the law of three

I would like to use the comment I received on my last post as a platform for further discussion. A guest had the following two questions:

"Do you look for truth in external things?"
"Is the truth not inside of you?"

In turn, I would like to ask the following question: how can you hope to see the truth inside yourself, if you can't see it among the lies of the world around you?

Splitting this in two parts (EITHER external OR internal) is an example of false dichotomy that's so prevalent in the world today. Like in 'if you are not with us, you are against us'.

In this context, attempting to 'see the truth in external things' would amount to chasing fanthoms created by the Matrix. Similarly, 'seeing the truth inside yourself' would amount to staring at your navel, chanting OOM and drowning in subjectivity. Both will get you nowhere.

A fresh approach is necessary. This is straight along the lines of the Gurdjieff's Law of Three. Here is a link to a a primer on Gurdjieff's ideas.


The Third force will put these two parts of the question together. And in my uneducated opinion, the Third Force in this situation is represented by objective study and action.

The thing is, yeah, I would like to be able to look inside myself and see the Truth. I am well aware, however, that this is simply not possible, because my Truth-O-Meter is way out of tune. Blame biology, social conditioning, lies to others, lies to self -- everthing is implicated. And now it's time to clean it all up. So how to do that? Practice objectively seeing the world around me, and acting upon what I see. I tell you, it's not as simple as it sounds, and I have barely scratched the surface.

So, to this two questions, I'd like to answer that they are one and the same, but ONLY if there is objective inquiry and action.

Everywhere you look, there is the Face of God, as Sufis say, but you have to look AND see.


Thank you for an interesting discussion. I keep wanting to write more about homeschooling, hopefully tomorrow. Stay tuned!