smallTalk 2024

Talk#2 with Patrick

People may understandably doubt the concept of initiations, but they are real.
The world as we know it is an immense intelligent energy system, with levels, boundaries, and small quantum jumps across those boundaries. Those quantum jumps are Initiations. Each one is an entry gate to a new level.

I’m a reluctant teacher, I don’t especially enjoy sitting here in front of everybody. I do it because I must. I try to give you only what I am certain is true, then you must make what you can of it. I had 3 good teachers who I followed closely, as a result I have been growing inside for the past 50 years, which allows me to now help you more. When I first came to Europe late 1992 I had trained for 20 years, was approaching the 3rd initiation, working mainly on the Deep Emotions, but concentrated on teaching the Physical-Etheric internal aspect of taiji. In 1999 I passed the 3rd-Initiation, my inner work shifted mainly to the Deep Mental and my teaching began to include the Deep Emotional aspect of taiji. Now I approach the 4th-Initiation, after which my emphasis will shift again and my teaching will also.

All good teachers right back into the distant past have understood the Initiations. Here an old North African Sufi Sheikh Abil Abbas Ahmed Tijani (born Algiers 1735, died Fez Morocco 1815), speaks, “The 3 initiations.” He said, "Oh Seeker on the Path to Perfection, know that this Path has 3 stations (Initiations). These 3 stations represent the various degrees of our pursuit of the Path to the Divine. They correspond to the Sacred laws, the Path, and the Truth. On this Path, the 1st category of people includes those who remain satisfied with the 1st station (religion). They believe that that’s the only station which exists. They are called the adepts of the exoteric dimension (outer world). The 2nd category includes those who have reached the 2nd station (2nd-Initiation), and thus combine the practice of the Sacred Laws (of religion) with that of the Inner Path, and they are called ‘Sufis’.” The 3rd category includes those who have reached the 3rd station (3rd-Initiation) after completing the first two, and they are called ‘Gnostics’.”

This was a description of the first 3 initiations from hundreds of years ago. He said the main work of the Sufis was between the 2nd and 3rd initiations, which is really the main work of all esoteric groups. But of course you need to get to the 2nd-Initiation first – that’s a little problem to solve.

We believe everyone can make it to the 3rd initiation in this lifetime. Mouni Maharaj was very clear on that also. In that regard he said inner motive is absolutely the most important. That will determine whether the effort you make goes to your Inner Self or is lost in your outer self. So don’t think you’re not capable of it, don’t think that you’re not good enough, as long as you’re working to the best of your ability, even if it doesn’t seem quite as intensive as other people, but you’re very sincere inside yourself, then you’ll get help, and gradually you’ll be able to do more. Just like a student I knew, to whom one of the Old Teachers said, “Actually you’re quite hopeless as a person in the world, but you’re very sincere, you did what I asked, so help was sent to you and something has been changed in you as a consequence”.

When I was in London a long time ago I visited a Sufi Sheikh who was probably past the 3rd-Intiation. He gave this talk, “People don’t understand that a developed person when talking in a meeting, it’s not really him talking, it’s something talking through him. People look at the TV and see President Nixon in this box in the room and they hear a voice, they understand it’s a voice coming from a long way away through the box, they know its not the box talking to them. But when they see a teacher, they just presume it’s that box of the body that’s talking to them, while actually it is something higher using that box.

The more you develop yourself, the more your thoughts, feelings, and actions are influenced by the higher parts of yourself, but they’re still your thoughts, feelings and actions. When you put yourself in a deeper state, that influence becomes stronger, and when you let yourself fall into a more external state, that influence becomes weaker. It would be overly bold to say that you’re always speaking from a very high part.

When I first began, I know next to nothing, I couldn’t do much, I was more or less capable in normal life, but internally all I tried to do was once a day for a very short time, remember why we’re here. To not get lost completely in life, at least once a day. Then I began to practice taiji maybe 2–3 times per week. In the beginning I wasn’t able to do more than that.

I met Abdullah one year after starting taiji. He gave me some internal exercises which I struggled to do on a daily basis – often missing days, too many outer things going on, too lost in life. So don’t think you are not good enough or will never make it. You must make an effort of course, but much of that effort goes on struggling with the complexities of life.

