Hi, I’m Gary

.Welcome to a series of podcasts on how to achieve 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, we find, 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 the Law of Three, and the Law of Seven as described by Gurdjieff. 

We will start with the Law of Three.

The first thing we can know about the Law of Three is a process of blending, called, “Harnel-miaznel,” The Harnel Miaznel is all about blending., and is an Armenian phrase which literally translates as “to mix and join or enter”. 

Gurdjieff defines the Law of Three as follows:

“A new arising from the previously arisen through the “Harnel-miaznel,” the process of which is actualized thus: the higher blends with the lower in order to actualize the middle and thus becomes either higher for the preceding lower, or lower for the succeeding higher;’ 

This is otherwise known as the Triamazikamno consisting of three independent forces, positive, negative and neutral, and the phrase itself literally translates from Greek as Three, I Put Together.

Blending is intrinsic to the Law of Three. Everything blends on every level, from matter and material to ideas and mind.

For instance, to make bread you must first blend flour and water. There are many ways to blend flour and water. You can use more water than flour; and, instead of getting dough, you will get a runny paste. 

As kids, we used to blow up balloons, cut a newspaper into strips, dip the strips into the paste, and put the pasty strips on the balloons. When the strips dried, we would pop the balloons, cut out some eyes, and paint a face on it. Voilà, we made Papier-Mache, not dough. 

To make dough, you need to use the right proportions of flour and water. 

Once you have the right proportions, you only get dough if you then blend them… and blend them… and blend them. It is called kneading; and, you have to keep kneading it until it reaches the proper consistency. 

Then, it will be ready to receive another force, the force of the hot oven. I will point out, that once you blend the flour and water into dough, you give the dough a death sentence. It will not last long as dough. 

Let it sit too long and it will sour. If you do not want your dough to sour, do not blend the flour and water. Keep them as flour and water. Separate, they can last a long time…. 

OK, you kneaded your dough up to the proper consistency and got it ready to receive the second force. The force of fire. A transformation then takes place and the dough turns into bread, after which, more blending can take place. You can blend the bread with a knife and cut it into slices. 

You can blend the bread with butter or jelly. You can blend the bread with caramel drizzle or sugary sprinkles, but it will not fulfil its purpose, unless a third force enters, which will be another kind of oven, one that can transform the bread even further; the oven of a man’s stomach…. 

With all three forces the flour and water will fulfil their highest potential. Notice, that most of the event proceeded by the process of Harnel-miaznel, by blending; and, you could have even added more blending to the process. 

You could have blended in yeast and made risen dough. You could have blended in raisins and made risen, raisin dough. But, no amount of blending can make bread (unless you are Superman and can knead the dough so fast that the heat created by the friction of your kneading, bakes the bread). 

But you are not Superman and you cannot make bread without blending. You cannot just put flour and water in a pan, put it in the oven, and expect it to turn into bread. Blending is very important. As we said, most of the notes in an octave are reached by the process of blending…. 

The process of Harnel-miaznel also contains this principle, “the higher blends with the lower in order to actualize the middle and thus becomes either higher for the preceding lower, or lower for the succeeding higher.” What the heck does that mean? 

How much stomach acid do you drink each day to handle your digestive needs? You don’t? Then, where does it come from? The food you eat is blended into higher substances, a middle. 

Some of that middle stuff goes back (becomes higher middle stuff for lower stuff and helps the lower stuff become higher). Some of that middle stuff goes on to be raised even further (becomes lower middle stuff for higher stuff which helps the lower middle stuff become higher). 

Thus, “the higher blends with the lower in order to actualize the middle and thus becomes either higher for the preceding lower, or lower for the succeeding higher.” 

The process of Harnel-miaznel, coupled with the three forces, gives us a great model for understanding the Law of Triamazikamno.

Man can blend with the rules and laws found in Gurdjieff: Cosmic Secrets and be raised to a state that will allow him to receive another force, the force of April Fools… and awaken. Man can then blend with the Master Exercises and be raised even higher, to where he can receive a third force, the force of the Double or Nothing Exercises, which will turn him into really good bread, and allow him to attain reason and impartiality. 

