RATIONAL GLIMPSES OF IMMORTALITY

I will end this account of our meeting with Mr. Gurdjieff in Constantinople by recalling an answer he gave to a question about immortality. It was in Prinkipo, shortly before our departure. A dear friend of a member of our group had just died, and we were speaking of this when Mr. Gurdjieff joined us. There was an embarrassing silence at being caught in idle chatter about the details of the deceased persons death. We felt ashamed that we had not been speaking about our work and observations. After a while one of us began to fidget and cough, his nervousness showing the difficulty he had in formulating his thoughts. I dont really see, he finally said, how work of a spiritual nature leads to immortality. This question has always tormented me, and I find the explanation you gave about the possible survival of the subtle bodies very obscure. Mr Gurdjieff looked hard at all of us, and then, with his habitual calm and a softness in his voice, he said, Yes, its true. It is very difficult to imagine how such a thing could be possible. We need knowledge of the different functions of the human body, and of physical bodies in general, to conceive of such a possibility. In the laboratory of the human body, three kinds of nourishment physical food, air and impressions are transformed, not only into the substances necessary for the life of the organism, but also into subtle substances and energies with higher frequencies of vibration. You know that in the gall bladder, for example, stones form as a result of crystallization from a saturated liquid. Psychic substances obey the same law and, having reached saturation, they crystallize, as salt does when the concentration is above a certain level. In order to understand how immortality can be acquired, one must know that in certain definite conditions, man has the possibility of transforming coarse energies into very fine ones. By means of work that accumulates these energies, they can reach saturation and eventually crystallization. As every student of physical chemistry knows, crystals have properties that have many advantages over those that exist in a saturated liquid. Lets take an example. If one empties a bucket of salt water into a river, one will be able to detect the presence of salt at a particular moment fifteen meters downstream. The water there will be less salty than the water in the bucket, but the salt will still be detectable. On the other hand, a kilometre farther down, the salt will be so diluted that it cannot be detected by taste or analysis. If we take the river as representing life, and the salt as the immortal substance, then salt, once crystallized, will survive longer than salt water. Do you understand what I have just said?

Seeing our expressions of agreement, Mr. Gurdjieff continued. If it were possible to take away the salt crystals from the rivers current and put it somewhere where water could not dissolve it, theoretically, it would be immortal. In the case of a man, the current of life unceasingly carries away all the energies formed in him, as we can easily discover for ourselves. If a man were able to withdraw himself from the devouring influences of life, the substance he consciously forms by his work could crystallize more quickly and remain on a higher level that is distinct from the one on which he lives his ordinary life. In such a case, this freed material substance, that of consciousness, would have unique properties in its own world. It would be an independent entity and would no longer be dissolved through the ordinary functions of a living being. I do not know how long this explanation took, but I do remember that Mr. Gurdjieff then spoke about the law of three forces, or the law of trinity. Using the metaphor of making bread as another example, he wanted to help us understand how a new independent entity could be formed. In making bread, water represents the active force, flour the passive force, and fire, the neutralizing force. Bread is the independent result, the fourth element arising from the action of these three forces. Each of the three forces is necessary for the bread to be made; if one of them is missing, there will not be bread. From dough treated in a certain way, you could again get flour; but bread, through reduced to powder, could never again become flour. Once made, bread has a fate of its own. What is difficult to understand is the nature of the river we spoke of earlier and the possibility of leaving it so that crystallization can take place. As you are now, you cannot do it; nor do you see the unfortunate consequences of not understanding this idea. It was precisely this lack of understanding that caused an asceticism to arise in many monasteries, where the monks too often exhausted themselves instead of developing. Perhaps you will understand later, but now, lets resume our work. That evening, Gyorgi Ivanovitch took us to the Turkish part of the city where people were celebrating the feast of Bairam. He talked to us there a long time about the rites and customs of the East. The next morning, all our attention was taken by the careful preparations for our forthcoming departure.