This article describes how negative emotions manifest as an example of one of the six cosmic processes: the process of Crime, or Disease.
The Law of Three is one of the treasures of Fourth Way knowledge. The more one becomes aware of oneself in daily life, the more this concept provides a way to understand oneself and others. The Law of Three implies that everything that happens is the result of three forces coming together in the moment. This law also explains the need for a school in the process of awakening.
A man decides to raise himself to a higher level of consciousness. His active will, desire, and effort are pitted against the passive inertia of his physical machine with all its inborn tendencies and acquired habits. These two forces struggle together without result until he can attract the intervention of a third deciding force—the aid of an esoteric school and school knowledge. This aid and this knowledge are, quite literally, invisible. — Rodney Collin
Seeing Three Forces
Without self-awareness, one cannot see that events require three forces in order to occur. Typically, one sees only two forces, or sometimes only one. This is why, in the second state of consciousness, a man is blind to the fact that he ‘cannot do.’ He cannot achieve the results he wants in his activities. The average person thinks he is in charge of his own life and can direct its course.
The Law of Three suggests that, in reality, a person’s life just happens.
All actions are done in all cases by the three gunas of nature. He whose mind is deluded thinks ‘I am the doer’. — Krishna, The Bhagavad Gita
In his book The Theory of Celestial Influence, Rodney Collin describes how three forces combine in six different ways. This gives rise to six processes that govern nature and human activities.
Every process has three factors, combined in a unique way. We can call the three elements ‘life’, ‘form,’ and ‘matter.’
For example, creating an organization requires a purpose (life), resources such as people, money, and facilities (matter), and a growing structure (form). This reflects the process of growth.
The Process of Crime – Negative Emotions
This article focuses on the process of crime, also known as corruption, or disease. The process of crime also relates to negative emotions, such as anger, mistrust, or dismay. Though common, the Fourth Way considers negative emotions, in fact, a psychological disease.
Many believe that expressing negative emotions is psychologically healthy, or at least, that non-expression is unhealthy. It is common to confuse expressing negative emotions with the process of elimination. Speaking about one’s difficulties with others without negativity is the process of elimination. Elimination makes one feel better, because negative energy is unpleasant. And in speaking with another about it, one may receive some useful advice. Expressing negativity may or may not make one feel better. But it has an additional effect—damaging or destroying relations with others, destroying harmony.
One obstacle to understanding the Law of Three and the six processes is formatory mind. (This refers to the mechanical part of the intellectual center.) Since formatory mind cannot understand the psychological meaning of crime, it focuses on ‘crime’ as human laws define it. Being unable to see how negative emotions are a ‘crime’ in that context, formatory mind rejects this possibility. It cannot understand the similarity of the three forces involved in negativity and the three forces of crime.
The Process of Crime – Form Overcoming Life
Crime, as one of the six processes, implies a part rebelling against or dominating the whole. According to Rodney Collin, crime reduces something alive to a lower level. The order of the elements in crime is form, life, and matter. Form overcomes a higher form of life and reduces it to lower matter.
For example, a virus (form—now an active force) enters the body (life—as passive force). The body’s immune system determines the result (matter—neutralizing force). If the immune system cannot neutralize the virus, the body experiences illness or even death.
Similarly, a psychological equivalent would be an unpleasant experience such as hearing someone expressing negativity in some form.
The Role of the Steward in Combating Mechanicality
In the Fourth Way, one’s steward is an inner faculty that can develop. It gathers tools and knowledge to assist us in awakening. One’s steward functions as a psychological immune system and can neutralize a negative experience. It can suggest a right attitude such as, ‘This friend is asleep, unaware of himself. He cannot help acting mechanically.” Or the steward may speak within oneself, saying, ‘This is an opportunity to practice transformation.”
Without a steward, one generates a mechanical attitude about such a situation, such as “Here he goes again.” False personality uses blame to resolve the situation mechanically. Indeed, false personality is the third force or catalyst for this resolution. In this scenario, one ends up in a lower state and experiences a negative emotion oneself.
Thus, without self-awareness, one is blind to third force. One fails to see it is not external events but inner attitudes that cause one’s negativity. While the expression of negative emotions creates external disharmony, the real damage is the disharmony within oneself.
Crime Reduces ‘Life’ to a Relative Death
When one expresses negative emotions, one’s state of unity—‘the whole’—is reduced to a lower level. Typically, one’s higher self is no longer able to be present. It is a kind of death.
Real crime will be that in which knowledge, skill, understanding, or forethought (form) are used to destroy higher possibilities (life), leaving the situation of the victim at a lower level than before (matter). — Rodney Collin, The Theory of Celestial Influence
Not yet seeing into his own nature, a person sinks in the sea of passion and discrimination, killing his own Buddha mind. This is the murder of murders. — 14th c. Japanese Zen master Bassui, Mud and Water
Walther Sell is the author of a website on Oriental esoteric teachings and the Fourth Way. For more, see his page, Inner Journey to the West.
See other articles by Walther for the FourthWayToday.org.