Why is Denying Force Holy?

Law of Three

Why is Denying Force holy? Gurdjieff teaches about the Law of Three, sometimes referring to it as Holy Affirming, Holy Denying, Holy Reconciling. Bennett, in Deeper Man, digs into the law as triads, breaking down and reconfiguring the interactions between Active, Passive (or receptive) and Reconciling forces. I’ve studied triads, experienced moments of reconciling, and am familiar with my own active and receptive energies. But I’ve never thought much about why Gurdjieff considers the denying force Holy.

Last summer I worked for several months with an exercise that brought me into a more objective experience of Holy Denying. It helped me feel denying as an energy without the association of something negative. It put the sense of denying force, and its role, into balance with affirming and reconciling force.

Lenten Practice

Part of my daily Lenten practice is working with the rosary. What is different this year, is finding an echo of these forces at play between the external mystery (represented by each bead) and the inner intention that goes with it. For instance, one of the Five Sorrowful Mysteries is the Scouring at the Pillar (denying). While contemplating that, one holds the sense of a Spirit of Reparation (affirming). Clearly a juxtaposition of two forces—whipping a sinless man vs paying reparation. Yet our Work is to hold the negative and the positive in front of us without judgement. This creates a tension, a chasm we can’t justify between the two opposites.

Why Denying is Holy

Without denying force life is not possible. The tension created by the opposition of affirming and denying, of active and receptive, creates the torque that turns the world. Male and Female, Day and Night, Summer and Winter; Life and Death. Gurdjieff believed the sense and purpose of life on Earth was found in reciprocal maintenance. As Bennett puts it in his grace: All must eat to live and nourish one another. In the end, we are all food for something else. And so the world turns.

One way of seeing the agony and sacrifice of Christ this Easter season, is as the ultimate lesson in Holy Denying. Life is not precious without death. Without the night day has no respite. Organic life decomposes and becomes compost. Denying force is Holy in the same way that suffering and death are. It is not the antithesis of life, but a lawful part of what life is. Denying and affirming are equally necessary as universal forces. There can be no resurrection without surrender. And there can be no Holy Reconciling without opposition. The trick is to allow it in.