The parable of the wise and foolish virgins must be understood beyond its literal meaning – the lamp represents spiritual teaching while oil symbolizes the fruit of actual inner work. Knowledge alone creates lamps without oil; only through practical application of truth does the oil of being develop. This oil cannot be borrowed or transferred – it emerges as an alchemical product of how we live our spiritual understanding, not merely knowing it intellectually.
The Parable:
Then shall the Kingdom of Heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily, I say unto you, I know you not. Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.
(Matt, xxv, 1!13. )
The Parable’s Inner Meaning
“The parable [of the wise and foolish virgins] must be lifted entirely off its literal meaning. A lamp is to give light. But, psychologically, it means here something that can give light, not in a physical sense, but in the sense of light as used in the Gospels—the light that shines in the darkness of the mind, the light of new understanding coming from the Word. Christ came to give light to human beings who are described as living in darkness on this earth. They live in the light of the sun, but this is darkness in comparison with this other light comprehended only by the understanding.” Maurice Nicoll, The New Man, p104.
“Consider the parable of the ten virgins who had ten lamps and only five had oil in them. Do you imagine dais is to be taken literally and that actual virgins and actual lamps and oil, as sense-objects are meant? No. What is meant, is that a person having a properly formed knowledge of this Work, which is the inner meaning of Christ’s teaching, and never doing it will not be permitted to enter the Conscious Circle of Humanity and the door will be shut against him.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p1698
Knowledge vs. Application
“To act inwardly from the teaching of Christ, to begin to do it, to begin to work from the understanding of its meaning, to begin to use it and apply it to oneself practically—this is to be wise. This is to use the Word intelligently. This is to be practically clever. And this gives oil in the lamp, individually. But people can accept Truth of this higher order and yet continue to act only from the level of life. They do not internally obey the new Truth, the new knowledge they have learned, which comes from a higher level, but they continue to obey life and its good when it comes to the point. They have lamps but no oil.” Maurice Nicoll, The New Man, p106.
“Take the parable of the Ten Virgins. They all had lamps— that is, teaching—but half of them had also oil in their lamps. These latter were accepted and the others were turned out. If you have a real point in the Work and understand it and act from it, this is oil, in what you have been taught, which is a lamp. You have your own oil.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p1468
Love, Will, and the Oil of Being
“If we value the Work, if we feel love for it, we will will our knowledge of the Work, and from that do it. The sign of this stage being reached, or rather beginning to be reached, is that the feeling of I changes. This shifting of the feeling of I makes it possible for being to change. But the will must enter the knowledge of the Work, and if you have love towards the Work, it can only be will for good or good-will. Then you will have a lamp and oil in it. The strange thing is that a man may have knowledge of the Work and even see the truth of it and not will it. It may seem strange, but it is so. In this case the union or esoteric marriage between truth and good will not take place. You will have a lamp but no oil.” Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries, p1502
The Problem of Nervous Awakening
“If you’re Christian the message is, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up. From everywhere it says, don’t sleep. You get the images of the wise and foolish virgins. Don’t sleep, don’t sleep, wake up. But how do we wake up? How do you know when you’re awake? Are there any quantitative measures, or is it all just sort of introspection? How do you know when you’re alive? And so in the absence of any good standards or any real teaching about how to wake up, what we actually do is just fall asleep more nervously. I’ve got to be awake, I’ve got to be awake, I’ve got to be awake.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Introductory Wisdom School May 2025 CA, 17:51 02 Mon am Three-centered Knowing 5-26-25.
Oil as Non-Transferable Inner Work
“Exactly the same teaching that Jesus encapsulated so brilliantly in his parable of the wise and foolish virgins, you know, the ones who forgot their oil, and they asked their sisters, they’re of the other ones, well, can’t you just give us some oil, and the sisters say, well, no. And, a lot of preachers have a really hard time with that, because Christian charity would say, just give them the oil, and have done with it. But the oil, in this case, stands for something that can only be produced by the fruit of your own inner work, it is non-transferable, and because we’ve forgotten that, we let everything go external. You can’t make your eyes radiate kindness, not by trying to copy it from the outside, because the kindness will come as an alchemical product of the way you live with your life, the way you live in your own skin. It comes back again to the, to the whole thing of keep turning to the whole, don’t get hung up on copying behaviors from the outside.
“Not Jesus who lives in you, but Jesus who lives in you as you—that one is the one who has learned how to make the oil that lights the lamp, and there’s no shortcuts. That’s the beauty of it, because all shortcuts immediately reveal themselves as fake, and create a discordant impression. So you just have to keep turning toward the source, but if you learn to do that, eventually what happens is that something emerges in you that probably surprises you more than anybody else.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Relearning Trust Sep 2022, 49:00 RT 05 Morning Teaching 9:27.
Logion 67
Yeshua says…
If you come to know all,
and yet you yourself are lacking,
you have missed everything.
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)
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll’s The New Man refer to Martino Fine Books, Eastford CT, 2019
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
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