Theos-Talk Archives (January 1995 Message tl00224)

Paul Johnson writes:

> Gurdjieff distinguishes between the Law of Accident and the Law
> of Fate.  If one falls under the former law, his/her experiences
> are "random" and devoid of personal significance.  But if one
> falls under the Law of Fate, his/her experiences are necessary,
> educative, and filled with individual significance.  One can
> determine which law one falls under by a conscious decision to be
> ruled by the Law of Fate.

Yes, but I would add that the two Laws are really on a continuum,
with a range of degrees of purposeful causality in between.

At the Accident end of the scale, the causes are certainly there,
but they are relatively trivial and local, for example a car
accident caused by a molecular weakness in a tire wall AND no
other karma behind to express itself through the incident.

At the Fate end of the scale, the cause has had considerable,
purposeful energy poured into it, so that the educative value, if
recognised, relates to the originating cause(s).  A bursting tire
can express a powerful karmic necessity, generated lifetimes ago.

Your post adds the further idea that the way you decide to view
your circumstances deeply changes their ability to be educative
etc, but I see this being true of both Accidental and Fateful
events.  You can extract lessons even from accidents, if you will
but look for them.

I believe that everything has an effect in due and proper
relationship to the amount and quality of energy put into it.
Hence the existence of the continuum.

> what we needed as a learning experience.  But what has been
> learned?  I can't see any consensus about that, which suggests
> that we aren't learning much from our own history.

I don't think this follows.  Different people could extract
_different_ lessons intensely and well, from the same
circumstances.

Murray Stentiford