If one takes a hologram and cuts it into smaller pieces, the entire image is still present in each piece.
The universe is much like this. Each man is a reflection of the Being of the whole universe; and so, when a man attempts to remember himself, in essence, he remembers everything; or, at least, he has the potential to do this. This is one of the secret meanings of the title of Gurdjieff's Beelzebub's Tales, "All and Everything."
The feeling capacity of a human Being — which is measured by the degree of integrated interaction between all his centers, or chakras — is capable of sensing all and everything, that is, the entire universe, and everything in it, because all of the objects, events, circumstances, and conditions not only potentially, but ultimately, reside within the nature of Being — and since Being is permanent, eternal, and essentially unified and inseparable, the ultimate sensation of Self is the sensation of All and Everything.
In undertaking inner work, a human being will gradually develop the capacity for greater sensation of themselves in the sense of personal identity and, inevitably — in the initial stages — ego, but this understanding extends to both lower and higher levels, and as it does so, it expands the capacity to understand life not just from the point of view of the personal, but into the extended realm of the multi-personal — that is, encompassing the experience of other sentient beings — and then further into other realms, which include not only the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, and the starry worlds, but also the inextricably intertwined and linked events that take place in what we call time, which is actually a single and comprehensive event... not divided units.
For the reader, surely, this is a philosophical proposition, but really there is nothing philosophical about it. The deepening of inner sensation and the development of capacity for feeling has, as its aim, the birth of the mind of God within the organism — and this does not take place in an instant, but rather, as a process of what might be likened to cellular division. Just as an embryo begins with insemination, followed by the unfolding of a distinct and lawful plan that causes cells to grow and multiply, so the soul which is touched by God acquires dimension through the growth of its cellular being, which is created through what Gurdjieff called impressions. He always referred to this as a food; what he made quite clear by way of allusion was that this food is intended for this same embryonic growth.
The law of correspondences dictates that embryonic development of a biological nature exactly mirrors the growth of the soul; just as the embryo must distinguish itself from a mass of relatively undifferentiated cells into organs, a backbone, limbs, a brain, and lungs, and then move from its womb into the world, so must the soul undergo the same growth and then move into higher realms by way of what we refer to as death. Swedenborg would have understood this principle quite exactly, since he understood that physiology and cosmology are both intimately related to neurology, psychology, and spirituality, and explained that in clear, unambiguous terms — a man many centuries ahead of his time.
In the Gurdjieff work, it is sometimes said that we are cells in the body of God — and remember, each cell contains the DNA, the blueprint, for the entire body.
As one grows closer to God, as one's embryo develops, one discovers that one is connected to everything, and that all of the objects, events, circumstances, and conditions in the universe are both deserving of, and attracted to, feeling conditions, that is, they are drawn in to the cyclical action of the chakras by a form of spiritual magnetism. So the growth of the Being-Body is analogous to every kind of growth, from the growth of the embryo to the amalgamation of planets around the sun — and the magnetism of gravitational attraction dominates this action. We draw the world into ourselves; and in doing so, we become the world.
When extraordinary masters such as
Ibn Arabi explain to us that it is possible to know the entire universe, comprehensively, it is not hyperbole; it is part of a natural organic action available through inner work. Those who are familiar with his
al-Futuhat-al-makkiyya may see some of his claims as boasts, yet the things he speaks of are exactly what Gurdjieff meant when he told Ouspensky that with the proper inner development, man was capable of things beyond anyone's imagination.
These things have nothing to do with the manipulation of the material world or power over it; they have to do with the level of understanding a man can attain. In today's world, we conceive of understanding as an intellectual feat; but it is more properly an existential one, involving all of the senses and faculties, referred to in the great religions as enlightenment.
As we deepen our feeling-connection to the world and to God, an endless number of questions about our nature arise, accompanied by the most remarkable and unpredictable sensations and feelings. The unfolding of experience in life expands exponentially into untold dimensions. All of this unfolds into an understanding of what Gurdjieff called the Sorrow of His Uni-Being Endlessness; and that Sorrow, in a way that cannot be explained in words, has its birth in the fundamental substance of Love, from which everything is created.
May your soul be filled with light.