Third Force

From Rodney Collin,

At one very emotional moment in those last days, Ouspensky said: 'People must not be afraid to take second step.' It seemed and still seems to have two sides. First of all, it seems connected with a quite new scale of attention, permanent attention, remembering all the time, as a continual state. We have to demand from ourselves. But it also seemed connected with the realisation that quite new things are possible, that higher influences are much nearer than we thought, and that with their help our ordinary self, the machine, can actually be transcended. These two sides are inseparable, each impossible alone, but each making the other possible. Only one has to believe that it is possible. The slightest breath of doubt, not only of those higher forces but of oneself, immediately seems to cut one off from new possibilities. Perhaps one has not only to believe new things possible, but to be sure that they will come. Perhaps all this is connected with third force in the work of change. We may see and actually bring together first and second force, effort and mechanicalness. But it is third force which is so elusive, which can't be compelled or cajoled or even calculated, but if all is favourable, may suddenly and inexplicably descend. It once came to me that this can never be deserved. It must always be regarded as a gift.

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Image: Jan Davidsz de Heem, Still life With Flowers in a Glass Vase