three

A very significant number. Here's a little riff on three, specifically in a scarcely appreciated form: the so-called "Law of Three". In Sufi/Gurejieffian parlance this is the fundamental dynamic of the universe. Three forces are involved in all processes. The most obvious are positive and negative, or as Gurdjieff called them, 'affirming' and 'denying'. In Chinese symbology they are 'yin' and 'yang'. It is the 3rd force, however, which blindsides all humans. Gurdjieff termed it 'reconciling', Jan Cox used the terms 'E-force' or 'E-qualizing' or 'E-rrelevant'. It is represented by the circumscribing circle that in-forms the yin and yang figures.

Another way to think of 3rd force is as the context, the seeming irrelevant stage upon which thesis and antithesis have their drama, and without which everything would be fatally unsupported, like a cinema film without the "obstruction" of the screen upon which the action unfolds. Were there only two quintessential forces responsible for all phenomena, everything would be locked in a freeze-frame tableau as every positive was balanced by its negative out to every corner of the cosmos, producing gridlock...cubed.

S/he who is mindful of the significance of three, as applicable to the driving forces inherent in everything from marital spats to world wars to milk souring in the refrigerator, has a big advantage in understanding what's really going on in life.

The Law of Three is symbolized in the enneagram by the triangle connecting/subtending the 3, 6 and 9 positions on the circumference of the circle. For the knowing observer the beautiful conformance and interrelation of the triangle within the heptagram denoting the the "Law of Seven" in the enneagram illustrates how the Law of Three completes and animates the Law of the Octave and where application of conscious, willful effort is profitable for one's personal expansion of consciousness.