The question of al 'Arabi's Attributes, or names, of God, and their exact nature, is perhaps profoundly misunderstood.
Because mankind understands such things using conceptual tools — that is, words, ideas — one fails to understand the nature of these properties. One thinks they are concepts, that is, abstractions without an objective physical existence.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Gurdjieff explained to Ouspensky that
everything is material. Things such as knowledge, he points out, are not just concepts. They are material things. What sort of material, he did not explain. But this is one of those things he said which can definitely be explained.
The attributes of God are energy. They are, in other words, each a specific energetic force, causing an action of a material nature that takes place as the emanations of the Essence encounter the acts, or consequences, of the material or created reality. All electromagnetic emanations, both those identified and as yet unidentified (for example,
dark energy) by science, belong to this category of attributes or names.
What this means is that specific attributes, such as Desire, Power, Mercy, Compassion, or Knowledge (which Gurdjieff specifically mentions in the above quote) are all various forms of energetic expression. Desire cannot be expressed unless an electromagnetic energy acts within a man to express it. Compassion, equally, cannot move within a man unless an energy acts to express it. And the order of expression of Desire or Compassion that a man has is in direct proportion to the level, the quality, of the energy that expresses it.
Desire, Compassion, and so on have their own individual octaves. That is to say, any one of the attributes of God undergoes, after its emanation from the source, a series of lawful progressions of increase (or decrease) in its rate of vibration according to the law of octaves as it encounters and interacts with the material world. This explains why one man or woman can be more, and another less, compassionate.
All of the higher energies that Michel and Jeanne de Salzmann encouraged Gurdjieff's pupils to work with in their inner efforts belong to this category of energies. A higher level of energy will automatically produce a completely different result in a man than the lower level of the same energy. The easiest way to explain this will be by taking the example of compassion. Compassion
has its own gradations of energetic expression, according to the level of development of the man who expresses it. One man hungers to be compassionate; another is forceful about it. Yet neither one of them has a conscious form of compassion active in them. A much greater effort would be required for that.
Higher levels of energy that emanate from the names of God produce completely different results in mankind than the levels of energy one usually encounters that manifest these forces. Each one of them is, in fact, one of the "higher hydrogens" Gurdjieff spoke about in
In Search of the Miraculous. We are all, as it happens, familiar with these "higher hydrogens," even though they appear to be mysterious chemical formulas, rather than objective forces we may have encountered. If we renamed them according to the various attributes that can be assigned to them, we would discover that they meant many things we are already familiar with, as explained above. The difference is that the higher the rate of vibration, the more profound and unfamiliar of the effect of these attributes is on a man.
Thus, an ordinary man might call himself to prayer using the force of his will (represented, in the enneagram, by the note fa.) A man who truly developed this power would have a great deal of force, and perhaps even be admired by his peers. But he would still be at a level where, although it appeared to him (and to others) that he was initiating the action of prayer, it was relatively mechanical.
Only if a man passes from
fa to
sol, that is, the level where real Being appears, will prayer become an active and intelligent force in him; and at this point, a man does not pray,
he is prayed. This means that instead of discovering the intelligence of prayer, prayer discovers the intelligence of the one who prays. In this way, prayer becomes an active force that a man no longer feel separated from; it is a level of vibration in his body that instructs him.
All of the many stories of masters who encountered energy that taught them relate precisely to this concept.
I respectfully hope you will take good care.