All quotations in this post are attributed to Cynthia Bourgeault from within the Wisdom Waypoints “G.I. Gurdjieff, Trinitarian Master Par Excellence” course.
My heart thumps at the intersection of the prophetic and the pastoral, that elusive spot where transmissions come down with the fiery heat of Divine voltage yet can be immediately held and worked with as accessible, even practical truth.
I tend to give prophets a bit of a pass though, believing it is my work as a student to translate their high teachings into something useful in daily life. Thus, it was particularly thrilling to drink in one gulp both the prophetic and the pastoral as I consumed Cynthia Bourgeault’s new lectures on “G. I. Gurdjieff, Trinitarian Master Par Excellence.” Technically the series offers a window into the great cosmogonic mystery — the primordial journey from an endless nothing into something. But perhaps more importantly, the talks convey why this Divine trajectory still matters and how it can unlock within us an infinite capacity for care. Amazingly, in wading through complex metaphysics, I grasped gems that can help me better love my neighbor.
To access these jewels, we must start with a brief overview of the Ray of Creation, Gurdjieff’s version of the Great Chain of Being. Forgive me as I now offer a roughshod translation of both Cynthia’s and Gurdjieff’s brilliance. In the series, Cynthia begins by revealing that the Trinity is not a theological throw-away, but rather a dynamic ternary system working in accordance with the Law of Three — the engine that unfolds the entire Ray of Creation.
from The Eye of The Heart by Cynthia Bourgeault.
The story opens with World 1 — a dark, formless Godhead of inaccessible light. As the turning mechanism initiates, World 3 is created as the “endless unity [brings] itself into divisibility and perceptivity.” In World 6, we experience the headwaters of God’s desire to manifest; a “conversion of energy from the pure singularity of will into something that is measurable and increasingly forces form.”
World 12, the Christic Realm, is where we start to “flesh in” the realms. As a counterstroke of the barely perceptible God in World 3, the Logoic Jesus offers a whisper of what the “absolute begins to look like in form.” The fiery eros which sparked the process has stabilized into the “fullness of agape, a love that is perfected” and, Cynthia adds, “everything that the Divine wanted to speak of love is and can be realized.”
In World 24, or the Imaginal Realm, we encounter the “last of the massless kingdoms,” the “unmasked side” of our form-bound home. With practice, humans have the spiritual capacity to experience and even navigate this liminal space of illumination and heightened presence. World 48 is our familiar home of slow-moving form; the place where we derive our sense of self, culture, and our playground for doing and creating. Moving downward toward World 96, we experience a realm of “greater automaticity, greater mechanicality…the lower end of the waking state of consciousness.” And finally, World 192 is understood as the Hell Realm, a space of “active, collective psychosis.”
As we close our tour of Gurdjieff’s Ray of Creation, it is important to note one unique feature which Cynthia refers to as blueshift dynamism: as the realms descend they increase in density, yet never decrease in Divinity. Unlike other cosmic maps where God sits on high and sprinkles grace downward, in Gurdjieff’s blueshift model the vibratory aliveness of God permeates every realm, every cell. To my way of thinking, God must become increasingly creative to flow the streams of Love through the tight cracks in our hearts.
So, how can this Ray of Creation, a chain of eight cosmological pearls tumbling outward, help us today?
For starters, Jesus.
While many students come to Cynthia’s work as so-called recovering Christians, I must admit that I arrived as an interspiritual seeker with a heavy hermeneutic of suspicion. Raised in an era of post-modern, deconstructionist thinking in a family that encouraged me to critically question everything, I’ve always been keen on Jesus as a non-dual, Wisdom master but a little squirrely on Jesus as God. Sheepishly, I confess that when I read the Gospels, I often find myself sniffing out rhetorical intent instead of feeling into their Divine inspiration.
Thankfully, Cynthia understands. In this series she acknowledges, “the proposition that Jesus is God sounds so manifestly absurd that we throw the whole thing out.” In our limited flat-earth cosmology of heaven and hell, we have “collapsed five realms into one” and the idea of Jesus as God is a dead-on-arrival belief system. The rational brain fights it at every turn.
