The Invisible Bodyguard

“A Teaching Un-borne is a Teaching Unborn….”

How do those deeper esoteric truths manage to hide in plain sight? Simple: they hide out in those vacant places within us where we do not as yet fully occupy ourselves.

That is the unanimous testimony of the esoteric teaching itself, spoken or alluded to in so many different ways. Strewn throughout the gospels both canonical and so-called “gnostic” are those constant reminders: to wake up, lighten up, be vigilant, be alert to the sudden onrush of the awakening moment. From the Gospel of Thomas: “Pay attention to the one in the presence before you, and all that is hidden will be revealed.” From the Gospel of John, in Jesus’s own words: “There are many more things that I could tell you, but you would not be able to bear them” —and a teaching un-borne remains a teaching unborn. The limiting factor lies not in the teaching itself, but in our capacity to receive it, integrate it—embody it—and ultimately, to act out of it with inner unanimity and force. The line of demarcation between exoteric and “esoteric” runs straight down the center of our being.

“As your being increases, your receptivity to higher meaning increases; as your being decreases, the old meanings return.” So states Maurice Nicoll, one of the first generation students of the Gurdjieff Work. Not only in the Work, however, but across a far broader spectrum of Wisdom teaching, it is widely acknowledged that we human beings in our usual state of consciousness come with two fundamental liabilities: (1) Our attention is scattered; we are all over the map, weathercocking between conflicting self-images and obligations. (2) We not only assent but actively collude in keeping ourselves in the dark about the inner fragmentation and cacophony that we proudly call our “waking consciousness.” To the extent to which we remain unaware of our inner dividedness, we provide esoteric teaching with its ready-made bodyguard: our own sham sense of “selfhood,” the conviction that there is a stable “I” at the helm in control of all of this. That phony I is the real gatekeeper. To the extent that it is in charge, nothing of real spiritual substance will penetrate.

The most profoundly transformative teachings of the gospel are not hidden. There are no gatekeepers. They are not reserved to some secret initiatic circle. They are right there in plain sight, unveiled and unequivocal:

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

He who would save his life will lose it, and he who will lose his life will save it.

The last shall be first and the first shall be last.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

But who among us is able to live them? They bounce off us as imperviously as raindrops off an oilskin parka until such time as something more fundamental—not an infusion of more advanced information, but a cavitation of the heart in sudden despair or remorse—briefly opens up that proverbial crack in which the light gets through.