The Starry World |
“On the earth we are very far removed from the will of the Absolute; we are separated from it by forty-eight orders of mechanical laws. If we could free ourselves from one half of these laws, we should find ourselves subject to only twenty-four orders of laws, that is, to the laws of the planetary world, and then we should be one stage nearer to the Absolute and its will. If we could then free ourselves from one half of these laws, we should be subject to the laws of the sun (twelve laws) and consequently one stage nearer still to the Absolute. If, again, we could free ourselves from half of these laws, we should be subject to the laws of the starry world and separated by only one stage from the immediate will of the Absolute.
Excerpt taken from In Search of the Miraculous by P. D. Ouspensky, pub. Paul H. Crompton Ltd, 2004, p 84.
“The fourth body is composed of material of the starry world, that is, of material that does not belong to the solar system, and therefore, if it has crystallized within the limits of the solar system there is nothing within this system that could destroy it. This means that a man possessing the fourth body is immortal within the limits of the solar system. "
Ibid, p 94.
“If we begin with vibrations of world 48, we can say that one note of the vibrations in this world contains an octave or seven notes of the vibrations of the planetary world. Each note of the vibrations of the planetary world contains seven notes of the vibrations of the world of the sun. Each vibration of the world of the sun will contain seven notes of the vibrations of the starry world and so on.
“The study of inner octaves, the study of their relation to outer octaves and the possible influence of the former upon the latter, constitute a very important part of the study of the world and of man.”
Ibid, p 136-137
“The Protocosmos is the Absolute in the ray of creation, or world 1. The Ayocosmos is world 3 (‘all worlds’ in the ray of creation). The Macrocosmos is our starry world or the Milky Way (world 6 in the ray of creation). The Deuterocosmos is the sun, the solar system (world 12). The Mesocosmos is ‘all planets’ (world 24), or the earth as the representative of the planetary world. The Tritocosmos is man. The Microcosmos is the ‘atom.’
Ibid, p 205
Commentary
The starry world is mentioned in a few other places in In Search of the Miraculous, but these quotes convey the essential character of the starry worlds as the collection of galaxies, or, taken in its sum total, the universe. As such, anything related to the starry worlds is, in its essence, universal.
In the Christian lexicon, the terminology used for the beings inhabiting this realm are "angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven."
Given Gurdjieff's explicit use of the Christian angelic hierarchy in Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, it's clear his comments about development of the fourth being-body relate directly to this concept— as, indeed, the first quote demonstrates.