Practical Spirituality—The Four Forces

The founder of Dovestar Institute of Massage and Body Work, Kamala, developed a theory that explains the workings of the universe know as the Four Forces. These four forces explain the way people interact with each other, God, and the universe. I will be discussing the Four Forces in this article, exploring each one briefly and in subsequent articles I will go more in-depth for each on. The first force is known as centripetal force.

Centripetal force, as you may know, is the constant force that pulls and object inward, toward the center, when it is being moved in a circle. In the life of the human being it is the force that is constantly pulling us inward, into the inner mind. As we go deeply into ourselves we find knowledge and wisdom. We digest what we have learned form the outer world. From the foundational beliefs we have collected and archetypes that exist within we formulate our understanding about the world and the way that it works. As we become more aware of our surrounds, we become dissatisfied with only being in our heads all of the time. The emotion or drive called need makes us uncomfortable. We are then moved outside of ourselves so we can gather more experiences and information. We move into the realm of what is known as centrifugal force.

This is the opposite force of centripetal. Centrifugal force pulls us away from the center. It pulls us outside of ourselves as we meet knew people and explore new things. We interact with people who serve as a mirror for us as they allow us to see their interpretations of who and what we are. As we go out more and more however, we are drawn into ourselves again for the sake of balance. As centrifugal force threatens to pull us out of our circle and send us flying off into the universe, we experience a healthy type of fear that draws back into ourselves. It is as if we are in a spiral, of figure eight as we move from one force to the other, passing through a center of complete balance. Our lives are spent moving back and force on the horizontal access as we interact with others, gain new insights, and then go back into ourselves to process. As long as we are balanced, moving back and forth we are happy and healthy. This, however, is only the physical plane of existence. There is no room for the spiritual on this plane, only for social interaction. As we move back and forth on this plain, therefore, something happens to pull us off of it and onto the vertical plain. There is some type of break in our relating and relationships. This is a healthy break and if we are healthy people we often experience guilt in a healthy way.

We begin to feel that we may be doing something to damage our relationships and interactions. Guilt leads us to the force called gravity. We drop out of the interactions and descend from the horizontal plane to a place where we can be the observer. We can watch ourselves from below as we interact with other people and then go back into ourselves. We use this time to reflect on our lives and our relationship and to consider how we might heal the brokenness. After we stay in the spot where gravity reigns for a while a feeling of relief overwhelms us as we realize that everything will be alright. As we regain balance this health recognition that everything is all right and that everything is ultimately going to work out for good in our lives moves us up the vertical plane to what is known as magnetic forces.

This is the place for the divine self. It is a place where transformation and growth takes place. It is a place of creativity. We dwell in this space as we heal, and we move in circles like a figure eight as we pass through the center point, a place of total balance, and down to gravity and then back up several times. Once the issue that sent us to this plane is resolved, we move back to the vertical plane as we make figure eights back and forth. Eventually, as we grow in wisdom and maturity, we move closer and closer to the center. We move from the horizontal to the vertical and back. Our figure eights become smaller and smaller and eventually we remain at the one point in the center. Our lives are in total balance, and we become our self actualized enlightened selves.

It takes time. It takes patience and the will and desire to become our divine selves before this happens, but the universe, if we allow it, will continue provide us opportunity to transcend an become who and what we as human beings were meant to be. In later essays we will speak of the forces more in detail. We will begin with centripetal force and move on from there.