A Conscious Effort
Why do I begin to work? In order to know what moves me to make an effort, I need a more conscious attention. This attention cannot be mechanical, because it must be constantly adjusted in order to last. There has to be someone vigilant who watches, and that watchman will be a different state of consciousness.
When I withdraw from life to open to what I am, a moment sometimes comes when I feel myself belonging to a new order, a cosmic order. I receive this impression, I become conscious of it. This impression could now become part of my Presence. It is here to help me, and it can help me if I connect it to other similar impressions. By associating it with these other impressions, I can make it appear consciously. I must watch with a voluntary attention to keep the conscious impression of myself as long as possible.
We can have accidental moments of remembering due to conscious and unconscious impressions. These impressions recur in us, we know not how. But they escape and are lost because they are not connected, not associated voluntarily. We have no voluntary attitude when we experience them, and consequently they are bound to lead to blind reaction. I need to find an attitude that is more conscious with respect to them. When I see that I am not the same from one moment to the next, I feel the need to have a point of reference. I have to measure these differences in my state in relation to something that is always the same. All my work will then revolve around this point. For me this reference is my actual understanding of what it is to be a conscious being.
There must be a sacrifice to sustain the feeling of Presence I have at the moment of an effort. I have to accept voluntarily to give up my ordinary will, to make it serve. Everything depends on my active participation. In general, I put too much emphasis on not being taken, on not losing my state. I forget at what point I need help. I trust something that will never sustain me, and I do not pray for something higher, something in myself that is finer. So, nothing sustains me and I am deprived of what I need. It cannot be otherwise.
Feeling passes through phases that are linked to attention. In becoming active, the attention acquires a finer quality and becomes capable of grasping what is taking place on other levels, where vibrations have a different wavelength. When I have a feeling of my Presence, I am connected with higher forces. At the same time, I am connected with lower forces. I am in between. I cannot have a sense of myself without the participation of the lower forces that work in me. A conscious attention means something that is between two worlds.
What is difficult to understand is that without conscious effort, nothing is possible. Conscious effort is related to higher nature. My lower nature alone cannot lead me to consciousness. It is blind. But when I wake up and I feel that I belong to a higher world, this is only part of conscious effort. I become truly conscious only when I open to all my possibilities, higher and lower.
(Jeanne de Salzmann; The Reality of Being; p 26)
Why do I begin to work? In order to know what moves me to make an effort, I need a more conscious attention. This attention cannot be mechanical, because it must be constantly adjusted in order to last. There has to be someone vigilant who watches, and that watchman will be a different state of consciousness.
When I withdraw from life to open to what I am, a moment sometimes comes when I feel myself belonging to a new order, a cosmic order. I receive this impression, I become conscious of it. This impression could now become part of my Presence. It is here to help me, and it can help me if I connect it to other similar impressions. By associating it with these other impressions, I can make it appear consciously. I must watch with a voluntary attention to keep the conscious impression of myself as long as possible.
We can have accidental moments of remembering due to conscious and unconscious impressions. These impressions recur in us, we know not how. But they escape and are lost because they are not connected, not associated voluntarily. We have no voluntary attitude when we experience them, and consequently they are bound to lead to blind reaction. I need to find an attitude that is more conscious with respect to them. When I see that I am not the same from one moment to the next, I feel the need to have a point of reference. I have to measure these differences in my state in relation to something that is always the same. All my work will then revolve around this point. For me this reference is my actual understanding of what it is to be a conscious being.
There must be a sacrifice to sustain the feeling of Presence I have at the moment of an effort. I have to accept voluntarily to give up my ordinary will, to make it serve. Everything depends on my active participation. In general, I put too much emphasis on not being taken, on not losing my state. I forget at what point I need help. I trust something that will never sustain me, and I do not pray for something higher, something in myself that is finer. So, nothing sustains me and I am deprived of what I need. It cannot be otherwise.
Feeling passes through phases that are linked to attention. In becoming active, the attention acquires a finer quality and becomes capable of grasping what is taking place on other levels, where vibrations have a different wavelength. When I have a feeling of my Presence, I am connected with higher forces. At the same time, I am connected with lower forces. I am in between. I cannot have a sense of myself without the participation of the lower forces that work in me. A conscious attention means something that is between two worlds.
What is difficult to understand is that without conscious effort, nothing is possible. Conscious effort is related to higher nature. My lower nature alone cannot lead me to consciousness. It is blind. But when I wake up and I feel that I belong to a higher world, this is only part of conscious effort. I become truly conscious only when I open to all my possibilities, higher and lower.
(Jeanne de Salzmann; The Reality of Being; p 26)