It was only over many years that I slowly built a stable daily practice. Even then in the first 10 years during meditation my mind would often wander – it felt like that might never change. But slowly things did change, as a result of persistent effort. Well before my mind stopped wandering off in the meditation, I reached the 2nd-Initiation. It took me 6 or 7 years. What could be done in 4 years by some people, took me almost 7 – which is perhaps a little faster than average.

If you haven’t reached the 2nd-Initiation after 20 years, you probably will never reach it – if you keep working in the same way you are working in now. It means not enough intensity or not sincere enough. Your efforts can be assisted and guided, but the intensity and the sincerity must come from inside yourself.

The main thing to do is build a strong enough separation between the outer and the inner self that the Spirit sees that now it has a chance, that it's not going to be starved of energy by the outer self the moment it begins to germinate, then the 2nd-Initiation will soon after occur. From then on you receive a boost to your practice from the Spirit and there’s a shift in your work towards the Deep Emotions.



Deep Emotions – 3 sublevels
The Deep Emotional has 3 sublevels creating 3 minor stages from the 2nd to 3rd initiation. Between these 3 sublevels are mini-quantum jumps. At each of those points I experienced some internal event that interested me enough to talk to one of the Old Teachers about. They would recognise what was taking place and confirm it for me.

For work on the lower sublevel, the lower third of the Deep Emotions, first calm down the outer body-centred Physical-Etheric emotions enough, so that they are not interfering quite so much with the Deep Emotions. Then stop the Deep Emotions from overreacting to those remaining Physical-Etheric emotions that inevitably arise in normal outer life.

So having created a separation within the Physical-Etheric realm, between the inner self and the outer self, between the part of the mind that works through the outer senses from the one that works through the inner sensors, self sensing, then carry that into the Deep Emotional realm. Separate then what are the emotions of the outer part, and what are the true emotions, the Deep Emotions of your inner self. That also begins work on the middle or 2nd sublevel, because as long as the hormonal reactions, the attitudes, networks of neurons, all of the conditioning’s to react to certain things on the outside, as long as that is overcontrolling or interacting too much with this lower third of the Deep Emotions, you won’t be able to do more in the depths of your own Deep Emotional world.

Separate then within your emotions between what are the outer emotions and what are the emotions of the Inner Self, the Deep Emotions. In the same way that in the physical etheric you need to separate between the part of the brain that’s fully involved in interacting with the outer world, and we can say the part of the brain, the physical etheric, that functions in your own inner world. The one that runs your body, that runs your energy system and so on. Carry that into the deep emotions. When you can make a separation on that level, then you can then begin to work directly on the Deep Emotions.

How to work directly on the Deep Emotions? We do it through ‘daily dying’ – looking back over the difficult circumstances, when you’re in a deep state. We do it through the interactions with those who are close to us. When you interact with such people, like mothers, fathers, children, people who you’ve been associated with for a long time, or very occasionally someone comes into your life who was with you in a past life, then the connections with all those people will extend into the Deep Emotions. So it’s specifically by the work on the interactions with the people who are close to you that you’re able to refine the central core of the Deep Emotions.

The upper part of the Deep Emotions interacts with the Deep Mental which is part of the Spiritual Triad or Higher Self. That’s the realm of all those past the 3rd-Initiation - your Guide, your Spirit, your teacher (their Inner Self, not their outer self). Most of the more spiritual practices we do are work on the upper sublevels of the Deep Emotions.

Q: When you work with people close to you is it the same, you try to keep your calm?
P: When you interact with people close to you, there’s both an internal and external component to your interactions. Don’t overreact to the external part or you won’t even sense the internal interactions, so you won’t be able to work on that inner aspect.

Pure inner influences are for example, if somebody dies who’s very close to you, what you feel is usually nothing to do with the external emotions, but you feel something extremely strong and deep inside, this is the Deep Emotions working. When you hear of someone dying who you barely know, you don’t feel much because no deep connection exists with that person.

When interacting with people with whom you don’t have a close connection, it’s mostly external so certainly you don’t overreact to that. But when working with someone who’s close to you, it’s a mixture, then it depends how well you’re able to separate the external from the internal. Don’t overreact to the external, try to operate on the internal.

