Strengthening Essence

In most people, Essence is born childlike and weak.

The part of us that we call Essence is born with us. It includes everything that we are physically - our colouring, our inherited weaknesses and strengths, all our genetic heritage - and all our spiritual and psychological potential.

Just because we have that potential at birth, however, does not mean that we will develop and realize it.

Many people die without having developed their Essence at all. In such a case, Dr Nicoll taught, the very fine substance of which Essence is composed returns to the common melting pot, from which new Essences are taken when a person is to be born.

If we do not develop Essence, we have no individuality. If there is no individuality, how can there be any survival after death?

This is not what the church teaches, of course. It is a very ancient tradition, older than the church, and known to esoteric groups before Christianity existed.

If someone is born into a family which follows a traditional religion, that person will begin to develop Essence. To be a spiritual person, to follow any of the real religious paths, one has to resist temptation, to work against what is mechanical and strengthen the spiritual will.

For this reason, all the religions which Gurdjieff recognized do teach belief in a soul, or developed Essence. The soul is nourished when a child is raised by people who genuinely try to follow a religious path, and who guide the child wisely so that he or she will detach from negative emotions, at least to some extent.

If efforts are made during childhood and adolescence, then even if the maturing adult decides to discard their religion, the soul will have begun to grow, thanks to the nourishment it received from the parents and other adults in childhood.

And when the soul has once begun to grow, it will call out to the inner man or woman and crave more nourishment, more strength, as it recognizes its own desire for development.

Society is so disordered today, however, that few people receive wise guidance as children, and even fewer recognize their inner longings once childhood is past. Instead, we are encouraged to forget about spiritual progress and focus on material goals - money, status, power, sexual satisfaction, and so on. This is what drives the money-making machinery of advertising and big business. This is the real danger of our day.

We live in a haze of lies, a web of falsehood which surrounds us during our waking moments and invades our dreams.  We are told the way to happiness lies in getting more and more stuff, having bigger and better orgasms, being feted as a "celebrity" in the media, or simply by satisfying all our physical needs as though we were merely animals.

If we were not kept hypnotized in this way, nobody would believe the obvious lies inherent in our materialistic society. We would refuse to buy those things we really don't want or need. We would see other people as they really are, instead of through a distorting lens of False Personality. We would keep in mind the fact of our own death, and the need to make constant, unflagging efforts during our brief lifetime.

In short, we would work on ourselves.

Even in those times when there is no Fourth Way School, echoes of former schools persist. There is always a mystical side to outer religions, and a path that may be found by a sincere seeker. And it is only when treading that path that we experience the real satisfaction that a pilgrim knows even when he or she is suffering, the knowledge that we are moving ever closer to our Real I, whatever name it may be given. And this experience is the same for all spiritual seekers, everywhere. The inner teachings of all religions all embrace the same reality.

Today, we have the Fourth Way, and the teachers and groups that exist in the authorized lineages of the Work.

We know that by working on ourselves we are strengthening Essence and weakening Personality, and this is the task that is most strongly encouraged during Lent.

Of False Personality there is no need to speak, for we all realize that it is the fake, the unreal, the delusional system of I's that leads us away from the Work unless we stay awake. We know how to recognize these I's, and we understand that we must detach from them whenever they make themselves known.

The Personality does have its uses in the Work, however.  We need to use Personality I's in order to carry out our jobs, to provide for ourselves and our families, and to organize our lives so that inner work takes priority once our responsibilities to others have been discharged.

We know that it is the task of Personality to serve Essence. Personality must create the conditions our Essence needs in order to grow. Essence must not remain weak and childlike, for if it fails to develop there can be no inner peace, no real progress. Progress takes place as the Work penetrates deeper within us, from the outermost I's in moving parts of centres to the innermost places where the Work is difficult and painstaking - but where alone real awakening can occur.

In the Christian religion we are told that Jesus withdrew to the wilderness to prepare for his earthly mission. We can't do that - most of us have family responsibilities and worldly duties that we have to carry out.

But we can all set aside periods at the beginning of each day, during the day, and again in the evening, when we carry out a psychological reversal and focus on our inner tasks. This is why we have a Morning Preparation every day, and why we choose to make appointments with ourselves in the day; we need to know where we are in our inner world, and what we need to do next for our spiritual progress.

During Lent we are encouraged by the Work and by the Christian tradition to take on extra tasks. Prayer and fasting are the names given by the church to these acts. In the Work, making Aim, putting in effort, and asking for help from a higher level constitute prayer for us. Fasting means to abstain from identifying with the I's in Personality and False Personality which spoil our inner work.

Lent is the time when, following the tradition as recommended in the Work, we may make some real progress in strengthening our Essence. And when one person ascends in the scale of Being, it affects everyone else.