Bearing the Sorrow of Our Common Father

Last week I had a glimpse of what Gurdjieff means by “Bearing the Sorrow of Our Common Father.” If you can’t connect to the word Father, use a word that connects you to that which is beyond us, yet offers Help.

Finding myself in an unusually sensitive state following a silent workday at Claymont, I noticed a stranger in need and acted upon it. I wrote about this in last week’s blog. Consequently, I felt the anguish of not having done enough; of wondering what else I could do. Projecting out the worsening climatic and political conditions in the world I “saw” growing numbers of people being in need like this person. Along with these thoughts, I became aware of how I shield myself from feeling the reality of suffering in the world.

Gurdjieff in Paris

All this brought me to picturing Gurdjieff, living in a small apartment in Paris during World War II, spending his mornings helping his neighbors with money, food, advice. The thought of Gurdjieff, living his life in this higher more sensitive place in himself, bearing the pain and suffering that was all around and that he could feel, gave me pause. Was this an iota of the “Sorrow of our Common Father” that Gurdjieff speaks of? Is this the price we must be willing to pay to attain a “higher world” with less “laws?”

Lightening the Load

Yet Gurdjieff did not get identified or depressed, even though what good is a dollar or an exotic tidbit of food in the face of Nazi occupation? Or the destruction of our planet? Then it came to me that perhaps Gurdjieff was holding the positive (ordinary people) with the negative (their situation) and offering Hope, or Belief, or Love—Third Force— with those tidbits. This was what he could do because he was operating from a place where that was possible. A higher world of finer energies and objectivity. From that place one can bear the sorrow, and possibly lighten the load.