me to fathom two hundred billion galaxies which came from a point that had no size. How do I equate that? Well, OK, I can do Einstein’s E=mc2, and I can say, well, if you can convert matter into energy, then you should be able to convert energy into matter. That somehow there was this point that had no size but had infinite energy, and I could divide that energy by the speed of light squared and end up with all the matter in the Universe. Yeah, I could figure out the mathematics of that, if I knew exactly how much matter there was in the Universe, but it is still hard for me to fathom…. And, it is even harder for me to fathom the breath of Brahma.  What does that smell like anyway?

Gurdjieff’s creation, like the others, indicates that there was a change. It changed from the Autoegocrat to the Trogoautoegocrat. However, in Gurdjieff’s model, it happened because laws were changed. Which means, if I can understand the laws in their present state, that is, in their changed state, I may be able to un-change them… and put them back like they were before they were changed. And, if I can do that, I may be able to change them back into what they are now, thus discovering how the Universe was created, and ultimately watching in reverence as it all unfolds.

Let’s try, shall we. We will begin with Gurdjieff’s premise that the two fundamental laws were changed. We know what the laws look like in their changed state, since their changed state is the present state of the Universe. So now, we just have to figure out what they looked like before they were changed.

To do this, we should ask some fundamental questions: What were these two laws like before they were changed? How were they changed? Which law was changed first? Why was there a greater change in the Law of Heptaparaparshinokh? And, how did these changes result in the Universe becoming the Universe?

With a little bit of common knowledge… and a little bit of reason, we will be able to comprehend the changes in the two fundamental laws and observe how our Universe began.

We will start by exploring the changing of the Law of Three… and, Gurdjieff’s teachings on triads.

In the podcast on the Enneagram we learned that every event contained three forces. And, we saw, in the Enneagram of Feeding the Community, that the three forces were the kitchen, the food, and the customer.

Which all made sense.

Now, by studying what are called Triads, we will see how the three forces can interact in six different ways.

The Universe started with a trinity of forces… and, with a trinity of forces, there are only six ways that three forces can orient: They can be “plus-minus-neutral;” “plus-neutral-minus;” “neutral-plus-minus;” “neutral-minus-plus;” “minus-neutral-plus;” or “minus-plus-neutral.” There are no others. There are only six. There are only six ways to orient three forces.

These six possible orientations produce six different triads.

Then Gurdjieff indicated a seventh orientation, a seventh triad; one that was only available to God. Saying that it was incomprehensible to the human mind… because, in that triad, each force occupied each place.

In fact, it would look more like a dot than a triangle… because the three forces, plus, minus, and the neutral, would all be at the same place.

Imagine a triad that has all forces at the same place.

This brings up an interesting idea. If our Endlessness has a triad where all the forces are at the same place; and, we live in a Universe where the forces are separated and can only interact via six triads, then, perhaps, the first act of creation involved the separation of the forces. That is, the forces that were all at the same place, became forces at different places. A separation of forces.

God has them all in one triad, in the same place, like in the Physics model, “All the matter in the Universe was at a single point smaller than an atom.” But out here, in the Universe where we live, the forces are separated; and, can only interact via six triads.

I like that idea. It too makes sense.

So, the premise is, we went from a state of three forces being in the same place, to a state of three forces being separated. That was the beginning of creation. It all started with the separation of forces: All forces in the same place… to all forces separated. Bang!

And, with three separated forces, came six triads.

So, let’s talk about the six triads. What are they? What does each one mean?      

If you remember… in order to accomplish the event called “Feeding the Community,” we needed to use the following triad:

DO was the Function, the Kitchen. It was Cyclical.

FA was the Being, the Food. It was what was going to be transformed.

And, LA was the Will, the Customer. It was the Purpose behind the event.

Then, we learned that we must use this triad if we want to have an event called, “Feeding the Community.”

However, if we had a different event in mind, we would have needed to use a different triad.

For example: Let’s say we lived in France during World War II. The Nazis have invaded our country. They were raping our women, shooting our men, and taking over our nation. Maybe we would have said, “Do you know what we are going to do? We are going to invite them all over for dinner, and we are going to make sure that we under-cook the pork; and, instead of transforming the food… we are going to try to transform the Nazis!” We are going to use the triad that irrevocably transforms the customer; and kill Nazis.

Or we might say, you know, the wife and I are doing poorly. Life is not going very well. We are falling behind on our bills. The credit card debt just keeps piling up. Our credit is shot; we cannot get another loan. But you know what we could do. We could go down to the appliance store – it is almost Thanksgiving – and we could buy one of those big kettles that you can fill up with oil, put it on the stove, get the oil bubbling, skewer a turkey, lower the turkey into the boiling oil, and fry the whole turkey at once.

