Kerry then asked Mr Adie: “I have a continual question, my ability to work, or to start to work on any given occasion depends on my wish to work. And my wish to work seems to depend on laws which I have no control over, or laws of accident. Hence, my work seems to depend on something which I have no control over. In other words, whenever I feel that I worked, or that I have experienced something, it is entirely due to factors outside my control, which gives me the feeling that I have no control.”
“No, it’s the opposite way,” said Mr Adie, “just the opposite. When you have a feeling, a continual question about your ability to work, then you have made an effort. Work is the one thing which is within your control. This is part of the initial gift which everybody has, to become conscious. But of course, it doesn’t correspond to any ordinary effort in outer life, it’s a totally inner process. And I always measure, for a long time, my efforts as payments ordinary in cash terms with the external. It’s always a mystery, it’s always very simple, it’s almost like something given. The possibility is given, and there’s the sweetness of fulfillment. In fact, somewhere about here, there’s something about this joy of effort. I have to be very, very, careful of my logical explanations and also even avoid them at times because they can’t be relied upon.”
“Accident and other things can help, but they cannot bring me to the point of wishing to work, and of noticing when I do not. I have to try and interpret what goes on because in my life in ordinary terms, like those I have just used, because I think in ordinary terms. Maybe a thought in ordinary terms with a connection can bring me something. But then I can get trapped in those ordinary terms. I get trapped in very logical conclusions, and they’re dead. They haven’t got the presence, they haven’t got the feeling. I’m relying on my mind, see? There isn’t that balance, that critical, critical balance. That only can give me a sense of certainty and then, in a way, there is nothing to be done to not to interfere with is moment of being. Does that help, does it touch it?”
“Yes,” said Kerry, “the doubts were not of the same level as those moments of work.”
“Good. That’s a big trap for everybody, everybody has that.” Mr Adie then moved on to the next piece: “This one is Entitlement. To what am I entitled? I am entitled to something but what? Also related to that is humility and essence pride. I made a comment here.”
“I have always misunderstood and revolted at the word humility. Humility cannot be understood without its counterpart, pride. My false ego shrivels and is consigned to dust, I give thanks to God, and to God in myself. This is my pride. I begin to see what has been given, and in that I can be humble. Where is my egotism if I’m able to acknowledge the power of consciousness given to me? I’m free from the pride. If I think I’ve done it, it is pride. I have an obligation to develop: this is the Christian parable of the three talents. The three servants, the one that was given one talent, three talents and five. And he went off concerned, worked and produced and when the Lord came back, he produced the original five plus another five. The other had three and produced another three more, and the one that had one single talent and had not used it said, “Thou art a hard master, you harvest where you did not plant, and you gather where you did not scatter, so out of fear I went off and buried your talent in the ground.” And so he was consigned to the outer darkness.
{Mr Adie has so far been following the version of this parable in St Matthew, chapter 25. He then picks up a reference found much earlier, in Matthew 12, but also in Mark 3 and Luke 12 (although I am fairly sure that Mr Adie was speaking from a more general recollection).}
“This is an aspect of the sin against the Holy Ghost, he was given a possibility, he failed to hope in it, he did nothing, and so he failed. But what does it mean? And wherein lies my entitlement to a part in the great joy of creation? Creation, the never-ceasing creation: where’s my participation in the joy, in the great hymn of praise?”
“I have to face this question, so that the answer can echo within me. It forms a corresponding objective vibration of the pulsation of the creation of the macrocosm. “Entitlement.” In regard to this, what does it mean, “entitlement”? To what is it related, to what is it connected, my entitlement? On what foundation can I be entitled to take part in the joy of creation?”
“Why does the understanding of this elude me? Can I not even now understand that this entitlement is just my essence birthright: the initial gift of the seed of my self-creation, the initial gift of the creator. It is already there, I am created. I am then with this essence gift. I am placed in the outermost realms of the creation with the possibility, and therefore the obligation, to carry out the work in fulfilment of the pattern, and form, and reality, of the creation of all that is.”
“And as it is this God-force of the Creator, which is the foundation in me of my entitlement, the entitlement of ableness, and the following entitlement of the work carried out in fulfillment of my obligation. So I have the chance to partake in the everything-existing unity of the one world. So that is the work, and there are the workers. What is my part?”
“Humility means something utterly different, utterly different from this crawling Uriah Heep variety. It’s a great reassurance to be able to see that, to understand and to experience anything corresponding to humility. I also have to experience essence pride otherwise, the humility is not there. I have to mediate, I have to be present for the humility and the pride. There’s always three, it’s another triad.”
Uriah Heep, of course, is a character in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield.
