26. Abstract of: The Barbarian within us Balkanisation of the mind
Western man begins by looking in the wrong places when he seeks the Self. The resulting confusion opens the psyche to delusions and destructive mental processes, which are the ‘barbarians’ within us. These ‘barbarians’ or uncontrolled thoughts and feelings were loosed on the world in the 1940’s. Now, in the past 10 years, a ‘balkanisation’ of the mind has ravaged the geographic Balkans, an example of the uncontrolled delusions of society. Now Christian civilisation is becoming sick as well. Every great civilization is the product of its great religion and every true religion has within it, perhaps now lost or hidden, a capacity to heal the sickness of its society through healing the individuals within it. Christ criticized the hypocrisy of His time and the early Fathers followed His lead by fostering the inner tradition of awakening the human nous. We look to the parables of the sower in Matthew to help understand this action. This forgotten nous is the hidden place where truth and illusion do battle and the nous, when purified, marks the beginning as we “put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him.” We must understand the whole inner tradition of myths and parables of inner reality to unlock the doors of the heart. The ‘straight gate and narrow way’ in one sense represent a difficult choice. To ‘take up our cross’ means an exposure to things beyond our control and making difficult choices. Yet Westerners who enter esoteric monasteries find it too difficult. Their emotional ‘luggage’ hinders attainment of spiritual goals. You cannot be in two states of consciousness at once and a higher state requires a renunciation of the lower. A modern individual burdened with inner possessions makes monasticism almost impossible so the question is, what can we do today? For lay seekers, with little time for prayer and exercise, the only possibility is to turn their whole life into an exercise. This is different from a monastic form in that a beginning may be made at a later stage in the process while the actions of the causal process – the real I itself – are invisible to the student for many years. Results of the psychological method used by Ouspenski and Gurdjieff, though sometimes remarkable, did not equal those of the early churches. In the end, Gurdjieff is reported to have advised certain students to go to Mount Athos and make contact as he had once claimed a Christian origin for the system he taught. This claim was one of the things that led Robin Amis to research and write “A Different Christianity.” Contact with the Source After several years of investigation into sources on Mount Athos, Robin Amis became convinced that Gurdjieff’s statement about the origins were correct in many important details. The new investigative results: 1. Spiritual transformation of man requires as a preliminary condition the temporary and eventually the permanent liberation of the individual nous from the activities that normally obscure it.
2. Certain psychological methods described by the early fathers have the capacity to liberate the nous without requiring massive initial changes in our way of life. These changes then follow instead of preceding the change in the nous.
3. Effective use of the psychological method involves the therapeutic use of the specialist knowledge on which the method is based, enabling us to face reality and so overcome emotional delusions and the disturbances of the nous which they cause.
4. The missing noetic method referred to by Ouspensky actually exists in the form of the noetic prayer used in the inner tradition of the Eastern Church.
5. Noetic prayer and the form of psychological method referred to combine and augment one another to form an effective discipline of inner growth. |
