Awareness and Sorrow |
"For if you will take the trouble to test it, you will find that when all of the things and activities have been forgotten (even your own) there still remains between you and God thestark awareness of your own existence. And this awareness, too, must go, before you experience contemplation in its perfection.
"You will ask me next how to destroy this stark awareness of your own existence. For you are thinking that if it were destroyed all other difficulties would vanish too. And you would be right. All the same my answer must be that without God's very special and freely given grace, and your own complete and willing readiness to receive it, this stark awareness of yourself cannot possibly be destroyed. And this readiness is nothing else than a strong, deep sorrow of spirit.
"But in the sorrow you need to exercise discretion: you must be aware of imposing undue strain on your body or soul at this time. Rather, sit quite still, mute as if asleep, absorbed and sunk in sorrow. This is true sorrow, perfect sorrow, and all will go well if you can achieve sorrow to this degree. Everyone has something to sorrow over, but none more than he who knows and feels that he is. All other sorrow in comparison with this is a travesty of the real thing. For he experiences true sorrow, who knows and feels not only what he is, but that he is. Let him who has never felt this sorrow be sorry indeed, for he does not yet know what perfect sorrow is. Such sorrow, when we have it, cleanses the soul not only of sin, but also of the suffering its sin has deserved. And it makes the soul ready to receive that joy which is such that it takes from a man all awareness of his own existence. When this sorrow is genuine it is full of holy longing. Without such longing no one on earth could cope with it, or endure it. For were the soul not strengthened by its good endeavors, it would be unable to stand the pain that the awareness of its own existence brings."
Excerpt taken from The Cloud of Unknowing, author unknown, Penguin Classics, 1961,pp. 111-112.
Commentary
This medieval Christian text contains a very great deal of essential information about inner work, and was held in high regard by Michel de Salzmann. Students of the Gurdjieff teaching would do well to study this text carefully and absorb the thrust of its teaching, since it is very close to the heart of what a man must achieve if he wishes to complete any inner path.
In particular, this passage outlines one of the most important practices a human being can engage in, that is, to help take on a portion of the burden of the sorrow of His Endlessness.
The sensation of the sorrow of which the author speaks becomes the sweetest taste in a spiritual life, because within it lies the certain knowledge both of God, and the possibility of serving Him. It becomes perhaps the most powerful transformational element in inner work.
Take note that the author specifically says that this is a possibility made available only by "God's very special and freely given grace." It is very important to distinguish between this sacred sorrow and the ordinary sorrow, no matter how deep, to which we are accustomed in life. All ordinary sorrow, even the utmost anguish, is nothing more than preparation for sacred sorrow. Ordinary sorrow, in fact, can become a destructive force without effective remediation, because it does not touch the transformational forces necessary to feed the soul.