Inner  Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

 

Inner Work


For the weeks of May 18 & 25, 2020


Inner Service

(Serving Our World Soul: 2)

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We bask in the wonderful stories of people who selflessly serve society. Such people are rightfully honored, respected, and loved, though the great majority go unrecognized outside their own circle of giving. These are actions we can see and are noble ones at that.

Another way of serving society involves invisible actions, inner actions in the realm of spiritual energies and will. Are there any indicators that such inward actions have a real effect?

If one person panics in an emergency, it tends to cause more panic in those nearby. If another person stays calm, it helps others stay calm. These responses of panic and calm arise from the inner states of the people concerned. Thus, one step we can work on is not adding to the weight of destructive emotions in our immediate circles, which spreads out to whole societies. This means learning how to manage our own emotional life through increased awareness and presence, compassion and reintegration. By not adding our own destructive emotions to the global burden, we perform a valuable service for our fellow human beings.

If you have ever meditated with a group, you might agree that meditating with others has a palpable and positive effect on your own meditation. We can attribute this effect in part to the conscious energy which is liberated in meditation. Because that energy does not have boundaries, it spills over from person to person, mutually enhancing the group meditation. Another group effect comes through the will, through the shared intention to engage in the meditative act, which further enhances it. We can also recognize the power of shared intention from participating in team sports and other group endeavors.

Walking into an empty meditation hall where people have been coming to meditate for many years, one feels a palpable sense of presence. The conscious energy embedded in the room lifts one up, raising one's own consciousness. Similarly, upon entering some houses of worship, one experiences a vivid sense of the sacred, accumulated from the concerted action of worshippers over the years. In some cases, that feeling seems to be due to the awe-inspiring architecture of the space, but there is much more to this than the physical building itself. We need only close our eyes and feel.

For these and other reasons, such as the many anecdotal reports of the efficacy of prayer for the sick, we are likely on safe ground in adopting the view that our inner work can have real and profound effects beyond ourselves.

Nevertheless, we shall take a pragmatic approach. We first prove to ourselves the beneficial effects of our inner work in and for our personal experience. If having more of a certain inner energy helps us, then it is reasonable to say that having more of that energy will help our fellow humans, help our World Soul. If having a more integrated, effective, and compassionate will has beneficial effects in and for our personal experience, then it is reasonable to say that having a more integrated, effective, and compassionate Global Will can help our planet, help our World Soul.

Spiritual energies have profound positive effects on us. Our inner service thus concerns the transformation and distribution of energies. There is a hierarchy of levels and qualities of energies, for which we need to open our perceptions and develop our abilities through inner exercises concerned with the energies. Such practices also develop our will, our active will through maintaining our attention and our receptive will through opening to the higher energies. This sets the stage for us to help unify the Global Will of the Earth by joining our own will to that.

Inner service of this kind, of consciously and intentionally transforming energies for our planet, of consciously and intentionally harmonizing our will with the beneficent, kind, and responsible elements in the developing will of humanity, is effectively a form of worship. In this worship, we seek to give more than we receive, we seek to cooperate with and participate in the Global Will of the Earth and help it evolve. Inward spiritual action for the benefit of all can be powerful, depending on our training and preparation. Participating in weekly communal worship certainly helps. Yet we can give more, much more, by how we live day to day, moment to moment. Meditation, prayer, and intentional presence certainly help, by the energies those practices transform and release, and by the purification and unification of our will those practices promote.

Instead of raising consciousness by outward action, through inner service we seek to raise consciousness, and have other positive effects, by inner action. If there were enough consciousness on the surface of the Earth, many people would be walking around in a more conscious state. That would have profound, positive effects. So through inner service, we are working to raise consciousness from the inside. The benefits multiply if we can open to and work with the energies higher than consciousness.

In upcoming installments of this inner work series, we will explore several inner exercises specifically designed to have effects on a global scale. These offer examples of how we can engage in worship for the Earth. We hold our inner service, our period of meditation or prayer, to be a sacred moment and a sacred duty. Inner service is not only an obligation, it is a privilege. It is a privilege to be able to serve. And in so doing, we serve both ourselves and our fellow human beings. The energies generated for the planet help us personally as well. Intending our inner work as service for the planet helps purify and unify our individual will. A privilege indeed.

For this week, please notice how open your heart is to our fellow human beings.


     

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