But instead, do you know what we are going to do? We are going to put too much oil in the kettle because we know about displacement. And, when we lower that sixteen-pound turkey into that kettle, which is filled to the brim with hot boiling oil, the oil is going to rise up and spill over the brim. It is going to run down the side, hit the fire, and ignite. So, instead of transforming the turkey, we are going to transform the kitchen and collect the insurance money. That will solve our woes.

If that is your aim, use the triad that transforms kitchens. If your aim is to kill Nazis, use the triad that transforms the customer. But, if your aim is to feed the community, use the triad that transforms food. I repeat, if you wish to accomplish an event, you must use the proper triad. If you use the wrong triad… there’s no telling what you might accomplish.

Now, let’s learn more about the six triads. 

I bet that you have made a few campfires in your lifetime. All right… Let’s make ourselves a campfire. There it is… a nice campfire. Now, let’s take a sheet of plywood.

We will use a four-foot by eight-foot sheet of plywood. One that is 3/4 of an inch thick.

OK, let’s take that sheet of plywood and put it in the campfire so the plywood is standing upright, lengthwise, with one eight-foot edge down in the fire.

What do you think will happen to the plywood?  If you said, the plywood will burn, you are correct. The plywood will burn. Thus, if we orient the three forces, the fire, the air, and the plywood, in that configuration, the plywood will burn. One Enneagram, one triad, the triad of burning the plywood.

That is one possibility.

OK, let’s see what else we have. Let’s take the same fire, the same air, and the same plywood. But this time, let’s take the plywood and put it flat down on the fire.

What might happen now? If you said the plywood may smother the fire, you are correct.

Amazing! The same forces that in one orientation caused the plywood to burn, in another caused the fire to be extinguished.

Thus, you can use a sheet of plywood to put out a fire!

That is a second possibility.

Who would have thought that if you want to put out a fire, you can use a sheet of plywood? Who would have thought?

It is kind of similar to how they put out an oil well fire… so says the fellow in Texas.

What they do with oil well fires is this: First of all, in an oil well fire, you have this flame shooting up out of the ground, because the oil was under pressure when they first hit the pocket of oil and it started spewing into the air. Unfortunately, there was a spark and the oil ignited; and, now there is a flame shooting up into the air.

So, what they do is… put TNT on a boom, run that boom over that burning oil well, and explode the TNT. Who would have thought that a TNT explosion would put out the fire? But it does. The massive TNT explosion consumes all the oxygen; and, since there is no oxygen, there is no flame… Thus, the fire goes out. There is now just raw crude oil shooting up out of the ground, which they quickly cap.

Who would have thought that if you want to put out a fire, you can use some TNT?

So, we can reorient the forces and get a different result.

Let’s try another one… there is our fire, here is our plywood. We, again, put the plywood flat down on the fire, which we said earlier may smother the fire. But this time, we stick a bellows under the edge of the plywood and start pumping air.

What do you think will happen now?  If you said that the introduction of the air will ignite the plywood, you are correct.

The introduction of air will cause the plywood to burn. What actually happens is… the coals become so hot, they literally melt their way through the plywood. That is, the center of the plywood turns black, charcoals, and cracks… exposing the coals in the center of the plywood to oxygen. The center of the plywood bursts into flame… and a ring of fire works its way out consuming the plywood.

So, we can, again, change the orientation of the forces and come up with a third possibility.

Or, we could take the plywood, the fire, and the air, and put the plywood down in the fire on its edge – like we did in the first example:

The plywood is again upright, lengthwise, with its edge down in the fire. And, in that orientation, what would you expect to happen? If you said the plywood would burn, you are correct… unless, you blow some 200mph hurricane winds across the fire.

If you did that, the air would be moving too fast to support a flame. That is why you can blow out a candle. Who would have thought that you can blow oxygen on a flame and extinguish it?  However, if the air is moving fast enough, you can.

We can orient the three forces differently and get a fourth possibility.

I will let you work out the fifth and sixth after this podcast.

That is how triads work.

If you want to kill Nazis, make sure you use the triad that transforms the customer. If you want to collect insurance money, make sure you use the triad that transforms the kitchen. But, if you want to feed the community, make sure you use the triad that transforms food.

That concludes this study on triads.

Thank you for listening, and, if you’d like to know more about the subjects and exercises we’ve been covering in these podcasts, including the book and guide that underpins all of this, and how we work with it, you can find us at The Dog Publishing, at website The Dog Pub Dot Com. That’s T H E D O G P U B DOT COM

Hope you find it useful

Goodbye until next time.