This Time We Are In, by John G. Bennett (speaking in 1970)
We must not have any attitude of blame towards people for what is occurring; this is a cosmic event, this is what Gurdjieff called Solioonensius, (in Beelzebub’s Tales) a state of tension when people – all people – become intensely dissatisfied with the situation in which they find themselves and they react to this state of dissatisfaction differently.
Here is what is the right and wrong of it: those who are wise and understand this, know that this force of dissatisfaction that is developed can be converted into a dissatisfaction with oneself and a wish to change and to work on oneself, and it is the greatest and most powerful force that one can have. It is the realisation that only those who have attained to an inner freedom through work can pass safely through this kind of crisis.
Beelzebub’s Tales
Chapter 34 Beelzebub in Russia
“… I often returned to the community of Russia, where during that period of the flow of time their ‘great process of reciprocal destruction’ and the ‘annihilation of everything already attained by them’ was taking place—a process which this time, as I told you, they called ‘Bolshevism.’
…
“Well then, as I have already mentioned, this grievous phenomenon arises there as a result of two independent factors, the first being the cosmic law of Solioonensius, and the second, as always, those same abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence established by them themselves.
“In order that you should understand better both these factors, I will explain to you each of them separately, and will begin with the cosmic law of Solioonensius.
…
“First of all you must be told that all the three-brained beings, on whatever planet they arise and whatever exterior coating they receive, always await the manifestations of the action of this law with impatience and joy, somewhat as your favorites look forward to their feasts of ‘Easter,’ ‘Bairam,’ ‘Zadik,’ ‘Ramadan,’ ‘Kaialana,’ and others.
“The only difference is that your favorites look forward to these feasts of theirs with impatience because on these ‘holy days’ it has become customary for them to abandon themselves to merrymaking and drunkenness, whereas the beings of other planets await the action of Solioonensius with impatience because thanks to it the need for evolving, in the sense of acquiring Objective Reason, increases in them by itself.
“As for the causes that give rise to the action of this cosmic law, they are different for each planet, but always flow from and depend upon what is called the ‘common-cosmic harmonious movement’, and as regards your planet Earth, what is called the ‘center of gravity of causes’ (is) brought about by the ‘periodic tension’ of the sun of its system, brought about in its turn by the influence upon this sun of a neighboring solar system, existing under the name of ‘Bal-e-aoo-to.’
“In this latter system, however, the ‘center of gravity of causes’ is determined by the presence, among the number of its concentrations, of a great comet, ‘Solni,’ which, in accordance with certain combinations of the ‘common-cosmic harmonious movement,’ comes at times in its falling very near to its sun’Bal-e-aoo-to’, which is thereby forced greatly to increase its ‘tension’ in order to maintain the path of its own falling. This tension provokes the same in the suns of the neighboring systems, among which is the system Ors, and when in its turn the sun Ors increases its tension in order not to change the path of falling proper to it, it provokes the same tension in all the concentrations of its own system, among which is also the planet Earth.
“The ‘tension’ in each of the planets acts also on the common presence of all the beings arising and breeding on it, always engendering in the beings, besides desires and intentions of which they are not aware, the feeling called sacred ‘ia-boli-oo-nozor’ or, as your favorites would say, ‘religious feeling,’ namely, that ‘being-feeling’ which, as I have already said, appears at times in the desire and striving for more rapid self-perfecting as regards Objective Reason.
“It is interesting that when this sacred feeling—or another similar to it, likewise engendered by a certain common-cosmic actualization—is produced in the presence of your favorites, they accept it as a symptom of one of their numerous diseases, and call it ‘nerves.’
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“It is necessary to remark that this impulse, inherent in the presence of all three-brained beings of our Great Universe, arose and was developed almost normally in most of the terrestrial beings of a former period, that is, from the time when the organ kundabuffer was removed from their common presence right up to the second transapalnian perturbation.
“But later, among the chief evils flowing from the conditions of ordinary being-existence established by them themselves, especially since there began to predominate in the presence of every terrestrial three-brained being their ‘inner evil god’ named ‘self-calming,’ it came about that under the action of Solioonensius, instead of the desire and striving for a more rapid self-perfecting, a ‘something’ began to arise in them which they themselves characterize by the words ‘need of freedom,’ which is the chief cause of the appearance of these grievous processes of theirs such as this recent ‘Bolshevism. ‘
“I will explain somewhat later how they represent to themselves this famous ‘freedom’ of theirs, for the moment I will only tell you that the sensation which arises from the action of Solioonensius strengthens the need in them for some change or other in the general outer conditions of their ordinary being-existence, which until then were more or less stable.
“After the second transapalnian perturbation occurred to this ill-starred planet, that is, after the ‘loss of Atlantis,’ the action of the cosmic law of Solioonensius in the common presence of your favorites took place at least forty times, and each time, thanks to this strange need of freedom which has become fixed in the majority of them, almost the same thing took place as has recently been occurring among the groups inhabiting that part of the surface of your planet called ‘Russia. ‘
“Here it is extremely important to note that these terrifying processes could never have occurred among the three-brained beings of the planet Earth if those data for engendering the being-impulse of Conscience, which had remained intact in their subconscious—data to which the Most Saintly Ashiata Shiemash was the first to turn his attention, and which he relied upon for the fulfillment of his mission—had taken part in the functioning of that consciousness of theirs which has become habitual for them during their waking state.
“It is only because the data for the sacred impulse of being-Conscience do not take part in the functioning of this consciousness of theirs that the action of the law of Solioonensius, as well as of other inevitable cosmic laws, assumes these abnormal forms which are so lamentable for them.
…
“As regards the second factor, …in my opinion the basic cause is their famous subdivision into ‘castes,’ which has become established for their mutual relationships and has existed there uninterruptedly, except in the period when the results of the most saintly labors of Ashiata Shiemash had definitely taken root in them.
“The only difference is that in former centuries the division into different castes proceeded from the consciousness and initiative of certain independent individuals there, whereas now this proceeds quite automatically without the participation of the will or consciousness of anyone.
…
“This relegating of one another to castes of different kinds infallibly crystallizes in the common presence of each of them toward the beings belonging to other castes the being-data for what is called ‘hatred,’ just those data which are never found in any other beings in the whole of our Great Universe, and which in turn invariably engender in the common presence of all your favorites those impulses ‘shameful’ for three-brained beings, which they call ‘envy,’ ‘jealousy,’ ‘adultery,’ and many others of the same sort.
“And so, my boy, these terrifying processes of reciprocal destruction and of the annihilation of everything they have attained ensue partly from the following cause in certain periods, when the action of the cosmic law of Solioonensius makes itself felt in their common presence, arousing in them the mentioned need for ‘freedom,’ then on the one hand, the intensity of action of the data already inherent in them for constantly engendering the impulse of ‘timidity’ in front of power-possessors automatically diminishes, while on the other hand, the intensity of action of those strange being-data provoking ‘hatred’ toward beings of other castes increases.
“That is why I said that this subdivision of your favorites into castes …serves chiefly as the second factor for the arising of these terrifying processes.