Yet, as I listened to Cynthia patiently unfold each realm, I could feel in me the infinite, inaccessible lightness transform. I felt it take an almost imperceptible shape, a faint outline becoming clearer and more recognizable with each turn down the Chain — until at last a finite being stood in front of me, still coated in tendrils of Divine vernix. Cynthia explains how, in each realm, Jesus represents “the same energy, the same impulse… manifested in a different way.” What is “primordial knowing” in World 1 is projected toward us as a force of involution becoming Christ Logos, then Christ Jesus, and finally the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
As it clicked in my body, I knew I would never intellectually fight the concept of Jesus as God again. I had simply needed to experience the fullness of Jesus expanded through the breadth of a cosmic accordion.
But if the Divine is in every realm, does that mean that Jesus is God in World 96 as well? Why yes, it does. As Cynthia reassures us, “nothing falls out of the Ray of Creation.” However, with each step downward, life manifests with more mechanicality, expressed at the “form that is appropriate to that level.” Thus, in 96, Jesus might appear as a individually-identified personal savior and buddy who gladly takes the wheel of one’s life.
Before we leap to judgement, Cynthia offers a stern warning: “It’s absolute insanity to waste theological blood, pitting the World 48 Jesus against the World 96 Jesus, because they are both part of the same Ray, intended to be fully satisfying at the levels they are at.” Further, she reminds us that “intimacy leads to action.” For those like me who might admire Jesus from a distance, primarily drawn to the quality of his teachings, Cynthia implores that having a deeply intimate, devotional relationship yields its own fruitful immediacy. There is nothing fake about this; World 96 Jesus offers an “equally interesting and sacred manifestation of the Divine creativity.” We must notice the duality creeping in as we presume that the Jesus of a televised Evangelical revival is any less or more sacred than the Jesus of a silent, candlelight vigil.
With that, let us return to the pastoral insights I gained from these teachings. This series was filmed in November of 2024, just weeks after the Trump-Harris election as emotions remained high among the Wisdom School participants, admittedly more of a Harris crowd. In their questions, I heard a quiet wail — how do we love these Trump neighbors of ours?
Here is where the spiritual rubber hits the road. We all want to ascend to World 24 and experience Imaginal seeing or commune with the angels, but who is willing to sink down and simmer in World 96 as an equally important task? Can I access the 96 in me and use it as a relational bridge to meet my neighbor? Not to hoist him up, but simply to see and touch our commonality. For as Cynthia reminds us, “every one of you has an active gamut of 24, 48, and 96…you have the whole Ray of Creation in you. You are in it and it is in you.” There is no looking down on 96, there is only the finding of it within your own self. Otherwise, we are playing the same game of spiritual warfare Christians have been at for centuries—pretending to offer Love, soaked in condescension, while insisting that others change. We know where that has gotten us.
Can I wrestle with and accept this new understanding that my neighbor’s expression is no more or less Divine than mine? Can I expand into the spaciousness of the Ray of Creation and believe that all realms serve a purpose?
This is our work. “It begins,” Cynthia adds, “with the assumption that each of these kingdoms are perfect and necessary viewing platforms, expressions of God.”
Jesus taught in John 15: “I am the vine; you are the branches.” The Great Vine must receive nourishment across all levels, from the sun down to dirt, for the branches to flourish. God’s ecosystem requires this mutual understanding, exchange of care, and reciprocal maintenance. Only then can it bloom as designed.
From this prophetic vantage where all “viewing platforms” hold their own Divine creative manifestation, might we now seek to send pastoral nourishment up, down, and across the horizontal axis of our finite lives? Might we finally be able to awaken toward loving our neighbor?
Thank you! This helps clarify for me the potential of both “loving my neighbor and my”enemy’.”
Thank you Nancy and beautifully said. I love how this set of teachings takes us right into the heart of and collapses that paradox. In continuation, Jenn
Jenn – This is wonderful. It so accurately (and so much more eruditely!) reflects my own experience listening to those Claymont teachings. I too experienced the ‘Jesus event’ – coming through the Ray of Creation, in a way heretofore only intuited. This has given me words I can actually share with others who also intuit but aren’t sure how to express their intuitions. It has helped me immeasurably to understand my more evangelical family members, who may express their faith in ‘sound bites’ – and yet are very clearly ‘the real deal.’ Thank you so much for writing these words, which I will be sharing!
Marga
Thank you so much for reading them Marga! It is so deeply affirming to hear that my attempt at synthesizing landed in you as well…and that we picked up on some of the same keys nuggets from the teachings. Grateful to be sharing with you on this journey. Blessings, Jenn