The Original Action of the Soul

 

April 28, Sparkill.

When considering the limits of thought, the question arises of what we can know; and whether we can know anything. 

The word know, in the English language, arise from old English cnāwan, which means to recognize or identify. The word is quite ancient and comes from an Indo European route shared by the Latin gnoscere, which readers will recognize as the root of the word gnostic, which means of what is known, of knowledge. The word, of course, has esoteric overtones and always has.

But why is that?

The esoteric overtones behind the Indo European root stem from the essentially mysterious act of knowing. Knowing does not necessarily consist of intellectual constructions that weave multiple complex interpretations of meaning together; and that is because that action comes after knowing, which consists of recognizing or identifying. To recognize is to see again: to re-cognize. This means to know again, or recall to mind. Both are reference to the act of bringing the attention back to the present moment, or being mindful. And to identify is to assign a unique sameness or consistency to what already is: to see it in the present moment for itself.

All right, then, you may say to yourself. What is the point of all this etymology?

The point is that to know is not about forming intellectual patterns regarding what is seen. That is the aftermath of seeing. To know is the act of seeing what is; of seeing what is not later, after the fact, but now; and of recognizing it for itself with mindfulness and clarity. There is a wholeness in this action that relates not to the construction of forms but of consciousness itself; and of course consciousness itself is always the great mystery, hence the intimate and ancient relationship between the word know and the word gnostic. The relationship tells us that even in the earliest of times when language was first developed, the nature of consciousness was recognized as remarkable, mysterious, and unique.

Perhaps this is because when consciousness first arose, human beings understood how strange and precious it actually was; and later, taking it for granted, we began to forget that it was special and began to abuse it in a thousand directions, especially by using thinking to construct forms with it. Be that as it may. The essential point, the one that I wish to turn the ship around and point out here, is that knowing is the action of taking in an impression. Not creating constructions around it to draw many different conclusions, but taking the impression in as a whole thing.

This takes more than one part of ourselves; and the parts that are doing it need to be balanced. Usually, one part — almost invariably the emotions or the thinking part, and more often the emotions — takes 90% of what an impression consists of in, weights it irrevocably towards its own fraction of true perception, and forces the other parts to come along behind it with the attitude that that creates.

There is a different possibility here. The mind can stay still, rather empty, quite attentive and right there in the center of what is happening, at the front end of it. This is what "to stay in front" of something actually means. The mind is poised in the moment, empty, yet quite active, prepared to take in what happens.

It isn't so influenced by what already took place. It isn't so influenced by what will take place next. It does not adopt an entirely referential attitude towards what is taking place. It is simply here what is taking place, accepting it right where it is for what it is. If one reads attentively, between notes of meetings with Gurdjieff and Madame Salzmann’s diaries, one can glean actual descriptions of this. 

Secondly, at the same time the mind remains poised in the moment, the sensation is active and the organism is prepared to receive what takes place as a physical sensation, an actual vibration that enters it. Already, if these two elements — intellectual poise and physical, organic sensation—are present together, feeling is primed to play its role. And then, when the impression comes in, a real knowing takes place, because an impression has actually entered the body in the way that consciousness was meant to receive it.

This action is as mysterious as gnosticism proclaims it to be, because it is very close to the original action of the soul, which is the sacred purpose for which human consciousness exists and serves in the first place.

To confuse this with the knowing of our intellectual constructions is a great mistake, because they are two quite different things, and the same word should not be used for both of them.

Nevertheless, it is, and so we must sort it out a bit.

Hoping that you find yourself in good relationship today,

warmly,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.