Let us review briefly what we can now understand about Essence and Personality at this stage of our study of the Work. There is first the teaching that Man is of two distinct parts called Essence and Personality. This is, so to speak, the first great mystery about Man (the second being that he is asleep). The next thing is that a man is born as Essence only and has no Personality. In this condition he is harmless like all very young things. The third thing is that Essence only grows a little and becomes surrounded by Personality. The next thing is that Essence and Personality are not under the same number of laws. Essence manifesting itself in the new-born child is under 24 orders of laws and Personality
manifesting itself in the growing child is under 48 orders of laws. Man therefore has two lives possible to him, one belonging to Essence and the other to Personality. The fifth thing is that Personality becomes active and in consequence Essence becomes passive. The Personality and its life dominate the Essence which remains undeveloped. The sixth thing is that the object of the Work is to reverse this state in Man and cause Essence to become active and Personality passive. When this state is attained, the life of Essence dominates the life of Personality. The man is then from the Work point of view a developed or complete man as distinct from an undeveloped or incomplete man. The seventh
thing is that life and the world act as neutralizing or third force to keep Personality active and Essence passive. It is only when the Work becomes neutralizing force that a reversal can take place and Essence become active and Personality passive.
Personality is developed by Life and has to be. But Life does not develop Essence. Why not? This is what the attention must be focussed on. Why should not Life bring Essence to its full development ? How is it that a man in whom Life has developed a full Personality cannot proceed smoothly to a full development of Essence ? Surely, if Life can do the first it can do the second equally easily ? Not at all: Life cannot. Life can provide the food for the development of Personality but not the food necessary for the development of Essence. The secret is that Personality and Essence need different foods for their respective development. They need different kinds of truths. For example, the education of Personality is developed by a knowledge of the truths of science, but Essence is not. A knowledge, say, of the world-markets and the political situation develops Personality, but Essence is not developed by knowing truths of this kind.
Essence, before it is manifested in a human body, derived from the parents on earth, comes from a much higher level than the Planetary World under 24 orders of laws. It is said that it comes "from the stars". Our Sun is a Star in our galaxy of Stars called the Milky Way. Whether you say it comes from the level of the Sun or from outside our Solar System does not matter for the moment. The point is that it has a very high origin, in vertical scale. By comparison, Personality has a very low origin, whatever one's ancestry in the past in horizontal time.
Now Essence ceases to grow because it has not the right food from Life to grow by. But if a man, imbued with a knowledge of this Work (whose origin is the Conscious Circle of Humanity, which in the Gospels is called the Kingdom of Heaven) continually steeps his mind in its Truths and thinks and thinks again from them and perceives their depth and acknowledges them and applies them to his inner states, Essence will begin to grow. He is giving it the right food that the business of Life does not supply. His energies will cease to flow only downwards into his personal reactions but begin to flow upwards, like the mythical Jordan, to another level, where Essence lies.
For Essence and Personality are on different levels. We are also. One is under fewer laws than the other. This means it is on a higher level. Only the kind of Truth that the Work teaches develops Essence. If a man loves it, he eventually wills it, and if he wills it he does it. It is this willing to do this Truth of the Work that forms the New Will in a man—of which we have spoken recently. It is this willing to do the Truth of the Work that develops Essence. This is its right food, which it came down to receive. Essence is deathless. When the body of flesh and bones is laid aside it returns to the place from which it came, taking what it has received. This willing of the Work is not from the self-will, which comes from the self-love. The will of the Personality takes second place to this will. The will of the outer Personality obeys the Will of the inner Essence. It is content to say: "Not my will but Thine be done." Having made the Personality passive through the developed Essence becoming active, by the power that comes from doing the Truth of the Work, which is stronger than life, the man has now attained the secret end and hidden meaning of his creation. From being the semi-man that Life made him he is now a complete MAN.
Personality is developed by Life and has to be. But Life does not develop Essence. Why not? This is what the attention must be focussed on. Why should not Life bring Essence to its full development ? How is it that a man in whom Life has developed a full Personality cannot proceed smoothly to a full development of Essence ? Surely, if Life can do the first it can do the second equally easily ? Not at all: Life cannot. Life can provide the food for the development of Personality but not the food necessary for the development of Essence. The secret is that Personality and Essence need different foods for their respective development. They need different kinds of truths. For example, the education of Personality is developed by a knowledge of the truths of science, but Essence is not. A knowledge, say, of the world-markets and the political situation develops Personality, but Essence is not developed by knowing truths of this kind.
Essence, before it is manifested in a human body, derived from the parents on earth, comes from a much higher level than the Planetary World under 24 orders of laws. It is said that it comes "from the stars". Our Sun is a Star in our galaxy of Stars called the Milky Way. Whether you say it comes from the level of the Sun or from outside our Solar System does not matter for the moment. The point is that it has a very high origin, in vertical scale. By comparison, Personality has a very low origin, whatever one's ancestry in the past in horizontal time.
Now Essence ceases to grow because it has not the right food from Life to grow by. But if a man, imbued with a knowledge of this Work (whose origin is the Conscious Circle of Humanity, which in the Gospels is called the Kingdom of Heaven) continually steeps his mind in its Truths and thinks and thinks again from them and perceives their depth and acknowledges them and applies them to his inner states, Essence will begin to grow. He is giving it the right food that the business of Life does not supply. His energies will cease to flow only downwards into his personal reactions but begin to flow upwards, like the mythical Jordan, to another level, where Essence lies.
For Essence and Personality are on different levels. We are also. One is under fewer laws than the other. This means it is on a higher level. Only the kind of Truth that the Work teaches develops Essence. If a man loves it, he eventually wills it, and if he wills it he does it. It is this willing to do this Truth of the Work that forms the New Will in a man—of which we have spoken recently. It is this willing to do the Truth of the Work that develops Essence. This is its right food, which it came down to receive. Essence is deathless. When the body of flesh and bones is laid aside it returns to the place from which it came, taking what it has received. This willing of the Work is not from the self-will, which comes from the self-love. The will of the Personality takes second place to this will. The will of the outer Personality obeys the Will of the inner Essence. It is content to say: "Not my will but Thine be done." Having made the Personality passive through the developed Essence becoming active, by the power that comes from doing the Truth of the Work, which is stronger than life, the man has now attained the secret end and hidden meaning of his creation. From being the semi-man that Life made him he is now a complete MAN.
