Conscious evolution only takes place by conscious effort.
The Source Beyond Life’s Demands
“Conscious effort means effort that is not necessary in life and is not occasioned by life. That is, life is not the cause of it; the source of its origin does not lie in life. This means that some source other than the interests of life is necessary in order to make conscious effort, through which conscious effort becomes possible.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p91
“Conscious efforts are efforts to awaken from the sleep induced by life in humanity. The most important conscious effort is to remember oneself.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p92
Individual Evolution Through Conscious Work
“Conscious evolution only takes place by conscious effort. This is what the Work is about. A single individual can evolve. But mankind cannot evolve save in terms of the evolution of the planets. You can evolve now. But everyone cannot evolve. There is no collective evolution: but there is individual evolution. The emphasis is upon you, as an individual and a self-evolving organism.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p237
“We understand that the general idea in this Work is that Man is asleep, but that he can awaken if he makes the right efforts.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p1406
The Practice: Mindful Work and Presence
“Conscious work as it’s sometimes called, conscious mindful work. Gurdjieff called it conscious labor. That really serves a number of functions but the top two on the list are really to invite your body to participate, to observe the rhythm of ora et labora from the Benedictine tradition and to give you the opportunity to begin to learn the skill of conscious self-observation and presence.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Kanuga Nov 2015, 06:00 0.1b First Evening Welcome & Introduction Part 2 of 2.
“Conscious labor means the work to stay awake, to stay in three centers, to not let reactivity to the world throw you into autopilot, to hold the ground of something in you that’s seeing, that’s witnessing, to be able to live in a different mode of selfhood, that doesn’t have a dog in the fight all the time, and to be able to find refuge in that when you see yourself getting caught in your smaller reactive self, and to move back to that ground.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Encounter with Evil Feb 2023, 39:00 Final Teaching Day 5.
The Navigation System
“Conscious labor and intentional suffering are the joysticks we use to navigate the universe” Cynthia Bourgeault, Vocabulary of Wisdom.
The Alchemical Fruit
“The fruit of the spirit (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control) are alchemical byproducts of conscious labor and intentional suffering. What flows out as these qualities is the fruit of an alchemy that goes on deep within our being, using our being as the raw material, in which who we are and our pleasures and self-maximization is somehow changed through conscious labor and intentional suffering.” Cynthia Bourgeault.
Logion 3
Yeshua says...
If your spiritual guides say to you,
"Look, the Divine Realm is in the sky,"
well then the birds will get there ahead of you.
If they say, "It is in the sea,"
then the fish will precede you.
No, divine Reality exists
inside and all around you.
Only when you have come to know your true Self
will you be fully known—realizing at last that you are
a child of the Living One.
If, however, you never come to know who you truly are,
you are a poverty-stricken being,
and it is your "self" which lies impoverished.
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020) unless stated otherwise.
Quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Uncited quotations from Cynthia Bourgeault are from The Vocabulary of Wisdom.
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
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