Becoming Small and Invisible

Becoming Small and Invisible

- From our friend, Dharmesh Shah

Rodney Collin said, “The chief thing in esoteric work is to know how to act invisibly— 'Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.' If one has really learnt how to act invisibly then it does not matter if one uses one's name or not, because it indicates that a certain illusion regarding personal fame is dead. And that is the key to all the rest.”

One of the dimensions of work on oneself is to become invisible, small, pure. False personality indulges in fame, glory, vanity, power, and lives for itself.

Vanity and power are areas which occupy space in our lives. They do not allow us to think beyond oneself. Energy is trapped in putting oneself first in all situations. ‘I must be served first’, ‘I should be greeted by everyone’, ‘I must be given way’, ‘I am the centre of everything’. However, the fact is that these are just illusions created by the lower self.

In the Indian epic, Mahabharata, the character of Duryodhan is a classic symbol of a person not thinking beyond himself. My teacher, in relation to the lower self, said, “His imaginary picture is he is the greatest.” Duryodhan’s character provides us the clue of what to steer away from. It was said of Mr. Ouspensky that, though nonreligious, he had one prayer - “Not to become famous during his lifetime.”

Isaac of Nineveh, a 7th century monk said, “Humility collects the soul into a single point by the power of silence. A truly humble man has no desire to be known or admired by others, but wishes to plunge from himself into himself, to become nothing, as if he had never been born. When he is completely hidden to himself in himself, he is completely with God.”

The intellectual part of the emotional center can recognize the higher, observe the antics of the lower self and restrict and stop the manifestations of vanity, power, dominance, and other features controlled by the lower self.

My teacher said, “Angels are in the permanent state of external consideration.” By keeping other people first and removing myself, acting invisibly, the hold of the lower self is weakened. Serving others is one way to become humble, small, and invisible. We need to become so small that we are ‘reduced to a dot’ as explained by Bernard of Clairvaux. Bringing presence and being awake in the moment before the expression of vanity or power ‘I’s. By not putting oneself first, the imaginary personality starts to fade away. Rainer Maria Rilke said, “He who kneels, who gives himself wholly to kneeling, loses indeed the measure of his surroundings, even looking up he would no longer be able to say what is great and what is small.”

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Image: Head of a Woman, by Leonardo Da Vinci