People often ask how I
know this and that.
How can I
know there’s a God? How do I
know we have a higher emotional center? And so on. The question of verification is forever in front of us. We’re told this, that and the other thing about both the outer world and about inner development, about the cosmos and our psychology, and yet we may still ask ourselves, “where’s the proof?”
The proof, the saying goes, is in the pudding... and although one might argue whether or not there’s a God, there’s definitely pudding.
So how does one know?
You can be quite sure you have been touched by a sacred energy when you Know.
Knowing does not require explanations; knowing comes by itself, quietly, wordlessly, and imparts understanding unmediated by the intellect. Knowing arises through
intelligence, not intellect; it does not arrive with brokers, and has no arguments attached to it. It needs none of that.
One can know angels in just this way; and when an energy arises and arrives, God is there with us; there is no need to have a discussion about it, because the true experience of the Lord is without measure, and needs no justification. It knows itself; and I am known both with it and within it. The Presence of the Lord, if it is known, is intact, untouched.
So either one knows this presence, or one does not. For as long as one finds one’s self still arguing, still searching, still challenging and verifying, one has not known the Lord, for the Lord arrives with Authority. If one reads such words and doesn’t understand them, then the Lord is not known yet; but don't worry, with work, it is possible to know the Lord.
One must become quite clear about the difference between intellect and intelligence, because they are not at all the same thing. The first is a clinician’s tool; the second, a compassionate force of understanding. So discriminate in your inner action, and don’t allow intellect to become a ruler; remember it as a subject of your own inner authority, not the originator of it.
Sometimes the presence of the Lord is mediated by assistants; angels, or perhaps even (if one is unusually blessed) Mary. Teachers who have moved on into the astral sphere can also appear from time to time to lend assistance; one may not always know of them. Yet their presence is always there, although this secret isn’t often spoken of openly in the Gurdjieff work.
So there is plenty of help out there; we’re surrounded by heavenly forces that have every good wish for us.
May your soul be filled with light.