The Two Worlds

To observe and to observe oneself are two completely different things, however, both require attention.

In observation, attention is directed outwards, towards the external world, through the windows of the senses.

In self-observation, attention is directed inwards and, for this, the senses of external perception are useless, a reason more than sufficient for the novice to find it difficult to observe their intimate psychological processes.

The starting point of official science, on its practical side, is what is observable. The starting point of work on oneself is self-observation, what is self-observable.

Undoubtedly, these two starting points cited above lead us in completely different directions.

Could someone grow old engrossed in the compromising dogmas of official science, studying external phenomena, observing cells, atoms, molecules, suns, stars, comets, etc., without experiencing any radical change within themselves?

The kind of knowledge that transforms someone internally could never be achieved through external observation.

The true knowledge that can really originate a fundamental inner change in us is based on the direct self-observation of oneself.

It is urgent to tell our Gnostic students to observe themselves and in what sense they should self-observe and the reasons for doing so.

Observation is a means to modify the mechanical conditions of the world. Interior self-observation is a means to change intimately.

As a sequence or corollary of all this, we can and must affirm emphatically that there are two kinds of knowledge, the external and the internal, and that unless we have within ourselves the magnetic centre that can differentiate the qualities of knowledge, this mixture of the two planes or orders of ideas could lead us to confusion.

Sublime pseudo-esoteric doctrines with a marked scientific background belong to the realm of the observable, yet are accepted by many aspirants as internal knowledge.

We find ourselves, then, before two worlds, the exterior and the interior. The first of these is perceived by the senses of external perception; the second can only be perceptible through the sense of internal self-observation.

Thoughts, ideas, emotions, longings, hopes, disappointments, etc., are internal, invisible to the ordinary, common senses, and yet they are more real to us than the dining room table or the armchairs in the living room.

Certainly, we live more in our inner world than in the outer one; this is irrefutable, unassailable.

In our Inner Worlds, in our secret world, we love, desire, suspect, bless, curse, yearn, suffer, enjoy, are defrauded, rewarded, etc., etc., etc.

Undoubtedly, the two worlds, internal and external, are experimentally verifiable. The external world is what is observable. The inner world is what is self-observable in oneself and within oneself, here and now.

Whoever truly wants to know the “Inner Worlds” of the planet Earth or the Solar System or the Galaxy in which we live, must first know their intimate world, their particular inner life, their own “Inner Worlds”.

“Man, know yourself and you will know the Universe and the Gods.”

The more this “Inner World” called “Oneself” is explored, the more one will understand that one lives simultaneously in two worlds, in two realities, in two spheres, the exterior and the interior.

Just as it is indispensable to learn to walk in the “outer world” so as not to fall into a precipice, not to get lost in the streets of the city, to select one’s friends, not to associate with the perverse, not to eat poison, etc., so also through psychological work on oneself, we learn to walk in the “Inner World” which is explorable through self-observation.

In reality, the sense of self-observation is atrophied in the decadent human race of this dark age in which we live.

As we persevere in self-observation, the sense of intimate self-observation will gradually develop.