Some Thoughts About Thinking, Part II

Mary, from Laon Cathedral

February 8, Part II

...you should know what the masters say, that in every man there are two kinds of man? 

The one is called the outer man, that is, the life of the senses: this man is served by the five senses, though the outer man functions by the power of the soul. The other is called the inner man, that is, man's inward nature. 

You should understand that a spiritual man, who loves God, makes use of the powers of the soul in the outer man only to the extent that the five outer senses need it: the inward nature is not concerned with the five senses except insofar as it is a guide or ruler of those senses...

Meister Eckhart, from On Detachment

I suppose it would be obvious to those interested in technical aspects of Being that there has to, in each case, be a harmonic consonance between the rates of vibration of those parts. Yet perhaps it isn't so important to know this, because that relationship can be easily intuited when the parts are working well. I'm just bringing it up because it gives us some additional clues as to why Gurdjieff called his enterprise the Institute for Harmonious Development of Man. He was referring to all of these vibrational parts of Being and how they cooperate in bringing us to a new understanding and appreciation of what thinking is. 

Each of the centers produces “thought” of its own kind. That is to say, each one forms a spontaneous and loving intelligence of its own which is, at its root, a spiritual expression of God's will. 

If one is attuned to God's love, one simply sits there waiting and God’s own thought comes to occupy us. It is not of us; and of course, it may seem remarkable to others, because if one does not express God’s thought oneself, and has no familiarity with the way it functions within Being, to hear it come from another is astonishing, simply because one can't quite understand its source. Of course natural thought will almost without fail automatically perceive God’s thought as an enemy — and oh, my, the catastrophes that ever result from this!

This holds equally truly for a thought about nuclear physics or a thought about personal relationship. What holds true is the magnificent ease with which it arrives within Being when Being allows it to be there. The ancients had a word for it when this type of thinking arrived in creative activities; they called it the muse, fully understanding that it was inspired by the divine. 

In understanding thinking better, then, we need to learn to distinguish quite clearly between natural thinking and spiritual thinking, and (first) become responsible for our natural thinking. Part of the action of presence needs to be devoted to attempting to understand that responsibility.

That responsibility begins with seeing. One of the interesting properties of thoughts is that although they are invisible, their results can be seen outwardly. However — and this needs to be intimately and carefully contemplated — thought itself can be seen from within, where it is quite visible as long as it is natural thought. Any thought we can see in this way is natural thought. 

God’s thought, which does not emerge from within us but rather flows through us, is both sublime, invisible, and unexpected.

May your heart be close to God, 

and God close to your heart.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.