As promised in my last post I’ll introduce you to the mechanism that can transform our warring parts into a unity -and more to the point begin the training that can enable continuity beyond the grave of the Self you become aware of.
First, let me advise you how the ancient masters introduced their pupils to the way of ways.
Irrespective of the pupil’s station in everyday life, whether they were rich, influential, or poor and uneducated, they would be treated equally. They were given menial tasks to do -never for their own purpose of supposed need, always as benefit for others. These were often the dirtiest jobs possible, like cleaning latrines, and at no time were they given higher purpose teachings.
Needless to say, the fall out rate was high.
Interestingly, a teacher in modern times, George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1877-1949) used similar methods of introduction. Born in Alexandropol, Armenia, trained as a priest and physician, he travelled widely the remote regions of Central Asia and the Middle East before setting up his Institute for The Harmonious Development of Man. At the Château du Prieuré near Paris in the nineteen twenties he attracted many young intellectual/university type students. He put them to work preparing foods in the kitchen, cleaning the toilets, and digging holes. He would tell them he was searching for underground springs to supplement the water supply to the château -as you might expect many holes were dug without getting results. Again, the fallout rate was high.
The purpose of this introduction was to engage the instinctual nature of BodyMind with the rationally minded ego, which develops in the day-to-day world as the controlling driver of our consciousness.
Some found this humiliating and accused Gurdjieff (as others had done with past teachers) of wanting to make them servile to him. In reality the teacher intended these ‘exercises’ to give birth to instrumental self-awareness -a life-living form of consciousness, which was able to encompass and activate the higher nature of the BodyMind. The logic of this conversion (if we can call it that) was simply this -eternal self-awareness is only possible when the BodyMind is harmoniously whole -and that must include connecting and expressing the root nature of Self as born into this world.
We are all born with awareness of the higher nature.
The innocence of the child is a magnet drawing us into their world, and mothers have an intuitional awareness of the child’s nature, which develops in pregnancy and forever thereafter gives them an inner knowledge of the child’s identity. However, as we all know we fast lose that innocence as the consciousness of the outside world gains our attention and presents us with choices. We form personality to protect and guide us into adulthood. Whether we are religious or not, we develop standards of behaviour that enable our interests -and it is those standards that argue fiercely their right to be heard and acted upon.
The herd mentality has standards of behaviour enabling us to be open with others -making us feel wanted and accepted. If we reject the herd mentality, we must hide our standards of self-being -else we are seen as ‘rogue’ and are criticised, ignored, or otherwise branded weird and uneducable.
It is the ‘rogues’ the ancient masters were most interested in because they saw them as having retained the inner awareness of the child, and therefore were most likely to succeed in converting their adult nature into instrumental BodyMind harmony. History shows families allowing their children to live in Ashrams and other like communities as pathways to develop spirituality through service to others.
So, am I saying in our modern technologically driven world we need to retire to Ashrams, monasteries, and other such closed communities to succeed?
No, I am not. Neither am I saying closed community living is a sure way of achieving BodyMind harmony as often religious and philosophical scruples maintain the ego’s rational right to remain ‘King of the castle’.
So, is the true path so narrow all but a few can find and practise it?
No, it is not -there is a way in which you can live and function in the ‘herd’, be acceptable to your friends, loved ones, and neighbours, hold and maintain positions of importance in the secular world -and still be able to develop BodyMind Harmony. And not appear weird or odd!
I called this piece Mission Impossible because it does ask of you actions many would say are consistently unachievable in today’s world.
The reason why history keeps repeating itself is because Man’s habitual self doesn’t work to free himself from the cycle of rebirth.
The first step you take on the self-called ‘narrow’ path is invisible to others!
You need to re-engage the very first thing you did when you entered this world from your mother’s womb. It is to rediscover how to breathe correctly! And believe me -there is much more to breathing than expelling and intaking air! In my next post I’ll advise the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of doing this….
The poem I have written for this week illustrates the difference between ego perceptive consciousness (the Stone Man) and BodyMind awareness.
Song of the Sea
Beyond the Stone Man lives a psychic sea
wherein thespian arts are founded,
on the whisperings of immortality.
Earth genius, maker of machinery
hear before claiming, this invocation.
Beyond the Stone Man lives a psychic sea,
thesaurus more precious than history,
an interlocking alien kingdom:
the whisperings of immortality.
Stone Man, creator of insanity
repeat after me this incantation.
Beyond the Stone Man lives a psychic sea,
where sceptres and crowns were facsimile
long before Archimedes heard in song,
the whisperings of immortality.
Knights and Bishops, guardians of the Tree,
Knowledge, and Faith, have you now forgotten?
Beyond the Stone Man lives a psychic sea,
of mistakes made in your liturgy
by making your God of wisdom, to wrong
the whisperings of immortality?
I wait the last act of this tragedy
powerless to prevent consummation.
Beyond the Stone Man lives a psychic sea
where his soul sits under the Bodhi tree
ever present awaiting earthly union,
to share the whisperings of immortality.
Mine Quick Voice of Aquarius 