Zen, Yoga, Gurdjieff- perspectives on inner work: An Inner Cosmos

Monday, April 13, 2020

An Inner Cosmos

Royaumont Abbey

One thinks one knows what life is.

Yet, aha!

...one doesn’t;

and if the spiritual side of life awakens and flows into us, we discover life has a hidden dimension which lies behind what we call “reality.”

That dimension isn’t “above” us (in the sense of heaven); it is everywhere, but most especially inside us. This is what Christ said when He indicated that the kingdom of heaven is within.

We use the word heavens to indicate the cosmos—stars, galaxies and so on—as well as an indicator for the abode of God and angels.

My Being is my inner cosmos—the wholeness of existence, which is held together by dark matter, an unseen and immeasurable material where most of the mass of my Being is concentrated. This center of gravity in Being is also called the soul.

An awakening to the presence of this material brings everything into question: not because the intellect has questions, but because the sensation does.

The feeling does.

May your heart be close to God,

and God close to your heart.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.

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Recommendations and current reading list

Lee's current reading list (all recommended)

The Iceberg- Marion Coutts. This extraordinary book deserves to be read by every individual engaged in an inner search. The questions it raises about life, death, and relationship are framed by the authors responsibilities to her very young child and her dying husband. This is a book about real work in life, not esoteric theory.

Far From The Tree: Andrew Solomon. Parents, Children and the Search for Identity. Highly recommended.

Inner Yoga, Sri Anirvan—This extraordinary book is essential reading for any serious student of Gurdjieff or Yoga practice. Written at a level of both practical and philosophical discourse well above other contemporary work, Anirvan investigates the deep roots of Yoga practice, theory, and philosophy in a deeply sensitive series of insights. Of particular interest is the extraordinary and challenging piece on Buddhi and Buddhiyoga, which examines the questions of practice, life, and death with an acuity rarely encountered in other work of this nature.

Divine Love and Wisdom, Emmanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg gives us a detailed report on Reality as received from higher sources, reflecting many Truths one would be wise to study carefully. Readers will be astounded by the extraordinary degree of correlation between Swedenborg and Ibn 'Arabi. Many fundamental principles introduced by Gurdjieff are also expounded on in fascinating detail by Swedenborg. All of Swedenborg's works are well worth reading.

The Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom, Ibn 'Arabi. Another real gem, this book ought to be read by every seeker on the spiritual path. If you can only find the time to read one book by Ibn 'Arabi, this ought to be the one. By turns lighthearted, serious, insightful, and ingenius, al 'Arabi introduces us to our inner government character by character, explains their relationships, and indicates how to bring them into a state of harmonious cooperation. Written with love, the book deftly manages to avoid being didactic, delivering instead a sensitive, poetic, and even romantic look at how to organize our inner Being.

The Bezels of Wisdom—Ibn al 'Arabi. A compendium of observations about the nature of "The Reality"—what al 'Arabi calls God— from a 13th century Sufi master. This towering work easily holds its own against—and is worthy of comparison to—13th century masterpieces from other major religious traditions such as Dogen's Shobogenzo and Meister Eckhart's sermons.

Also worthy: William C. Chittick's The Sufi Path of Knowledge, an extensive review of al Arabi's works.