When we send out the light to the people with whom we’re close, that’s attempting to become more conscious of the inner emotional interaction, and when we add a simple thought or feeling to purify the connection we aim to reduce the lower-level parts of our side of the interaction.

Q: When talking earlier today about separating the inner from the external senses, were you talking mainly about the emotions or were you talking about pressure, heat and things like that?
P: The first separation is between that aspect of the brain consciousness which operates in the external world, from the moving-instinctive system which maintains the internal functioning of the Physical-Etheric body, exactly as we train initially in taiji. Then I was talking about extending that separation into the Deep Emotions, so they are reacting less to the external world.

Q: Greed, fear and selfishness – are they Chief Features or 3 aspects of Chief Feature?
P: Greed, fear and selfishness are the basic 3 general types of negativities that people have within their Deep Emotions. Greed is where you try to deal with the complexities of life by pushing your way through it in an energised and active way. Lust, dominance, arrogance, are all aspects of greed,. Fear is where you deal with those complexities by constantly adjusting your position to do as little as possible to create or face conflict. Ineffectualness, dependence, insincerity can all be aspects of fear. Selfishness is where you cut yourself off to avoid relationships with other people or difficult situations. Laziness, self-pity, vanity are sometimes aspects of selfishness.

Q: I wanted to ask about Guilt?
P: Guilt in its lowest form is connected with fear and insecurity of being found responsible for some mistake or misdeed. Its positive aspect is when you accept you have acted against your Conscience, your Divine spark, and seek to repair and repay the damage done. There are multiple aspects of every type of negativity or weakness, which circle around the major 3 – greed, fear, selfishness. Abdullah condensed them down to 12 initially, but later emphasised these 3, which I prefer to do as well because they are the essential active, passive and neutral responses. That division and the aspects are a practical way of gaining perspective on an otherwise mass of possibilities. The aspects converge and lead deeper towards the otherwise buried chief feature.

Q: What are the Deep Emotions? Can they be negative? I had been thinking Deep Emotions tend to be positive emotions?
P: Deep Emotions are not just positive. It’s the big mass and mess of things that you’ve carried from life to life. The degree to which they are purified and matured is the degree to which you are able to respond to the higher impulses coming down from the Higher Self and the Divine.

Q: Is the purification of the Deep Emotions what you called the “unfinished business”?
P: That is partially true, because even if you reach the 3rd sublevel between the 2nd and 3rd initiations, there’s a good chance that you don’t have to come back in a body, because as a 14–21-year-old, you may be capable of continuing to work on within the Deep Emotional level, but if you have unfinished business you will almost certainly be drawn back into a body to deal with that. Unfinished business relates to debts you have to other people due to your actions in this or previous lives.

Q: The term Gnostic as applied to people past the 3rd-Initiation implies direct inner knowledge?
P: Correct, “Gnostic”, a Greek term implying direct knowledge of the spiritual world. Religions are sometimes disturbed by the concept, which they might feel devalues their middleman status. To have passed the 3rd-Initiation gives a person direct access to the Deep Mental, Celestial or Heavenly realm. This is also the realm of the Guardian Angels or Inner Guides.

Q: How can we know if we have the right motive and how can we change it?
P: That’s a very general and complicated question. Inside every person is this aspect of the Spirit, which can be called your Conscience, because when you think, feel or act in some way that goes against it, you would feel an uneasiness on a very deep level. When your motive is more pure, there will be no uneasiness. Unfortunately, as Gurdjieff explained, people slowly bury their conscience by pushing that uneasy feeling aside and proceed anyway. Each time you do that, you cut yourself off a little more from you Conscience, the Active Force of the Spiritual Triad. If you feel it, then modify your behaviour, you increase the connection to your Conscience. As you tune into that more subtly, you will purify your motives, which will attune your Soul or Inner Self to your own Divine nature within the Deep Mental.

Q: At what stage and how do you know that inner growth has begun, to know what is interfering with inner growth requires that we are aware of it?
P: Use your understanding of the teaching given from above for your level. Double check your understanding with your teacher as the situation evolves.

