Making Small Aims

Making Small Aims

This essay was written by my friend and fellow student, Dharmesh Shaw, of the Ahmedabad Center. Dharmesh originally titled it “Aim,” but I updated the name because making small aims is a key concept in the Work.

Rodney Collin, a student of Peter Ouspensky, said, “The aim of the Work is to become free, and to help others to become free—free to serve a higher purpose. What makes for freedom? Faith, kindness, courage, knowledge, selflessness, and understanding. This is the work of Schools.”

Ouspensky’s last words were “Aim, Aim, more efforts, more efforts.” The aim to become free needs to be supported with small aims during the day. When an athlete wishes to compete for the Olympics, their aim is to win the gold medal, and they support this with many smaller aims. Similarly, when one’s aim is set to become free, to escape the mechanical aspect of the world, a person needs the support of the conscious aspect of the world.

A small and practical aim to become free is not touching one’s face for a day and keeping one’s feet flat on the floor. While working on this aim, one can observe how difficult it is to do it, however small it is. Mechanically, when the fingers touched one’s face or the feet were crossed, energy was created in the emotional centre because of one’s aim. This emotional energy is the point where one awakens for a moment from the mechanical aspect to the conscious aspect. Further, this energy can be used to advance into the conscious realm by being aware of the hands, fingers, face, feet, vision, sounds, and temperature. One is pushed deeper into faith, kindness, courage, and knowledge that Rodney Collin spoke about.

A process has started to merge into a higher dimension of consciousness. After a few seconds, we fall to the mechanical aspect. We do not realize how the awareness was lost. One moment one is awake, and after a few seconds one is asleep. A small shock of a mobile phone ringing, an unexpected sound, or a message flashing on the screen is enough to put one asleep and become lost in the mechanical aspect of the world. The whole process is repeated upon realizing that the face has been touched or the feet are not flat on the floor. The spark of energy is created once more.

Discovering the mechanical habits and keeping small aims of adding and rising towards consciousness from these habits paves the way to becoming free. Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, said, “There is no risk of forgetting my teaching when a man’s soul has once laid hold of it.” Once the journey of becoming free has begun, it ends with the one merging into the vastness of consciousness. A Zen Master said, “When you reach the top, keep climbing.” The ascent into the emptiness, the ascent in becoming free.

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James Tissot, Young Lady in a Boat (touching her face)