This Impression is about Unity and differentiation, the whole and the parts, the ocean and the drop, the dance and the dancer, the body and the cells, the individual and the Common Good—life and purpose. 

The Mystical Vision of Paradox

“With respect to all the dualities and dichotomies into which we usefully divide the world of our experience … nobody denies that dividing, as a vehicle for better understanding, is useful. But along comes the mystic and puts the things together, and all the rational people cry Paradox! The mystic sees very clearly how the unity is there. The mystic claims that both elements of the paradox are simultaneously the case.” Beatrice Bruteau, Radical Optimism, p64

“Love has this unique property that it necessarily differentiates, because it consists of giving yourself to another, and by the very same act unites what it differentiates, because the intention of love is to unite thoroughly with the beloved. Neither unity nor differentiation, neither sameness nor difference, neither the one nor the many has priority. This seems to be what the great dogma of the Trinity teaches.” Beatrice Bruteau, Radical Optimism, p112

The Threefold Pattern of Creation

“Three forces enter into every manifestation. One force cannot produce a manifestation. Two forces cannot. Three forces only, in the relation of active, passive and connecting forces to one another, can do so. Three active forces, or three passive forces, or three connecting or neutralizing ones, cannot produce a manifestation. What I mean is that the three forces that create the manifestation must bear to one another the relationship of active, passive and connecting. It is this question of relationship that is interesting. The same force can be active in one triad, passive to another, and neutralizing in a third triad, according to how it is related to the other two forces. The formulation may seem clear enough. We do not, however, understand it clearly. Even if we meditate often on its meaning, it remains mysterious for, in fact, it passes upward into the mystery of the primal Trinity Itself, which no man has ever comprehended with his sensual mind or contacted with his limited senses.” Maurice Nicoll, Commentaries, p1679

“Both Teilhard and Gurdjieff envisioned the whole cosmos on a purposeful journey, with threeness as the essential pattern. Consider differentiation and unity. Then add motion and relationship between the two … the result is a universal pattern of the cosmos, from the tiny to the huge.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont, 2019

Human as Mediator

“The Ray of Creation is based on the idea that everything is a part of something else. One of the fundamental ideas of esoteric teaching is that Man is (or should be) a small world or Microcosmos that is in some way a representation of the great world or Macrocosmos. We can see without much argument that the visible Macro-cosmos—namely, the visible Universe—is composed of parts within parts within parts and we can comprehend that it may form some vast unity beyond our understanding. From this point of view, it requires only a step in intelligence to realize that the Ray of Creation may represent lower and higher levels.” Maurice Nicoll, Commentaries, p1270

“The human being, as consciousness has evolved over the millennia, seems to be perfectly anatomically designed to mediate between the boundaried and the unboundaried, between the particular and the universal, between that which is contained and circumscribed within form and that which is not. The way that the heart and the brain mediate between the particular and the particularizing, the universal and the one-ing, is absolutely extraordinary.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont 2014 Jacob Boehme, 25:50 3d.Thurspm.TeachingGWS14

From Multiplicity to True Individuality

“If man were a unity instead of being a multiplicity, he would have true individuality. He would be one and so would have one will. The illusion, therefore, that a man has about himself that he is one refers to a possibility. Man can attain unity of being. He can reach his true individuality. But it is precisely this illusion that stands first of all in the way of man’s attainment of this possibility.” Maurice Nicoll, Commentaries, p23

“Differentiation—seeing many differences where one saw none, or where one saw only opposites, is the beginning of the growth of Will.” Maurice Nicoll, Commentaries, p491

“The center of gravity is the seat of unity.” Jeanne de Salzmann, The Reality of Being, p130

The Practice of Conscious Unity

“This opening to Presence requires an attention that is voluntary and sustained by my whole being. I must find in myself a wish and a power of attention, a will, that goes beyond my usual capacity. It is a super-effort, a conscious effort. I have to remain conscious of being a unity while I manifest, remaining related inside and at the same time relating myself outside.” Jeanne de Salzmann, The Reality of Being, p134

“It is true that contemplative prayer is often, even typically, presented in the language of personal healing and self-discovery: I enter stillness in order to purify my unconscious, heal the emotional wounds of a lifetime, find my true self, and so on. But there is a natural self-corrective mechanism built right into the prayer itself if we are willing to take it far enough: my true self is found only in communion with others. The personal can find its identity only in relation to the whole, which is the mercy of God.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope, p. 82

The Wisdom of Constraint and Freedom

“Constraint is not an enemy; it is the necessary driveshaft of evolution. And freedom … does not mean the removal of all constraint, but the strategic use of constraint in service of the whole. The balance between individual self-interest and collective action remains unsolvable within the mental structure of consciousness because we are still thinking from the part to the whole. But as the capacity grows in us to think from the whole to the part, I believe we will increasingly come to see that true freedom is experienced in harmonious flow, not in metastatic self-optimization. And at that point, the common good will magically appear.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Constraint and the Common Good.

“On this Wisdom Path we are all a new arising. Only in our deepest unity do we discover our deepest differentiation and freedom.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Nov/Dec 2019 at Claymont.

The Dance of Wholeness

“It’s only in the relationship between the tinyness of your little part and the coherence of the whole—that you perfectly mirror—that the real work is done. And the real opportunity for meaning and giving is either accepted or passed by without even noticing.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Claymont 12/2019 06:30

“Dance is tone become visible: the medium of conjuration and of being heard by the deeper reality of the world where man is united with the rhythm of the universe.” Jean Gebser, Ever-Present Origin, p145

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Listen, O drop, give yourself up without regret,
and in exchange gain the Ocean.
Listen, O drop, bestow upon yourself this honor,
and in the arms of the Sea be secure.
Who indeed should be so fortunate?
An Ocean wooing a drop!
In God's name, in God's name, sell and buy at once!
Give a drop, and take this Sea full of pearls.
Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

Logion 22
Yeshua noticed infants nursing
and said to his students,
"These little ones taking milk
are like those on their way into the kingdom."
So they asked him,
"If we too are 'little ones'
are we on our way into the kingdom?"
Yeshua replied,
"When you are able to make two become one,
the inside like the outside,
and the outside like the inside,
the higher like the lower,
so that a man is no longer male, and a woman, female,
but male and female become a single whole;
When you are able to fashion an eye to replace an eye,
and form a hand in place of a hand, or a foot for a foot,
making one image supersede another --
then you will enter in."


Logion 4
 Yeshua says... 
A person of advanced age must go immediately
and ask an infant born just seven days
about life's source.
Such asking leads to life
when what is first becomes last.
United they become a single whole.

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Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020) unless stated otherwise. 

All quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)

Jeanne De Salzmann, The Reality of Being, Shambhala Publications, 2010

Beatrice Bruteau, Radical Optimism, Sentient Publications, 2002

Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.