Seeking Impartiality

Not "this," not "that," but this and that and more.

Recent posts from colleagues in the Work have given me pause. They reflect something wider than individual disagreement, something that touches how we perceive world affairs and public figures in general. The intensity of feeling around political events, and around figures such as Donald J. Trump, simply makes this dynamic easier to see.

Gurdjieff taught that we live in a sleeping world, largely governed by planetary laws. Yet in our sleep we imagine that we are more awake than others, that we see more clearly, that our position is more intelligent, more moral, or even more spiritual. From this illusion arises the endless conflict between individuals and groups.

In truth, everything happens. Events unfold according to forces far larger than our personal will. Yet in our sleep we immediately ascribe motive, blame, and virtue, as though people could simply choose to act otherwise, as though they were not also caught in the same web of influences that governs us. We react as if we stand outside the process, rather than being fully embedded in it.

What we do not usually see is that what we “see” is already filtered. Gurdjieff called this the consequence of the organ Kundabuffer: the buffers that protect personality from seeing too much, too quickly, or too painfully and the hypnosis that has us seeing everything upside-down and inside-out. In modern language, we might speak of conditioning, bias, or psychological filtering. But the principle is the same: we do not see reality directly. We see what we are able to see.

This can be described very simply. We see what confirms what we already believe. We overlook or dismiss what contradicts it. This is what today is called confirmation bias. For example, the Left-leaning person mostly consumes Left-leaning information and rejects Right-leaning sources as deluded or corrupt. The Right-leaning person does the same in reverse. Each side has its own “truth,” its own authorities, its own moral justification. Each believes it stands on higher ground.

Both are partly right. And both are partly blind.

For example, one side may see only Trump’s criminality, vulgarity, and destructiveness. The other may see only his capacity to disrupt stagnant systems and challenge entrenched power or to transform enemies into mutually dependent partners rather than continuing to see only enemies. Each side grasps a fragment of truth, but neither sees the whole. Truth is not this or that. It is this and that and more.

This does not mean that all actions are equal, or that responsibility disappears. Planetary law does not abolish responsibility; it redefines it. It shows us how rare real responsibility actually is. Mechanical humanity reacts. Conscious humanity responds. To understand the forces that move people is not to excuse them, but to recognise how exceptional real freedom must be.

If we look at history impartially, we see that collective opinion swings like a pendulum. Societies move too far in one direction and are then driven, by necessity, toward the opposite. Gurdjieff described this as the action of the affirming and denying forces of Creation. When the reconciling force is absent inwardly, it appears outwardly as conflict: ideological struggle, political upheaval, and war.

In sleeping humanity, the third force goes outside.

If we wish to approach impartiality, we must bring all three forces inside ourselves. We must hold affirmation and denial in tension and seek something higher than either. That is already a different order of responsibility.

In such a state, judgment begins to soften. Not because we become indifferent, but because we see more. We see that others are largely machines, just as we are. We begin to recognise that what we condemn outside is a perfect reflection of what remains unseen within ourselves. We begin to exchange moral superiority for understanding and, ultimately, compassion.

This does not lead to passivity. Impartiality is not neutrality, and it is not relativism. It is not the refusal to choose or to act. It is the capacity to act without illusion. It is a higher form of responsibility, because it demands that we see the whole before we decide how to move within it.

Seen from this perspective, figures such as Trump are not anomalies but symptoms. In a polarised, sleeping world, when consciousness swings too far in one direction, a counter-force must appear. Not because it is noble or pure, but because balance demands it. The tragedy is that the movement rarely stops at balance. It overshoots, and then the opposite force must arise again. The pendulum continues. All of it is mechanical.

We forget this and take sides as though we were conscious arbiters of reality. Our judgements imply that something needs fixing “out there,” while the deeper fracture remains within consciousness itself.

Even when we glimpse this, personality quickly appropriates it. It uses insight to justify new forms of superiority. Vigilance is always required.

So, what does impartiality actually demand of us?

Madame de Salzmann described it with extraordinary clarity. She showed that every response in us occurs before awareness. The movement comes first. Awareness follows later. Our thoughts, feelings, and actions are conditioned by accumulated habits and associations. We respond with what is already there. We cannot respond otherwise.

This means that when we encounter new ideas, opinions, or information, they are immediately compared with what we already carry inside us. Gurdjieff called this the formatory apparatus. It is a simple machine that sorts, categorises, and decides in binary terms: true or false, for or against, acceptable or threatening.

The formatory mind cannot hold contradiction. It cannot see “both.” It seizes the first resemblance and concludes that it understands. This is why Gurdjieff’s statements so often appear contradictory to people. “Man cannot do” and “Man is a being who can do” are both true, but not at the same level. The formatory mind insists on choosing one.

Our store of opinions is not neutral. It is bound to personality, to identity, to safety. We defend it because we confuse it with ourselves. When new impressions arrive, anything that supports this structure feels comforting. Anything that threatens it feels dangerous.

This is why impartiality is so rare. It threatens our illusory sense of who we are.

To become impartial, we must first observe ourselves. Not theoretically, but practically, through self-remembering: awareness of body, feeling, and mind together. Without this, everything remains reaction.

When a new idea arrives, instead of asking, “Is this right or wrong?” we begin by asking, “Where might this also be true?” Then we ask the same of our own position: “Where might the opposite also be true?” The word also is essential. It opens space. It prevents closure.

Impartiality requires delay. It requires silence. It requires allowing opposing impressions to exist together without immediate resolution. It requires tolerating discomfort.

J. G. Bennett called this the Third State. It is neither affirmation nor denial, but reconciliation. It is known in different traditions as Tao, Sattva, the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of Reconciliation. It is central to the Work.

In practice, this means stopping. Withholding expression. Letting impressions settle. Allowing the body, feeling, and mind to participate together in perception. Only then does weighing become possible.

This is not weakness. It is strength.

When we fail to make this effort and instead broadcast our holy opinions, we remain exactly where we began: convinced, polarised, and asleep.

And then Hadji Nassr Eddin’s saying becomes painfully accurate:

“World deeds are like honey-cakes, from which the eater must grow an ass’s tooth.”

Not because action itself is wrong, but because action born from sleep inevitably reinforces sleep. Only action born from impartial perception can be something else.