July 23

 

July 23

Gradually, the molecular intelligence of one’s being gathers itself into a single place. This happens over a period of time and the increments aren’t so easily noticed; but eventually molecular sensation acquires enough gravity to perceive on its own.

Then one is required to submit to the conditions. The conditions are quite simple, really, and so is the perception of them. The complications of the mind turn out to be relatively unimportant in this place. Conditions, exactly as they are, without being changed in any way by opinion or desire, are a duty to meet and an experience to be taken in.

The discovery of the unknown lies within this; and here, as well, is where grace may be encountered, which is an infinite force given without regard for worthiness. Yet it can only be taken in to the extent that one is willing to submit; and submission consists of allowing the wholeness of grace to penetrate, and leaving no part of oneself unexposed. In doing this, one sees that one is nothing and that one has no goodness in one’s own being; and that all things and all goodness, all real Being, lie within the realm of grace alone. 

The purification of feeling can begin to take place under these conditions.

This is the whole of it; so pay close attention to the question. Everything one plans, everything one thinks one is capable of or deserves, everything one thinks of this or that is useless here.

Grace can help to teach that each individual and small action is a prayer, and that the phrase “Lord have Mercy, Christ have Mercy” is eternally appropriate to every action. This prayer does not refer to the tiny and relatively inaccurate conceptions we form through the words Lord, Christ, and Mercy. It refers to forces beyond the ken of human beings. 

In this sense one does not pray to the known and what one knows, but to the unknown and what one does not. Of course, in hindsight, one sees this was inevitable; but the intellectual mind eternally believes in itself and its power. Only the granular attention of molecular Being is ultimately able to take this in to any degree of satisfaction.

This is a place where real feeling can perceive; and it sees quite differently than the intellect.

One only has one day in which to work; and this is this day. All of the ordinary things, even the things of man’s will and desire, must be discharged in the way that ordinary things are discharged. It is within them and alongside them that the duties of attention and prayer must be undertaken. There is no point and no profit in eliminating what’s ordinary from this, because it’s an essential part of the conditions. It’s the relationship to them that matters; and that becomes the whole of the matter in itself.

This experiment, this worship, is what all of the parts — sensation, intellect, feeling — were made for; and it is undertaken strictly as a service to what we do not understand.

On behalf of our search for inward relationship,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola magazine.