A short musing on Truth and Good in the context of inner evolution.

I woke up with the remnants of a dreamlike sequence in my mind, which said: there is no fruit of the spirit called honesty or truth. Hmm, why not? Is honesty of this realm only? This was a bit of circling back over previous ground, but I followed the thread.

In chapter 4 of The New Man, which is titled The Idea of Good Being Above Truth, Maurice Nicoll explores the relationship between Truth and Good. On p61 in The New Man:

“What is called the Word of God in the Gospels is Truth about what is necessary for the reaching of a higher level of Good—that is, what is necessary for inner evolution, for all inner evolution is reaching higher good through knowledge. The problem of the relation of Truth and Good thus becomes clearer. A new level of good in Man cannot be reached directly. It can only be reached by instruction, and instruction must take the form of Truth about this higher level of Good. It must come first of all in the form of knowledge which a man must apply to his life.” The teaching comes first, and when a man through knowledge of the Truth has reached a higher level of Good by trying to live it sincerely, then “this Truth or knowledge, which came first, is replaced by the Good itself; and thereafter the Truth or knowledge that led him to this new state takes the second place, having fulfilled its object as a conductor to a higher level.”

Picking up the thread again in Maurice’s Psychological Commentaries, p146, Maurice notes that the knowledge contained in the Work (and the Gospel of Thomas) comes from a level of humanity far above our level of being. Therefore, a full understanding of this knowledge will not be possible until we raise our level of being (understanding is the midpoint between knowledge and being). In our modern world, we tend to equate the level of knowledge with progress and success, but descriptors such as good, bad, evil, self-righteous, etc, all refer to the side of being. And a final point from today’s reading, as I encounter the word Good: “If you have something good in your being, you will be able to understand something of the Work and not merely know it.” There’s another foothold for me—that relationship between Good and level of Being.

On page 163 of Commentaries, Maurice continues his teachings on knowledge, being, truth, and goodness. The problem is how to raise man’s level of being apart from his level of knowledge because goodness is of being, and knowledge is of mind. Our minds are taught the knowledge or truth about a higher level of being first, but the objective of our Wisdom teachings is to raise our level of being.

Note: all references to Psychological Commentaries or just Commentaries refer to the 5 volume set, Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky by Maurice Nicoll, published by Eureka Editions.

See another Impression on Truth and Good.