If we look, we can see three forces everywhere. In Christianity they are the Trinity: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; in Hinduism they are Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; in chemistry they are found in atoms as protons, neutrons, and electrons; in particle physics, we find three quarks; in visible light, we have three primary colors; and, in music there are three notes in a chord.

It is easy to see the Law of Three everywhere. Now, let’s move on to the Law of Seven, the law of Heptaparaparshinokh.

Gurdjieff’s definition of the Law of Seven is as follows: “The-line-of-the-flow-of-forces-constantly-deflecting-according-to-law-and-uniting-again-at-its-ends.” 

The first part of that definition may be difficult to understand until we talk about all the forces that “constantly deflect.” But, for now, the second and third parts should be comprehensible: “This sacred primordial cosmic law has seven deflections or, as it is still otherwise said, seven ‘centers of gravity’ which are the notes and the distance between each two of these deflections or ‘centers of gravity’ is called a ‘Stopinder-of-the-sacred-Heptaparaparshinokh’ which are the spaces or intervals between the notes.

“This law, passing through everything newly arising and everything existing, always makes its completing processes with its seven Stopinders.”

Thus, if something only makes it through five stopinders, we would know that it is not complete, because “everything existing, always makes its completing processes with its seven stopinders.”

If an acorn falls from the tree and rots, we know that it is not complete… because it did not make it through all seven stopinders. If it starts to grow and the lawnmower gets it, it too is not complete. 

Only things that traverse all seven stopinders are complete. If we understood this, then, it would be our lot in life to learn and understand the seven stopinders of man… so, we could be complete.

It is not enough for a man to be a good dancer, a good singer, to love his children, to have a master’s degree, to be socially kind, or to be a leader in his community. He must also possess conscience, reason, and impartiality. He must have all seven stopinders functioning in him for him to be complete.

Someone may be a great man, an honorable man, kind to his family, but dies like a dog because he does not develop his Higher Emotional or his Higher Mental Centers. A lot of people do a lot of things they should not be doing (according to what higher men should be doing).

Priests who abuse choir boys cannot be hailed as being higher individuals. They may be developed in several stopinders, but they cannot be called higher individuals if they abuse choir boys, lack loyalty, intelligence, conscience, reason, or impartiality. They cannot be higher guys… even though they carry the title, “Priest.”

To be a higher man we must traverse all seven stopinders. 

Every day we should ask ourselves, “Are we working on our stopinders?” That is, are we working on our sensing and moving centers; do we feel the meaning of things, love, joy, etc., which feeds our Emotional Center; are we giving our Intellectual Center, true, uplifting data; are we good social beings, helping others; are we developing reason and impartiality? … 

Because only a man with all seven stopinders can be called complete.

Man can do many good things. But, if he wants to cheat his neighbor, or punch someone because they support the other team, there is something wrong with him.

Most men only fulfill the first striving. Those who are trying to work on the second striving, on what they are supposed to be, get so much wrong information they often head off in the wrong direction.

And, if someone awakes, they usually awake subjectively and are unable to show others how to do it. 

Instead, they tell others to sit in a lotus position, stand in an ant hill, or scrub the temple floor, which never took anyone anywhere. 

It is a mess. 

To get to where we are supposed to be, we must reawaken our Higher Emotional Center and get our conscience back. If we acquire the fifth stopinder, we may be able to acquire the sixth and obtain objective reason and impartiality. 

Finally, the seventh stopinder may be filled by the hand of God reaching down and pulling us to completion (we will talk more about this in another podcast). 

Bottom line, we must acquire the sixth stopinder on our own, which is the stopinder between La and Ti. But, first, we need to acquire the fifth stopinder (So-La) and wake up Steward. Wherein, we will attain self-consciousness and conscience. 

It is not good enough to just have the four lower centers: Instinctive, Moving, Emotional, and Intellectual. We also need to acquire the two Higher Centers.

That is the end of this discussion on the Law of Seven and blending in the Law of Three  

Thank you for listening.

.Goodbye until next time.