Theo. – I’ll need some clarifications from you. We are now exploring the benefits of constant remembrance. How do you associate it with forgetfulness?
The Elder – They are in fact two fellow travellers. Our quest is for the Ultimate, for God within our hearts. To be achieved, it must be a body and soul quest, one that takes our entire being. For example, what happens when you develop a passion for a subject or an activity?
Theo. – I can be so absorbed into it that I forget all about time. I can even skip meals. I am so totally focused that in my mind my immediate surroundings have disappeared. External noises, conversations are remote. I am engrossed in my subject. That state is the one you describe in the optimum experience you were talking about recently.
The Elder – Exactly! You are so concentrated on your subject that you no longer think of yourself even though you are fully present.
Theo. – In such moments indeed I can feel that all my resources are available and my ego’s pre-eminent position seems to have disappeared, because I can’t perceive it any more.
The Elder – Yet that is the moment when the ego is being fully used.
Theo. – Particularly when there is that intensity of the Self, undisturbed by the self.
The Elder – All the energy is focused on the objective of your research or of your work, which sends you its own energy in return.
Theo. – Then I can feel that I am complete and that I am one only one with this instant. It happens naturally, without my having to use my will.
The Eder – As soon as you have a desire, the self intervenes and, in order to exist, it claims an important part of your energy, then it produces a whole series of thoughts that will make it be placed in the context and endure. “I” over the object, the ego over me.
Theo. – That is when many thoughts are created and go in every direction. They create new channels that will weaken the mainstream of my research. So I understand the resulting energy loss, involving a lack of efficiency.
The Elder – In that way, you just quit the optimum experience and its efficiency. You need a lot of energy to continue your activity and maintain your attention, which is solicited by the outside events and is therefore diverted from your object.
Theo. – In such moments indeed I have as much energy as possible. Nothing will bother me, nothing can stop me, however arduous the purpose may be. Actually, the subject matter seems to reveal itself to me, to talk to me, as it were, as it provides me with the essential keys required for my research. Those are such blessed moments!
The Elder – Imagine that the subject of your research is the Ultimate, God. So it is limitless, you see?
Theo. – I must get closer to that state when reading a sacred book; I can get completely lost into it, and I then can’t see the time pass.
The Elder – And if the subject itself is sacred and placed at the centre of your being, in your heart, you can imagine what happens….
Theo did not answer. He closed his eyes and he relished these moments he particularly appreciates. Around them, a light tranquil silence settled in. Being thus wrapped in the breath, they were taken away, very far from the little room, and they sailed the wings of Grace towards the inner worlds and the holy lands…
Theophile the Elder
Excerpts from Dialogues with Theophile the Elder
Theophile the Younger’s initiation