Reciprocal Feeding, Resplendent Love: A Circulating Intelligence -- 2
- Rhonda Smith
- Jun 12
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 3
VII. We cannot approach reciprocal feeding without speaking of its close relationship to resplendent love.
"Now we speak about love of ‘life.’ Everywhere where there is life, beginning with plants (for they too have life) and animal—in a word, wherever life exists—there is love. All life is a representation of God. He who sees the representation will see Him who is represented. Every life has love and is sensitive to love. Even inanimate things such as flowers which have no consciousness, understand whether you love them or not. Even unconscious life reacts in a corresponding manner to each man and reacts to him according to his reactions.
"As you sow, so you will reap and not only in the sense that if you sow wheat, you get wheat. The question is how you sow. Even literally this is so, for instance with hay. Supposing different people sow the same seeds on the same soil—the results will be different. But these are only seeds; man is unconsciously much more sensitive to what is sown in him. Animals are also very sensitive, although less than man. For instance, X was sent to look after the animals. Many became ill and died, the hens laid fewer eggs, etc. Even a cow will give more milk if you love her. The difference is quite startling." [7]
Can we seek true exchanges in the simplest of ways and see what arrives? Many real exchanges take place through looking into another's eyes, for example. In such encounters, one experiences the real meaning of exchange—giving, yes, but also, the thing perhaps more difficult, receiving. This exchange and transformation through the eyes resemble the action of light and chlorophyll in the leaf. Entering the world of reciprocal exchange, it is not required to embrace the entire cosmological picture. We can start on an approachable scale, something Gurdjieff so often instructed.
Pondering scales brings an entry to joining the movements of the cosmos. Within our own bodies, we experience hours passing. At the same time, the production of red blood cells is at the rate of 2-3 million per second, a speed we cannot detect. It takes 50 years for our hair to gray, and with this process too we see the result but not the actual action. There is a mystery here: we contain the macro and the micro as does every living entity. This mixture of time and dimensional scales reflects the greater cosmos in which we live and which is maintained by the exchange of substances—reciprocal feeding. All creatures contain a drop of the drop of the divine, and so, we are inextricably, unalterably related. Here a feeling for "other" is possible.
VIII. Another matter to explore, in condensed fashion, is leaps. Gurdjieff's cosmology includes the laws that govern all functioning. One, the Law of Seven, can be quickly understood by examining the seven-tone scale, wherein the intervals between notes are even but for two exceptions, where the interval shortens or lengthens. If you sing the scale, you can hear it—the slight dissonance between re and fa, and the other non-uniform step between si and do. What does this mean? It is at these places, in the functions of all things, that a new movement can happen, the creation that is possible through non-conformity versus stasis.
A static world would have equal intervals everywhere, and eventually there would be no expansion, no new entities. Each interval that doesn't conform requires the step taken to span the unequal space, to be a leap or a differently balanced maneuver. You can't just walk over the space with a regular step. A bit more oomph is needed. A leap is funded by more energy. And a leap can result in a new landing spot where there is no familiarity. In the MIT research on photosynthesis, this leap of photons happened because the proteins, the stepping-stones, were placed irregularly. More energy was needed and produced.
The French philosopher Pierre Hadot studied the conception of Greco-Roman philosophy and, in particular, the spiritual exercises of Greco-Roman schools in antiquity. He had been an ordained priest in the Catholic faith but left after the 1950 encyclical "Humanis Generis." He gave a lecture in 1983, "Forms of Life and Forms of Discourse in Ancient Philosopjy," the lecture ending with a quote from George Friedman in 1942 that Hadot likens to Stoic tradition:
"Take flight each day! At least for a moment, however brief, as long as it is intense. Every day a 'spiritual exercise,' alone or in the company of a man who also wishes to better himself. Leave ordinary time behind. Make an effort to rid yourself of your own passions. ... Become eternal by surpassing yourself. This inner effort is necessary; this ambition, just. Many are those who are entirely absorbed in militant politics in the preparation for the social revolution. Rare, very rare, are those who, in order to prepare for the revolution, wish to become worthy of it." [8]
Both the philosopher Hadot and Friedman had understood something about taking leaps, the energy generated by going off in a different direction, the fueling of creative movements. St. Francis Assisi understood this also; his act wasn't only the vow of poverty, it was a catapulting himself into a different world. He had an ordinary life, including a difficult relationship with his father. He chose to follow love on a cosmic scale.
Looking at the word "re-ciprocal" and then hitching it to "re-splendent," as in Resplendent Love, the "re" is of interest. Meanings: to move backward and forwards; give and take mutually; return in degree or in kind; expressing intensive force. Reciprocal feeding and resplendent love—bywords for entering an ancient new world.
[7] Gurdjieff, G.I. Views from the Real World. E.P. Dutton: New York, 1973, 243-244
[8] Hadot, Pierre. Philosophy As A Way of Life. Blackwell Publishing: Oxford, 1995 English translation, 70.