The Law of Reciprocal Maintenance

The Law of Reciprocal Maintenance

In his book Gurdjieff: Making a New World, J.G. Bennett discusses Gurdieff’s belief that one of the purposes for man’s existence on earth is to play his role in the Law of Reciprocal Maintenance. If man does not know his place in the cosmological order his existence is doomed to failure. We have to look closely at this law and see where we are not fulfilling our purpose, and where we obstruct the fulfillment of other essence classes.

Gurdjieff argues that everything in the cosmos is connected. Everything from unorganized energy to The Supreme Creative Will has its place and its function. We cannot understand the functions of powers above a certain level. We just need to know that these powers exist, and that they can have an influence upon our lives if we reach the higher level that is possible for man.

According to Bennett, an essence class is defined by a pattern of possible experience. He gives as an example the division into one, two, and three brained beings. A one-brained being is totally automatic in its behavior. It eats and reproduces. Examples of one-brained beings are worms, insects, and snakes. Two-brained beings are capable of feeling. Animals aside from acting instinctively are also capable of some feeling. As a three-brained being man can act through instinct, through feeling, or through thought.

Bennett constructs a table that presents the twelve essence classes that are necessary for life in the universe. Let me just give the first ten. He starts with Heat, Unorganized Energy, next comes Simples, Primary Conditions of Matter, then Crystals, Static Non-Living Forms, Soil, The Sensitive Surface Layer, Plants, Static Life Forms, Invertebrates, One-brained Beings, Vertebrates, Two-brained Beings, Man, Three-brained Beings, and Demiurges, the Angelic Hosts.

Every essence class has a function in the maintenance of the universe. Bennett argues that since man does not understand this he is acting on the planet in ways that will eventual lead to its destruction. For example, it has taken hundreds of millions of year for minerals and oil deposits to come into being. These deposits have a definite function in the over all maintenance of our planet. Yet, we greedily pull them out of the earth with no thought or care for how this might affect the future well being of our planet.

The soil essence is a nearly living entity composed of silt, dust, and the remains of plants and animals. When the soil loses its life like qualities it turns to desert sand. When it is treated with artificial chemicals its universal function is disturbed. Rachel Carson supports this belief in her book Silent Spring. Bennett argues that by poisoning the soil we are also introducing psychic poisons into ourselves.

The seventh essence class the two-brained animals are just below man in the essence classes. Bennett argues that they are needed to produce the energy that is necessary for cosmic harmony. The animals’ sensitive experience runs the whole range of the lower human emotions. Each essence class ranges all the way from the one above it to the one below it. The higher animals can experience the feelings of fear, excitement, anger, curiosity, timidity, courage, irritation, and contentment. These are the lower emotions of man. The energy given off by the expressing of these emotions is necessary for the maintenance of the universe.

When we kill off millions of animals and take away their habitat, we are leaving a void that has to be filled. Man is the only essence class that can fill this void. Bennett argues that by our disregard for the sanctity of animal life we are condemning our selves to an animal like existence. He believes that this is a major reason for the cruel and violent behavior that has been prevalent in recent times. The energy that is given off by the emotions of anger and fear are necessary for the universal harmony. Since there are no longer a sufficient number of animals to produce these emotions the task has been passed to man.

Unless we understand the Law of Reciprocal Maintenance and see the necessity for respecting the being of other essence classes, the mass of man will be doomed to the existence of greed, violence, war, and economic hardships that we are experiencing today.

The individual man can escape from this animal like existence if he works hard on his being and reaches a higher level. The essence class above man is the class that Bennett calls Demiurge, otherwise known as Angels. Since each class reaches from the class below to the one above, man can have some of the qualities of the angelic class. By “conscious labor and intentional suffering,” man can reach a higher level of being. Once he reaches this level to some extinct he is freed from the lower instinctive urges.

However, man is not separate from humanity. If an individual reaches this higher level of being it is his cosmic obligation to work for the freedom of all life on our planet. By service and sacrifice man can be transformed. And in going through this transformation he gives off the energies that pay for his universal existence. In doing so, he can avoid death and continue to evolve to a higher essence class.

Unless a sufficient number of men reach this higher level, this whole experiment on Earth to produce self-evolving beings will have failed. The universe is an enormous place even on the material level. On the spiritual level it is just as vast. It was in existence long before the coming of man. The universe can survive without man.

Bennett has written a number of books on the teaching of Gurdjieff and is required reading for anyone who would understand the Work.