As we close out this symbolic Bible series, we are left with an important question: I see the message—but now what? How do I know whether I am actually on the right track? How do I begin to grow beyond the programming, conditioning, habits, and reactions that have shaped so much of who I think I am?
We recently looked at the Fruit of the Spirit—the qualities that should increasingly become visible in the life of a Spirit-filled person. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control sound wonderful. But how do we actually get there? We can believe in these qualities and sincerely desire them while still finding ourselves doing many of the same things we have done for years.
We might have an emotional outburst and regret it afterward, only to automatically do it again the next time the right button gets pushed. Maybe we criticize someone without really knowing the whole story behind why that person behaves as they do. Perhaps we unconsciously belittle someone we love, or we become so occupied with something else that we ignore a grandchild who simply wants us to notice them. Most of us can probably think of our own examples.
The difficulty is that we cannot consciously change something in ourselves that we do not yet see.
What If We Had a Mirror?
What if there were a kind of symbolic mirror we could look into that might help reveal some of these unconscious patterns? And what if, instead of condemning ourselves for what we see, we could learn to observe these tendencies and gradually bring them into greater balance?
I recently purchased a book called Centers of Gravity, along with several other books exploring similar ideas. They present different ways of looking at ourselves through four basic centers and the ways those centers tend to operate. As I have been reading, I have begun recognizing things about myself—and about the way I relate to other people—that I had experienced throughout my life but had never really had words for.
That is what I would like us to explore together in this next series.
This is not intended to become another system for putting people into boxes and saying, “You’re this kind of person, and I’m that kind.” Quite the opposite. The purpose is observation of self. The centers, types, and even the symbolism of playing cards are only mirrors. They may help us recognize which part of ourselves is responding at a particular moment and, eventually, whether that response is conscious or merely automatic.
Awakening From the Mechanical Life
This brings us to an uncomfortable possibility: much more of our daily life may be automatic than we realize.
Someone says something, and we become angry. Someone challenges one of our beliefs, and we immediately defend it. Someone hurts our feelings, and we withdraw. Something frightens us, and our body reacts before we have even considered what is happening. We call all of these responses “I,” but how much conscious choice was actually involved?
The first step is not suppressing these reactions. It is seeing them.
We have to awaken enough from the largely automatic state in which we often live to observe our actions and reactions while they are happening. That little space between an impression and our response is enormously important. If I can see the reaction before automatically becoming the reaction, something new becomes possible. I may actually have a choice.
And this raises an even deeper question that I think will eventually become central to everything we explore:
If I can observe my thoughts, emotions, and reactions, who is the “I” doing the observing?
A Practical System of Self-Observation
The teaching we will be partially drawing from is commonly associated today with George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, who introduced what became known as the Fourth Way to Western students in the early twentieth century. Many of the principles involved—self-observation, attention, awakening from mechanical behavior, and inner transformation—are much older and can be found in various spiritual traditions.
Later students and teachers, including P. D. Ouspensky and others who followed, developed different ways of explaining and applying these ideas. Some approaches eventually used centers, types, and even ordinary playing cards as symbolic tools for recognizing patterns within ourselves.
One important distinction in this teaching is between what Gurdjieff called essence and personality. Essence refers roughly to what is more deeply and innately ours, while personality contains much that we acquire from family, education, culture, expectations, and the experiences of life.
Personality is not something evil that needs to be destroyed. We need personality to function in the world. The problem is not that we have a personality, but that so much of it can operate without our awareness. We can become so completely identified with our habits, opinions, emotional reactions, fears, desires, ambitions, and self-image that we mistake all of them for the whole of who we are.
The purpose, then, is not to kill the ego. It is to become conscious enough to see our inner machinery operating without automatically being controlled by it. An emotion can arise without having to become our master. A thought can appear without automatically being true. An impulse can occur without automatically becoming an action.
Perhaps we could put it very simply:
Something can be happening within me without that something being the whole of me.
Who Am I?
Eventually, I think this brings us somewhere much deeper than personality analysis.
Perhaps the great question underneath this entire exploration is not simply, How can I improve my personality? It is:
Who am I, really?
The Fourth Way proposes that the “I” we ordinarily experience is far less unified and conscious than we imagine. Its practices therefore encourage us to awaken from this mechanical condition and develop a greater capacity for observation, attention, and conscious choice.
For me, this points toward something deeper still: becoming increasingly receptive to God.
That is where I see this connecting directly with everything we have been exploring throughout our journey through the Bible.
The symbolic Bible series has repeatedly pointed us inward. The Kingdom is within. The old person dies, and something new is born. We are called to awaken. We are transformed by the renewing of the mind. The Fruit of the Spirit gradually becomes visible in a transformed life. And ultimately, the journey leads us home to the Father.
Perhaps now we are ready to ask:
How can I actually observe that transformation happening within myself?
That is where our next journey begins.
We are not leaving the Bible series behind and suddenly studying Gurdjieff. We are asking the practical question that naturally follows everything we have already explored.
The Bible series has essentially been saying:
“Wake up.”
This next series asks:
“How do I discover whether I’m awake?”
If what you have been reading has helped you see yourself or these ideas a little more clearly, perhaps someone you know would benefit from it too. If so, please consider hitting the Share button. You never know—you may help someone else begin seeing themselves, their reactions, and their journey in a new way.