Outside Help

Outside Help

From our friend, Charles R.

We know that there’s a state of being beyond our usual unconscious experience. A state in which we experience ourselves and the world around us, on all scales, objectively, free from imagination and identification, and without the encumbrance of the lower centers. But how to get there? What is needed to live in and from higher centers?

If we wish to study a particular subject or pursue a vocation or profession, since we may only possess some innate talent or strong interest, naturally we look for help outside our usual and somewhat limited environment. We seek for and acquire teachers, professors, advisors, mentors, etc. Why would the awakening of a conscious principle be any different? These posts, for individuals who seek and yearn for a mystical experience and a practical approach to obtain it, are the beginnings of outside help. Even so, it takes more than a desire to Be. There must be an accompanying valuation for the state and the support a school provides. And even then, rather than a result of efforts, higher states are bestowed.

Herakles, a favorite of the gods, worked sincerely to complete his labors. One of his most difficult was asking Atlas to bring him the apples of the Hesperides. Atlas agreed on the condition that Herakles carried the world upon his shoulders, while he, Atlas, fetched the apples for Herakles. Herakles agrees, and it becomes clear that the effort he’s agreed to is, of course, Herculean! Because of Herakles’ respect and devotion to the gods, Athena supports Herakles’ efforts. The image carved into the metope shows Herakles bowed in the effort he’s undertaken. What he does not see, nor yet understand, is the outside help he’s attracted. Athena is carrying most of the weight, and doing so effortlessly with one hand in an almost casual gesture belying her strength. Clearly Herakles could not perform his task without divine assistance.

And so it is with us. We struggle with the lower self, work on our three lines as sincerely as we are able, sometimes to the detriment of instinctive well-being, or emotional support. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the 17th century German statesman-poet obviously understood the inevitable struggles, pitfalls and joys. “Continue because you must.” he counsels. Peter Ouspensky, who codified the system so completely, tells us that there are no guarantees - although he did qualify this by saying that the only guarantee is, if we work sincerely we would see ourselves.

Receiving the gift of crystalizing higher centers into a permanent state of consciousness, is as mystical and magical as it is mystifying for the lower centers. Meher Baba, a twentieth century Indian mystic, beautifully and poetically described outside help:

By sharing joys and sorrows we march on from one spiritual triumph to another, from deep love to ever deeper love, until we experience a self-giving and expansive love. In fact, a person may traverse so much of the spiritual path that it needs only a touch by the Master to raise him or her into the sanctuary of Eternal Life.

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Herakles Holds Up The World, Metope from the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, Greece