Paying the Debt of Our Existence

Gurdjieff summarized human responsibilities in the form of five "Obligolnian Strivings," the fourth of which is "the striving from the beginning of their existence to pay for their arising and their individuality as quickly as possible, in order afterwards to be free to lighten as much as possible the Sorrow of our COMMON FATHER."

This resonates deeply, touching a chord of truth in us and raising some profound questions. In what way and to whom are we indebted for our arising? How do we pay for our arising? What is the Sorrow of our COMMON FATHER, our Source, and how do we lighten it? The general, though indirect, answer that Gurdjieff gives revolves around being-duty, by which he means living responsibly and working on ourselves, working with and for others, and for the Sacred. Spiritual practice generates and transforms hidden energies, while purifying and integrating our will. According to Gurdjieff, all inner work benefits us, our communities, our planet, and the Sacred.

Faced with the slow-rolling, but seemingly inexorable and accelerating catastrophe of climate change, coupled with the deepening fissures and antipathies within our societies, we feel our obligations to our community and planet more keenly. We may live our outer lives in a more or less responsible manner, perhaps making changes to decrease our personal carbon footprint and make peace with our neighbor.

But this inner work of energies and will is a different matter. How do we know that the spiritual energies we receive, produce, and transform have any impact on our community and this beautiful planet? There are three personally verifiable facts that point toward the truth, or at least reasonableness, of that view.

First, when we enter a room where people are praying or meditating in a deep way, we can feel it. Merely walking into such a place changes our state. We feel more present, more at peace.

Second, when we enter a place where many people have prayed or meditated over decades or centuries, we can feel it. Merely walking into such a place changes our state. We feel more present, more at peace.

Third, those whom the Covid-19 pandemic pushed toward engaging in a new type of group prayer or meditation, where the group is geographically dispersed but acting together via a video connection, such as Zoom, have witnessed the unexpected and unreasonable effectiveness of that. We know that praying or meditating while physically together in a group amplifies the strength and depth of our prayer or meditation beyond what is typical when we work on our own. We can clearly feel it. But it was not obvious that a similar effect would occur in a video-connected group. Yet clearly, this does work.

How is that possible? Why does it work? How can a Zoom room work like a meditation hall? Higher spiritual energies are not subject to space and time in the same way our bodies are. Those energies have no boundaries. Take the example of the conscious energy. There is a clear sense in which our consciousness now is the very same consciousness we experienced as children, despite the distance and the years. That fundamental consciousness, prior to sensory specifics, prior to all the contents of awareness, does not change, is everywhere, and has no boundaries. When we meditate or pray together via Zoom, our deeper nature can be just as connected as when we are physically together. The more we come into our deeper nature, into pure consciousness, the clearer that connection and its effects. Indeed, this effect points toward the possibility that we all share one deeper nature, that at our core we are not separate, that what happens to one of us affects all of us.

Those considerations can give us confidence that our inner work matters not only for ourselves but also for our entire society. One way that prayer becomes an act of service occurs when we open ourselves toward the Sacred and participate in the action of allowing the spiritual energies to flow into and through us by directing those energies toward society and our planet as a whole.

We owe our parents for raising us. We owe our society for its endless benefits. We owe Great Nature for its bounty of food, air, water, and beauty. We owe our Creator for our freedom of will. Clearly, our outer actions, our job, our responsible living, our good works, go toward paying the debt of our existence. Our inner work also helps pay the debt of our existence, according to the quality we bring to it.

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