RULES TO BE OBEYED

 

General Observations on the Purpose of Rules

No school, not even the simplest and most elementary one, can do without rules. Rules are as necessary to the school or the group and its work as laws to society and its functions. If there are no rules, or if the rules that exist are not obeyed, there is no school work deserving to be so called, and then even the formal structure will soon dissolve. It is the same with civil society: the more law-abiding citizens are, the better will be the work of the entire communal life, evincing the less friction, the less losses of energy and time.

In rules, their spirit takes precedence of their letter, just as the the school members’ understanding of the rules and their wise application of the rules take precedence of mere blind obedience to them. Therefore, it is a natural feature of your work to ponder the rules repeatedly, meditating on them to gain an additional understanding of them in their abstract and concrete meaning.

First and last, rules are as many tools for us to be somewhat less mechanical, somewhat more present and conscious. The five elementary rules applying for all schools worthy of the name are:

 

Rule One. I am here to help, not to hinder, the teacher and my fellow students in our common work.

Rule Two. I am here to be taught, not to teach.

Rule Three. I am here to learn, to understand, not to indulge in belief.

Rule Four. I am under no other discipline than the one followed here.

Rule Five. I keep to myself what I have been taught here, until further notice.

 

Some Far from Exhaustive Comments on the Above

On Rule One: ”What a self-evident rule! Of course I will not break it!” everyone is apt to exclaim. However, what is intended here is not in the first place intentional violations, because we are very little intentional, but all the hindrances and disturbances in the work we cause in our state of sleep unintentionally, unconsciously, mechanically.

On Rule Two. According to Eastern teachers, it is particularly typical of Western pupils generally that they are not comfortable in their position of disciples but they seek and find faults in the teaching, want to improve on it, review it, complete, or comment on it. Such a behaviour does not merely reduce efficiency, taking time and power from the real work, but is also in the category of violation of the natural order of things, a demonstration of bad manners, a breach of etiquette.

On Rule Three. Belief is, like skeptic doubt, the recourse taken by the intellectually lazy man. Anyone who works honestly and diligently on the material does so in the best way without belief and with time acquires a soundness and thoroughness in his understanding that is far superior to any superficial, emotional belief.

On Rule Four. This rule has its main bearing on practical work with methods of activation. No teacher will assume responsibility, if pupils practise against instructions given, and this includes the simultaneous following of other systems of activation. This rule also has an application on theoretical study, but in this case it has a more restricted applicability, being more of the character of a recommendation than an explicit prohibition, and is moreover limited in time, warning against dividing one’s attention and squandering one’s energies as long as one is in the phase of the beginner.

On Rule Five. The teaching itself contains few secrets that need to be kept away from outsiders. Instead, this rule is about the necessity of being cautious when trying to spread esoteric teaching to unprepared people, who must misunderstand it, also because the beginner desiring to spread it cannot rightly understand it and rightly convey it. What is the result of a misunderstanding communicated in the wrong way? Making such mistakes he generally does more harm than good, and he can in fact create hindrances to a subsequent understanding in people. It is categorically prohibited to give outsiders any information whatsoever on what the teacher and the pupils say in connection with the latters’ reports about their own work.

 

 

Posted on the Internet April 18, 2008.