That is why the act of voluntary attention, which awakens consciousness, is essentially creative.

One of the most striking effects of consciousness in us is that kind of experience in which we are aware that as we look at something, we are being seen.

When consciousness is in us, we see that our ordinary state of awareness is like sleep, or like ‘flatland’. We see that in this ordinary state we believe ourselves to be some being that is there, whereas in reality there is no such being. What is revealed is not a being but the image of a being.

Gurdjieff’s picture of okidanokh implies that the threefoldness of will infects everything, including the creation as a whole. There is a cosmic affirmation of creative will, a cosmic denial of mechanism, and a cosmic reconciliation of life. Life is the being of the universe through which it can be whole.

Our role in the world is connected with the conscious transformation of energies.

Will is the dynamic of change everywhere and at all levels.

When okidanokh enters into a new cosmic formation it divides into three independent parts or forces. It does not blend as a whole. The three separated parts then ‘strive to reblend’ together, and it is this striving that is the will in things.

What we call the ‘transformation of being’ is raising the level at which energy can be concentrated, so that experiences that at present are impossible become possible, and powers which cannot now be exercised become available to the will.

The positive emotions are not reactions, but something evoked in our consciousness by the creative energy.