Yesterday, I spoke about
becoming human as an action of the greater Good. I will say a bit more about this now.
Now, this is a complex subject, because so many questions about life and why we are alive turn on it. I can only speak briefly, and about a single aspect.
The whole purpose of humanity is to express the greater Good, the will of the Divine. Ibn Arabi explains, in
The Bezels of Wisdom, that man was appointed vicegerent on behalf of God; that is, it is not a pope or a priest or some other figure of authority who is an earthly representative of God, but
man himself — each man or woman themselves. We are born and put here on earth in order to receive a higher influence from the Divine and express it on behalf of God.
This is a profoundly personal and intimate action on behalf of every human being; and to the extent that a human being inhabits themselves, so it is God that inhabits them, and it is a certainty that to the extent one inhabits oneself, and is inhabited by God, one expresses God's Will and does His Will.
So mankind is invited, through the exercise and presence of humanity, to act on God's behalf. This is a sacred and enormously rewarding task, which ought to feed every man and woman's soul with the very finest kind of food, the very highest hydrogens that Gurdjieff spoke about. There is an inexpressible bliss and joy — as well as an anguish — in the action of performing these tasks on behalf of God, but we know very little of it, because we are disconnected from a right understanding. Our idea of what it means to be a human being is quite different than what the truth of the matter is.
It's worth careful, sober, and profound reflection on what it means to be a representative of God, because in receiving this extraordinarily honorable position of trust, each human being takes on a responsibility that must be carried through life, and if it is not discharged with honor and dignity befitting the gravity of the task, an accounting will be made. Jesus Christ was well aware of this and repeatedly tried to impress it on human beings; so many of his parables explain it. We forever act not on our own behalf; we act on God's behalf. Yet when we are asleep, asleep in ourselves — this means, when we act selfishly and for the gratification of our own ego — we violate this sacred trust.
The central action and purpose of Gurdjieff's "pondering of the sense and aim of one's existence" must be focused on examining this question in particular. And that pondering must be an organic one, not just an action of the intellect. That is to say, we must have an emotional, a
feeling, sensation of this trust and the way that it has been given to us. To the extent that we sense this actively, we are alive — and to the extent that we do not, we are, for all intents and purposes, dead. To be raised from the dead is to be lifted, in an inner sense, out of the passivity relative to our responsibility to God into an active relationship with it.
The action of Grace as exchanged between human beings is the action of the Lord, and represents our doing of His Will on his Behalf. For God so Loves the world — as Christ said — that He would have his Love known in every action between men and women, so that we become a living and dynamic representation of this Love within life.
Of course, one can see how this is working out. We live in a terrible place where most of this higher and utterly objective Truth has been forgotten; and we ourselves forget it frequently. We live in sin to the extent in which we do not honor one another with this active force of Love. Sin doesn't have anything to do with any other question. To act selflessly and with honor, dignity, and Love towards one's fellow man is an action aligned with the Will of God; any other action is sinful.
Of course, it is useless to turn to another and point out how they fail. I need to turn inward and confront my own failure; because only in the acknowledgement that I am helpless in regard to this matter will I open enough to receive the help, the abundant spiritual health, that can and will be sent if I submit to the higher.
May your soul be filled with light.