Inner Work

For the week of July 27, 2020

Spiritualizing the Earth

(Serving Our World Soul: 9)

We can imagine the creation story going something like this. Before the beginning there was perfection, which began to wither. In response, in the beginning, the Creator introduced uncertainty to allow for the new and out of Nothing, out of the Will of the Creator, the universe was born. It needs the possibility of independent intelligences arising, so that they can help within the rapidly proliferating creation.[1] Thus, the Creator brings the universe into existence, places into it some of the Creator's Will, and cuts that Will loose to endow the universe with its own free will. Free though it is, the will embedded in the universe retains the basic nature of its Source, and from that, its inherent evolutionary drive to rejoin that Source.

Free will is everywhere, residing in rudimentary form within every particle, within every atom. An electron has the will to be an electron. A rock has the will to be a rock. A table has the will to be a table. Entangled particles share one will. Through evolution and its growth of complexity, especially in living things, smaller units of will coalesce into larger, more potent units of will: atoms form molecules, molecules form cells, cells form plants and animals. Each has the will to be itself. In terms of what is visible to us, this process so far has culminated in human beings, within all of whom enough free will has coalesced to finally reach the threshold of possibility, the threshold of becoming able to choose to rejoin our Source.

Every person is an awesomely complex living being, encompassing a huge number of atoms, with all their separate rudimentary wills hierarchically organized into one overarching, integrated, human will, or rather a potentially integrated will. The great majority of us still suffer the fragmentation of our personal will, with conflicting and self-contradictory desires, impulses, attitudes, opinions, likes, and dislikes. Clearly that fragmentation is reflected in society. Nevertheless, once a person, through living rightly, comes to the point of having a single integrated will, their own I, they have crossed the threshold of being able to choose with and for the whole of themselves and a very special chapter of the creation story opens.

Our will comes from below, through elementary particles and atoms, coalescing over the eons into an integrated human being. The Divine Will enters the universe from above, from the Creator. In us, the two can be rejoined, closing a great circuit of will: the free will embedded in the universe by the Creator in the act of creation flowing up and choosing to reunite with the Divine Will flowing down. The result is the completed human being, a free and independent intelligence, having climbed the ladder of will to join with, and become a scaled-down likeness of, the Creator, thereby bridging the material and spiritual realms. Although we are not at the stage of being fully able to understand the purpose of creation, this closing of the circuit of will by the free choice of independent intelligent beings certainly seems to be a part of that purpose. In this way, the Divine spreads into the universe through and as the evolved beings who have climbed the ladder past the threshold and chosen to rejoin the Sacred. We can call this process the spiritualization of the universe and our local instance the spiritualization of the Earth.

The closer we come to our Source, the more two major qualities come alive in our will: love and responsibility. Inner proximity to our common Source, brings inner proximity to other people and the awakening of love. At the same time, inner proximity to the One Who is responsible for the entire universe, awakens our own responsibility within the limits of our power. Collectively, humanity's power is great and so is our responsibility, if we will take it. In the process of spiritualization, each of us can, by our own free choice, increasingly share in the expansive love and objective responsibility of the Divine.

We can contribute to spiritualization by means of the meditative exercise presented below. Rejoining the higher will can only come as a free, individual choice of those who are prepared for it. Do we remain ourselves or do we become something much greater? It is not a question of merely becoming a part of the greatness. The Sacred is One, without parts. The mystery is that in joining the Sacred, we become the whole, and yet even more fully individual.

Our work is to come to that choice, to a position in which that choice is truly before us, truly ours to make. For that, much purification and integration are required. Nevertheless, we can prepare and serve by working now to make room for the Sacred in ourselves, and thereby further the high purpose of spiritualizing the Earth. We start where we are.

For this, it helps to see and understand the difference between the stillness of consciousness and the stillness of will. In the stillness of consciousness, we abide in pure awareness. Thoughts, images, emotions, and sensory impressions may continue, but we are their context and thus no longer taken by them. They come and go, while we remain in the quiet of awareness, being ourselves.

There is a higher form of stillness: the stillness of will. Here we stop doing or being anything, we stop trying to shape our inner experience. This is utter receptivity, complete letting go, even of being ourselves. Our choice, The Choice, is to enter this perfect openness, this total acceptance, this place where the Divine can meet us.

Along with the practices of Raising Consciousness, Welcoming the Sacred Light, and Joining Love, this exercise of Spiritualization is a fourth method of direct inner service. In actual practice, we take as much time as we need to fully realize each step in the following.

1. Find a quiet place and begin your sitting by building up robust, complete sensation of your whole body. Keep your attention focused in the sensitive energy in your whole body. This grounds you in the present: your first step inward.
2. Turn toward one of the higher emotions, turn toward Longing. Let your longing for completion, for the Sacred, well up from deep within you. Welcome the Light of Longing as it comes to meet you from within.
3. With all your being, with all your will, open to the Higher, to the goal of your longing. Inwardly repeat a sacred word, phrase, or melody, if it helps.
4. Let your heart guide your dive inward, beyond your thoughts, beyond your mind, beyond consciousness, beyond time and space, beyond yourself, beyond being anything. Inward into the silent depth. Inward toward the Sacred. Inward into the Sacred.
5. Letting go into total acceptance, into allowing "thy will be done," open your own will toward the higher will. Through total acceptance, leave yourself behind. Inwardly give yourself into perfect receptivity, to make room in your inmost core, to leave a gap in your center. Set aside your own will and wait in the openness.
6. From Nothing, everything is possible. In nothing, there are no impurities. In our purity, we are welcomed into the pure Source of all, where everything is possible.
7. In the perfect purity of the overflowing Nothing, merge with the Sacred.
8. Rest in the presence of fullness, completion, and gratitude.
9. Return to your life renewed.

[1] This scenario derived from G.I. Gurdjieff: Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson, The Holy Planet "Purgatory" Chapter.

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