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Chapter 18: The Supersubstantial BreadIf we carefully observe any day of our life, we will certainly see that we do not know how to live consciously.
Our life resembles a train in motion, moving along fixed tracks of rigid, mechanical habits in a vain and superficial existence. The curious thing is that it never occurs to us to modify our habits. It seems that we never tire of constantly repeating the same thing. |
Our habits have petrified us, though we think we are free. We are dreadfully ugly, but we think ourselves Apollos.
We are mechanical people, and this is more than sufficient reason for our lack of any true sense of what we are doing in life.
We move daily within the old rut of our antiquated and absurd habits, and thus it is clear that we do not have a real life. Instead of living, we vegetate miserably and don’t receive new impressions.
If a person begins his day consciously, it is apparent that such a day will be very different from other days.
When one takes the totality of one’s life to be the same as the very day in which one is living, when one does not leave for tomorrow what must be done this very day, one really comes to know what it means to work on oneself.
Never does a day lack importance. If we really want to transform ourselves radically, we must see, observe, and comprehend ourselves daily.
People, however, do not want to see themselves. Some, wanting to work on themselves, justify their negligence with phrases like the following, “My work at the office does not allow work on myself.” Such senseless, hollow, vain, absurd words only serve to justify indolence, laziness, and lack of love for the Great Cause.
Such people, though they may have many spiritual inquietudes, will obviously never change.
Observing ourselves is urgent, pressing, and unpostponable. Intimate self-observation is fundamental for real change.
What is your psychological state when you get up? What is your state of mind during breakfast? Were you impatient with the waiter? With your spouse? Why were you impatient? What is it that always disturbs you?
To smoke or eat less are not complete changes, but they do indicate some progress. We know very well that addiction and gluttony are inhuman and bestial.
It is not good that someone dedicated to the secret path has an excessively fat physical body with a protruding stomach, totally without harmonious perfection. That would indicate gluttony, greed, and even laziness.
Daily life, our profession, our work, though vital to our existence, constitutes the sleep of the consciousness.
To know that life is a dream does not mean that we have comprehended the fact. Comprehension comes with self-observation and intense work on oneself.
In order to work on oneself, it is indispensable to work on one’s daily life, this very day, and then one will comprehend the meaning of that phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
The phrase daily bread means supersubstantial bread, or bread from on high in Greek.
Gnosis gives us this bread of life, in the double sense of ideas and strength, which permit us to disintegrate our psychological errors.
Every time we reduce an “I” to cosmic dust, we gain psychological experiences, we eat the bread of wisdom, we receive new knowledge.
Gnosis offers us the supersubstantial bread, the bread of wisdom, and shows us with precision the new life that begins within us, here and now.
However, no one can alter his life or change anything related to the mechanical reactions of his existence, unless he can count on the help of new ideas, and divine assistance.
Gnosis gives these new ideas and indicates the modus operandi by which one can be assisted by forces superior to the mind.
We need to prepare the inferior centers of our organism to receive the ideas and forces that come from our superior centers.
In the work on oneself, nothing is worthless. Any thought, however insignificant it may be, deserves to be observed.
Any negative emotion, reaction, etc., must be observed.
We are mechanical people, and this is more than sufficient reason for our lack of any true sense of what we are doing in life.
We move daily within the old rut of our antiquated and absurd habits, and thus it is clear that we do not have a real life. Instead of living, we vegetate miserably and don’t receive new impressions.
If a person begins his day consciously, it is apparent that such a day will be very different from other days.
When one takes the totality of one’s life to be the same as the very day in which one is living, when one does not leave for tomorrow what must be done this very day, one really comes to know what it means to work on oneself.
Never does a day lack importance. If we really want to transform ourselves radically, we must see, observe, and comprehend ourselves daily.
People, however, do not want to see themselves. Some, wanting to work on themselves, justify their negligence with phrases like the following, “My work at the office does not allow work on myself.” Such senseless, hollow, vain, absurd words only serve to justify indolence, laziness, and lack of love for the Great Cause.
Such people, though they may have many spiritual inquietudes, will obviously never change.
Observing ourselves is urgent, pressing, and unpostponable. Intimate self-observation is fundamental for real change.
What is your psychological state when you get up? What is your state of mind during breakfast? Were you impatient with the waiter? With your spouse? Why were you impatient? What is it that always disturbs you?
To smoke or eat less are not complete changes, but they do indicate some progress. We know very well that addiction and gluttony are inhuman and bestial.
It is not good that someone dedicated to the secret path has an excessively fat physical body with a protruding stomach, totally without harmonious perfection. That would indicate gluttony, greed, and even laziness.
Daily life, our profession, our work, though vital to our existence, constitutes the sleep of the consciousness.
To know that life is a dream does not mean that we have comprehended the fact. Comprehension comes with self-observation and intense work on oneself.
In order to work on oneself, it is indispensable to work on one’s daily life, this very day, and then one will comprehend the meaning of that phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.”
The phrase daily bread means supersubstantial bread, or bread from on high in Greek.
Gnosis gives us this bread of life, in the double sense of ideas and strength, which permit us to disintegrate our psychological errors.
Every time we reduce an “I” to cosmic dust, we gain psychological experiences, we eat the bread of wisdom, we receive new knowledge.
Gnosis offers us the supersubstantial bread, the bread of wisdom, and shows us with precision the new life that begins within us, here and now.
However, no one can alter his life or change anything related to the mechanical reactions of his existence, unless he can count on the help of new ideas, and divine assistance.
Gnosis gives these new ideas and indicates the modus operandi by which one can be assisted by forces superior to the mind.
We need to prepare the inferior centers of our organism to receive the ideas and forces that come from our superior centers.
In the work on oneself, nothing is worthless. Any thought, however insignificant it may be, deserves to be observed.
Any negative emotion, reaction, etc., must be observed.
