The Way of the Householder

The Way of the Householder

Parabola Winter 2017 – 2018

“The Vyadha [Butcher] replied, “To earn a livelihood and sustain the body, each one of us has a duty to perform, and this duty is sometimes determined by circumstances that are beyond our control. You must understand that there is no duty that is good and there is no duty that is bad. It is our attitude and how we approach that job that makes the difference.”

“To achieve illumination,” the butcher continued, “one does not have to become an ascetic or sannyasin. Neither does one have to study yoga and philosophy. Nor does one need to go on distant pilgrimages, shirking their responsibilities, and making their loved ones who are dependent upon them suffer unnecessarily.”

“Therefore, young man, discard this ego,” said the Vyadha, “and recognize that householders and commoners like me can also evolve spiritually by simply working with detachment and developing a prayerful attitude toward every job we need to perform. Know that as long as we fulfill our responsibilities to the best of our ability, without repulsion or attachment, as long as we perform our duties as a service to the Lord, in divine remembrance, all work becomes worship.” **

** The Way of the Householder Retold by Rama Devagupta, Parabola, Winter 2017 – 2018. Parabola

If you can, you must!

Do What You Can: the way of the Householder: wherein, we have taken all that we can glean from the books and applied such intelligence and understanding as is available to us as a starting place for the great adventure in the hopes of attracting the attention and help of higher beings or in this world the mentors that are appropriate to our station, appropriate to our level of being in scale and degree. Ever seeking the common thread, the higher source but avoiding synthesis, quick analogies, and cross school equivalences. The admonition spurring this effort is mentioned by some of the teachers of the Forth Way ideas: “Maurice Nicoll: I will now speak of one or two things that the Work says which indirectly bear on the subject of Prayer. The Work says that in the Lord’s Prayer, as in the parables and sayings in the Gospels, there is meaning within meaning. This is why it is said in the Work that the Gospels are a test for a man’s level of understanding, and also that as a man changes, so do the Gospels for him.” …. “Now I will refer to one of the sayings of Christ quoted in the past paper on Prayer, where it is said that a man must pray for a thing and have faith that he has it, and he will get it. “All things whatsoever ye pray for and ask for, have faith that ye have received them, and ye shall have them.” {Mark XI xxiv). Now it is said in the Work that a man must not wait until he has the force to do something but must act, if it is his aim, as if he had it already, and then he will attract it. To wait until you have the strength and understanding to do something-—I am speaking of the Work—makes it impossible to do it. But you must each think of this for yourselves.” **

And Jacob Needleman by way of Father Sylvan: “…needs only one or two adjustments.” He writes: Let everything go on exactly as it now goes on. May no one in the name of God begin to reform anything. Let even one or two people begin by recognizing in their hearts that Truth is the sustained consciousness of Error. In this way, the Holy Ghost appears within the individual. May even one or two people understand what takes place within a man in the state of Questioning himself. Let them seek help on that basis. For there exists a method and a way to deepen and perpetuate the state of Questioning. There is knowledge and force to support this aim. This knowledge and force is Christianity of another level. Seek for what is possible within yourselves and what is not possible will be added to you.”***

After an examination of the methods of St. Simeon**** attention and prayer: Needleman as reader states: “Bewilderment! And extreme disappointment! Expecting to find a practical bridge, a step toward the intermediate in myself, I find only a list of actions and intentions that are impossible either because the external conditions of monastic structure no longer exist or, more basically, because these very rules cannot apply to a fragmented, contradictory being such as myself in the inner and outer conditions of contemporary life. I would, for example, gladly follow my conscience if only I could make contact with it; but the whole problem is that I do not hear my conscience! And so, yet again I ask: What, why, how to understand? What is the principle behind all this? Can it be rediscovered here and now in our present world?” *** Does not this capture exactly the encounter with the instructions not just for Prayer of the Heart, but for spiritual disciplines at large?

The sources are listed throughout the posts but a reference list is provided in the Source References page. The center of gravity of these materials, posts, and discussions is unquestionably Christian. The Fourth Way materials provide a taxonomy, a topology (if you will) into which Religion(s), Science(s), Art(s), Systems, disciplines, philosophies find their place or corroborate a particular limb. A contemporary master of this notion is Jacob Needleman*.

A story from the Talmud tells of the son of a king who abandoned his inheritance and went far away. His father sent a messenger, asking him to come back. He answered, “I cannot.” So the father sent another messenger, saying, “Come back as far as you can, and I will come to meet you there.” —The Inner Journey, Views from the Christian Tradition, Morning Light Press, 2006, The battle for Person in the Heart, Parabola Volume 7.4 Holy War. Inner Journey, Christian

My qualifications? I am in that group for which this blog is written: an elder in statistical age group, a Householder, an everyday Citizen, one who in study and practice of spiritual systems has faltered at or about the sophomore level, or in our earthly race, the second lap. Hear Needleman touching the point in Lost Christianity*, “There is something, some approach, some struggle within myself, some activity within myself, that is very “high”, very necessary and possible for me. …there is something [underneath this struggle, this activity] that is so urgently important; and at the same time, the words themselves, if taken literally, would spell death for a modern person seeking the necessary inner struggle ‘without which a man can never pass from the hallucinations of Christendom to the perceptions of Christ.”

I have a note here from a contributor that says I need to provide better qualifications: My qualifications are perfectly characterized by a Peanuts/Charlie Brown Cartoon in which Lucy (L) is speaking with Charlie Brown(CB) about Kite flying: CB: “In Kite-flying, the ratio of weight to sail area is very important” ; CB: That ration is known as ‘Sail Loading’ and it is measured in ounces per square foot. For example, a three foot flat kite with a sail area of four and a half square feet should weigh 2 or 3 ounces”;L: “you know a lot about kites don’t you Charlie Brown?” CB: ‘yes, I think I can say that I do.” L: ” Well, then why is your Kite down the Sewer?”

For Encouragement See these Posts:

Do What You Can

The Desert Will Repay You

**Nicoll, Maurice. Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky 1 (Kindle Locations 4186-4189). TRANSCRIPT solutions. Kindle Edition.

*** Needleman, Jacob. Lost Christianity (Kindle Locations 3045-3047). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

**** Writings from the Philokalia: On Prayer of the Heart

The Way of the Householder

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