Being Tested in the Work

Anyone on a real spiritual path has to face tests. The Work is no exception. If you are truly working on yourself, you will be tested again and again until the Work becomes stronger in you than any other influence.

The nature of these tests changes throughout your life.

The earliest test may come as a difficulty in locating a teacher. You may find a meeting time or place that is really difficult for you to get to, or which demands a sacrifice of something you enjoy. For me, the first meeting I went to was 50 miles away from where I lived, and as a penniless student I had great difficulty in coming up with the train fare. There were many evenings when I was tempted not to go; but I wanted the Work so much that I found ways to get there in spite of the many problems.

Having overcome the first difficulty, you now find you're being asked to carry out tasks that you really, really don't like! Why should you have to miss a night's sleep, for example? Or dress up as something weird and unpleasant? Or trek miles and miles to a distant Work location for a special weekend? How can you be asked to do these things? Don't they know how hard you're trying and how difficult they're making things for you?

Of course "they" do!

The purpose of all these difficulties is to show you your different I's. You don't know what you're really like until you are tested, and I's which have become habitual and which you don't even know you have start making their presence felt.

The Work proceeds from the outer to the inner, from the surface to the depths. What are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of the Work? And what do you believe you can never, ever give up?

Whatever your problems, you are facing the same process that we all go through. We have to get to know ourselves thoroughly, and the only way we can do this is by observation. And, since we habitually take the easy path through any situation, it's only through having to deny our habitual I's their sleep that we can see ourselves as we really are.

Without excuses. Without justifying. And without lying.

Our unpleasant habits in all centres come out to parade themselves. We begin to see that we are not exactly the nice, kind, pleasant person we thought we were. Far from it.

In life, when faced with a difficulty, we choose the path of least resistance. We try to get our own way, and when that doesn't work we manipulate or force others into doing what we want. In the Work we can't get away with this sort of behaviour. Our fellow students are sure to object, and our teacher won't allow us to become lazy or to make excuses for our unpleasant manifestations.

Tests cause us to look ever deeper within, and we start to have a pretty good idea of what we're really like.

Just as important as this knowledge is what we do with it. We don't justify our shortcomings, but own up to them. We see ourselves as we really are, and we don't flinch from observing our buffers, our contradictions, our conceit, our arrogance. If we refuse to see, we will be tested again and again on the very same point until we can no longer deny our reality.

Neither do we judge or criticize ourselves, however. Such an attitude shuts down all observation and puts us to sleep. We simply see ourselves, acknowledge our various I's, and choose to disidentify with them so that they gradually lose their power over us. With this test comes much suffering, but it is the type of suffering which cleanses and enlightens us. It is the only way we learn.

The Work shows us that nothing in our False Personality is worth anything at all. It has to go. All those I's which stifle our Essence and commit psychological violence against ourselves and others have to be let go and allowed to die away. It will take a long time, perhaps many years, for this to happen.

An important part of the process of becoming aware is to get to know our Chief Feature. Dr. Nicoll describes it as the axis round which our False Personality revolves, and when we have seen it our Work becomes more focused.

Even so, it is very easy for the Chief Feature to take on new forms, and this is the origin of the many stories all over the world about shape-shifters. These fairy tales reflect the truth that our I's are experts at disguising themselves, and only continuous self-observation without judging or excusing will subdue their influence.

Self-observation goes on for the rest of our life. And if we become complacent, thinking we now know everything about ourselves and that our False Personality has no more power over us, we are sure to be tested, perhaps in a very big way. The saying that "Pride goes before a fall", which is actually a quotation from the Bible, is quite true. You will observe it in yourself many times.

If you are ever authorized to teach the Work, you will be sure to face a major test. You will be challenged in every way, so that your False Personality is revealed in all its manifestations; this is an inescapable fact for everyone who reaches a certain stage in the Work.

Not everyone can or should be authorized to teach, but if you reach the stage of knowledge which shows your own teacher that you might be able to pass on some of the Work to new students, your Being will be tested so that you see what you have to work on in yourself.  Without this, you would be a terrible teacher! You would teach from False Personality, and this is a great pitfall.

If your teacher sees that this is happening, you will be immediately told to stop teaching; your authorization will be revoked, and you will have to take a long, hard look at the I's which have allowed such a difficult situation to develop. Some people cannot face this task, and leave the Work at this point. Their False Personalities, or even their Personalities, take them away from the Work altogether. This stage is an initiation, and only students who truly value the Work, who can see the good of the Work regardless of their own progress, or lack of it, will be able to carry on.

At this point, only humility will keep you in the Work - the sort of humility which enables you to be taught, and thus to teach others.

False Personality, as we know, has no place in the Work, but what of the Personality? In fact, our Personality probably contains a number of I's which are useful in the Work. In my case I had learned to teach and to counsel in life, and when used in a Work group these I's were often helpful. But there is still much in the Personality that will have to be discarded because it doesn't support the Work.

It is your Higher Centers which will guide you through all the tests you face in the Work. And this will only be the case when you have purified your emotional and intellectual centres sufficiently to allow the Higher Centers to be heard.

When you reach this stage, your self-knowledge will be very thorough indeed. You will still be tested, because this process continues for our lifetime as long as we are treading the path of the Work, but the tests will be very different.

There will be subtle inner temptations and outer problems which make working on the third line of the Work extremely difficult at times. But by now you will know yourself well enough to be able to meet these tests as they arise.

You will have been turned and twisted and bent out of shape so many times that you will have developed the ability to return to the sure path of the Work.  And this is the purpose of all the tests you have undergone.