Q: Is it true at the beginning of inner growth that it happens unnoticed?
P: That is usually correct. If the Inner Self grows, then the moments where you feel that deep separation from the outer self grow stronger, and they come more often into your daily life. That’s the main noticeable result of inner growth. That’s how you can know it for yourself. Then you can ask for a dream about it, and if you’re meant to know you’ll be told. But some are given that information and some are not. That’s decided on whether knowing will help you, or won’t help you. Then ask your teacher to double check any information received.

Q: Are the breaches of conscience mentioned earlier, the sum of our unfinished business?
P: Unfinished business would always have that component. Unfinished business is debts to other people, where you’ve done something exceptionally wrong and the only way to repay requires you back in a physical body.

Q: I would think that someone past the 2nd or even 3rd initiation that the choices they make in their outward life would be more refined, but that’s not always the case, and I wonder why?
P: Past the 2nd initiation their outer self is much larger and stronger than their Inner Self. So yes it has a definite influence on the person, they become more refined in many ways, but still a long way from perfect. Past the 3rd-Initiation the outer self and Inner Self are about equal in the Physical-Etheric world. When the Soul, the part of them under the direction of the Spirit, can almost completely dominate the other part, that’s close to or passed the 4th-Initiation.

Q: How can we know if we’ve got unfinished business from previous lives?
P: You don’t have to be concerned about unfinished business from previous lives. You bring most of what needs to be cleared into this life. It’s quite rare that something is left over from another life, it would have to be quite a major thing that took place. You would only find out about it after the 3rd-Initiation, when it would stop you from reaching the 4th.

Q: The Old Masters by definition having past the 4th-Initiation had individual strengths and weaknesses, but they must have had some sort of balance to have gone to that level?
P: Certainly. They were balanced, but had long, markedly different, past experiences in each of the 3 worlds of human existence, Physical-Etheric, Deep Emotional, Deep Mental.

Q: What would it be like to talk to a Jinn?
P: Similar to talking to a person. The Jinn are just beings, from an earlier period of evolution. They’re exactly the same as humans on the higher levels. There is a way for them to shift to our evolutionary path, then be reborn as a human. Many people are very scared of them. It’s understandable, as they may have had uncomfortable experiences attributable to the Jinn. Don’t fear them. Sufis say, “Respect the Jinn, but give them a wide berth.” Transform the fear into cautious respect. Most dangerous are humans who use the Jinn to gain personal wealth and power by creating world conflict to manipulate the relatively unconscious masses through fear.

Q: Does the Spirit itself evolve or is it an Absolute Reality inter-being with a relative reality?
P: Whenever we try to define qualities too far above our own inner level the concepts created may move further away rather than closer towards the truth. In the 3 worlds of human existence, Physical-Etheric, Deep Emotional, Deep Mental, the Divine aspect is found within the Deep Mental, otherwise known as the Celestial Realm, or Heaven. Undeveloped humans can’t touch higher than that except as a mental concept. Once past the 3rd-Initiation the Divine aspect is found within the 3 worlds of the Higher Self, or Spiritual Triad – the 3rd, 4th and 5th energy levels. That’s your practical limit. Then past the 4th-Initiation the Divine aspect is found within the 3 worlds of the Divine Self – the 5th, 6th and 7th energy levels. After that its not clear to anyone I know, except to note that a similar process repeats far into the beyond.

Q: I have an easier time finding gratitude from the chest than from the head and I wonder if it means a different thing from either centre?
P: You have a better chance finding gratitude from the chest than from the head because when you bring your mind to the head you’re not really entering the Deep Mental, actually it usually reactivates the superficial mind and that’s why the quality of what you do there may not be as good as what you do in the Deep Emotions. It’s not recommended that you bring energy to the head in the first 10 years when you’re by yourself, but when you’re in a highly energised situation like this you can do it, you should do it. Certainly don’t teach it to beginners.

Q: About meditation, you mentioned that the teacher may give out something that you may need to know inside, but not need to know outside?
P: During the meditation at the moment of sending light to another, sometimes teachers use that to give out some information that’s not meant to be known in the external world, but can be known in the internal world. Some information for the students that will go into their Inner Self, but their outer self won’t know it.

Q: Why is this relevant, are you one of these teachers?
P: So as not to do it without people knowing it, I am saying how and why it happens.