Exchanges Within, Lord Pentland
The real force comes from above and I am down here. This “above” is always different from what I expected, when I find it. It is never expected. Think of all the trouble people cause who want to make over the world according to their point of view. We are part of the world. We wish to be conscious that we are a part.
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Is it possible that this higher energy – if it’s experienced at all, is obviously a dangerous energy; in the sense that it’s higher it’s more powerful than I am; in the sense that it has a different quality nothing that I’ve accumulated in quantity can be set against it; it’s greater than I am – is it possible for me to relate directly to that energy, as it were on a one-to-one basis, without intermediary, without fear, in order that its wishes should be accomplished in me as well as up above? This is what we’re talking about as I understand it.
If you mean by something higher, something you don’t know, obviously you don’t know how to approach it. It has no real meaning to think of it as above me. The higher energy we need, that can pass into us, is all around me. What is higher? Look up. What is higher? The level of energy is higher.
So I make myself available as far as I can by being more sensitive and by making a more stable wish to come in touch with this higher energy. You see that’s where the work on emotions fits in. To observe emotions is interesting and very valuable in the sense of observation, for then more energy is taken from the emotion to observe. Do you follow? In observing the emotion there is more energy being used for observing that would otherwise go into the emotion. By accumulation of many observations, I could free myself from emotions.
You don’t feel emotional, true, but sensation enables me to observe, to control, the emotion. And when I’m not emotional, the sensation can connect me with emotion. I need to be free regarding the emotions, and that’s possible by observing myself only. Why do I need to be free in relation to emotions? There are two reasons and they don’t conflict with each other but they often get mixed up. The first is because my ordinary relationships with other human beings are important to me and the first collision always takes place in the emotional area. The more I can find emotion when I have none, and control them when I have emotions, the more my human relationships are possible.
But your question deals with another area, which includes human relationships, which is how to relate to the higher emotions, and it’s useful to separate that from the first kind. The work with emotions, as understood by the human potential movements and others, can improve my relationships. But it’s only through a relationship with the higher energies that we can really have a stable relationship with humans because that’s the only thing we have in common – higher energies enter me and higher energies enter you. We each have a number of centers but even my essential material of centers is different from yours and all the information depends on being brought up differently and so forth.
How to be able, to be open, to have room enough for this higher energy to enter? That’s what the work is chiefly concerned about. Yes, it’s necessary to be free of the fear because I can’t work without concepts though they can hold up the flow of energy, particularly emotions about concepts, like “I’m right about this concept.” The main this is the higher has to be unknown. I am lower. It is higher. I don’t know it. So there’s probably fear in approaching it.
You call it higher but that’s all you can say. It’s a level where some things take place analogously but I can’t know that except by an observation of myself with that energy. I have to be ready, to prepare myself, to be available to this energy because it’s too convenient when it comes to go away. I have to try to have contact intentionally even though I can’t know. I have to try to let it be received. That’s why we emphasize the somewhat ceremonial aspects of our meetings, even at the expense of it being rather stiff.
It really is useful to study this alone, sitting in the morning. And there again it helps to be rather careful and ceremonial about it. I choose carefully the place I put the cushion. I make sure there’s going to be enough time for how long I want to sit. I don’t sit in bed or in a mess. I get out of bed and tidy the bed. By why speak, you may ask, of such absurd details? It’s a good question.
