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in your chains, and to hit you in such a way that rather than being angry you feel grateful -- it is almost a miraculous alchemy. But as far as you are concerned, enlightenment happens suddenly. The master was preparing, step by step; but that was in his consciousness, it was not part of your consciousness. To you, the door suddenly opens.
The master never declares that you have reached the door. He waits for the right moment: when you will be absolutely silent, utterly empty, the season comes on its own. And as you are maturing and ripening, the door is getting ready to open for you. But it is always a surprise to you, not to the master who has been preparing for years in different ways, bringing you to the point where you can disappear and evaporate.
After sudden enlightenment, a certain cultivation is needed because the sudden can become a glimpse. Your sleepiness is so deep, your unconsciousness is so vast that a sudden glimpse, a lightning... and again dark clouds have taken over. That beautiful moment will be remembered by you; you will start even doubting it: "Did it happen or did I imagine it? Was it a reality or a dream?" But the sweetness of it will remain with you. The fragrance of it will remain with you.
Cultivation after enlightenment simply means to avoid any situation that can destroy your glimpse. You have to pour your whole energy into the glimpse to make it more and more authentic, more and more deeply rooted in you, so that it becomes an indubitable truth. No clouds can destroy it and no sleepiness, no inertia is able to take it away from you. Isan's statement has to be understood in this light.
ON ONE OCCASION, A MONK ASKED ISAN ABOUT THE NEED FOR CULTIVATION OF ONE'S SPIRITUAL LIFE AFTER ENLIGHTENMENT. ISAN RESPONDED THAT IT WAS NEEDED BECAUSE OF THE "INERTIA OF HABIT."
That includes everything -- THE INERTIA OF HABIT. George Gurdjieff, one of the most important men of this century, had a certain idea about the mind which no scientist has denied....
Every scientist knows that the mind is divided almost like a cross, in four parts. The right side is divided in two parts, the front and the back; and the
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