Work in Life, part II

I’ve discussed organic sensation for many years as the foundation of inner experience; yet of course the idea isn’t new, and even though I somehow naively thought the phrase was somewhat unique to myself in 2007 when I first began using it, it turns out that Gurdjieff and his pupils used exactly that phrase to describe the energy of life that flows into us, starting as early as the wartime meetings. 

The following quote from JG Bennett was sent to me the other day, and it illustrates the use of the phrase quite precisely to describe an important functional aspect of our inner work:

Questioner:

I have heard you talk about self-remembering. You said that it was not the same as remembering your functions, but that it was organic sensation. I find this very difficult to understand.

Bennett:

I said that without organic sensation, there cannot be any intensity of self-remembering. It is one essential ingredient. Self-remembering is a blending of energies. Associations are too unstable. Feeling is too impulsive. The passive energy is the energy of sensation, it is able to be continuous. From the blending of these energies, it is possible to have a state which is mobile and strong, and also stable. To remember myself, I must blend these energies into one experience. The element of stability is indispensable, otherwise it will evaporate, and I cannot have that stability unless I have the organic experience. From my feelings comes the strength, from my thoughts comes the mobility. 

—Denison House Talks No. 9;

London 5th. March 1951

 I find this explanation precise and correct; yet perhaps we can consider more facets of this question. 

Jeanne de Salzmann was most precise in her insistence that we must come into relationship with a higher energy. We begin with organic sensation; but the three centered being that it helps stabilize and make possible is merely the beginning of what forms a vessel to receive the emanations from a higher level. 

Work in life is to work from within this field of energy, this influence — force that flows into us — and to inhabit it as fully, as definitely, and as precisely as possible before anything else happens. Indeed, this energy of the Holy Spirit should be the whole of our being and the force from which we begin our manifestations; it comes before creation and is sent directly from God. The kingdom of heaven within is the piece of territory – which cannot be defined by any intellectual analysis – within which this force exists and concentrates.

To work in life is to begin here, from a place where the influence that creates our life itself and is life itself arises.  Perhaps we might say that there is actually nothing but this force; that we can safely abandon all creation as a secondary and unnecessary condition, trusting only and first in this force of life that flows into us as a sacred substance. If we don’t begin here, we begin nowhere and we achieve nothing; for the only achievement available to human beings which is real — not within our imagination — is the achievement which the influence of God wishes for us. It is God’s wish that we need to manifest — hence, “thy will be done.”

 The moment that we try to interpret the idea of work in life as having anything to do with ordinary life and its events, we are mixing things—mixing levels—and we want to get something. 

Meister Eckhart had succinct observations about this problem:

…some people want to see God with their own eyes as they see a cow, and they want to love God as they love a cow. You love a cow for her milk and her cheese and your own profit. 

That is what all those men do who love God for outward wealth or inward consolation - and they do not truly love God, they love their own profit. I truly assert that anything you put in the forefront of your mind, if it is not God in Himself, is - however good it may be - a hindrance to your gaining the highest truth.

—Meister Eckhart, The Complete Mystical Works, Sermon 14 b

 So when we work in life, let's not get it confused and begin to love God as we love our cows. 

Our life is not the cow; life is life, and it flows into itself directly from God and without any intermediaries. 

To work in life is to recognize this within the core of one’s being —

Always, and everywhere.

Wishing the best for you on this day,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.