Zen, Yoga, Gurdjieff- perspectives on inner work: Attitude and desire

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Attitude and desire

From a series of notes to myself written during May 2018.

I don’t really see how attitude and desire color the moment of response. The things that have already happened and the things that I want to happen are both in the way of allowing me to respond instinctively in the present. My instincts have a pretty good idea of what is right, if I live responsibly and make an effort to form an intelligent perspective. But if I am always the slave of my attitudes and desires, it ruins me. I don’t know what is right. Right begins to emerge from social and political, religious and civic, sources rather than the inherent understanding within my own being.

There is another way to say this. There is a rightness that comes from man, and a rightness that comes from God. They are not the same thing. Humanity is constantly confusing the rightness that comes from man — a subjective rightness that is constantly changing and creates one disaster after another — with the rightness that comes from God. The rightness that comes from God is unfailingly loving. This is a huge demand, and in direct opposition in the rightness that comes from man. I say it is a huge demand because it goes against both attitude and desire; it emerges from a place within being that is free of both attitude and desire.

When I say that this is free of attitude and desire, it’s difficult to understand what that means. After all, rightness that comes from God has its own attitude: but it is God’s attitude. It receives life instead of trying to control it. In receiving life, it attempts to understand that desire should arrive from love and then meet life, not meet life and then try to slap love on it like a Band-Aid. The love has to come first. Love has to come first before I form attitudes; in love has to come first before I formed desires. The inflow is love. It is inherently loving; and if it forms my being, my instinctive being, I already bring a part that has a love and humility in it to life as it arises.

Hosanna.

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.