Esoteric Wisdom

Esoteric means inner, not secret or hidden. Esoteric wisdom is the inner meaning of ordinary or exoteric, outer meaning. Esoteric wisdom may be within many subjects, but this writing is concerned with that specific ancient teaching dealing with psychological or spiritual awakening, evolution, or transformation. Throughout history, cultures have used levels of meaning to transmit knowledge. Examples are myths and parables, and other teaching stories that may have had a historical inspiration, but the real meaning is not historical. The literal level holds higher meaning only for those who are able to think beyond it to a higher psychological level. This is thinking in scale or relative thinking…for example, “bread” may mean more than the physical baked loaf.

Psychological thinking is the level above sensual or logical thinking. An example is how one views ones position on the earth relative to the sun. The senses may be convinced that the earth stands still while the sun rises and sets, and that the entire universe revolves around one’s own position. This is logical based on information from the senses. In order to understand that it is the earth on which one stands that moves, revolving in relation to the sun, one has to be able to project one’s conscious position away from sensual data and view the system from a higher perspective.

The movement away from literal, sensual thinking toward psychological thinking is what the Teacher of Christianity was trying to get people to see and do. And even in earlier times, those who understood transmitted inner knowledge by way of stories that had more meaning than the literal. An example of this in the Old Testament is the genealogy of persons to signify schools of knowledge. The school of Noah, for example, lasted hundreds of years and “begat offspring” or teachers. The literal understanding is that a man named Noah actually lived for hundreds of years.

Many early cultures developed the system of myth to transmit teaching and truth. The ancient Greek religion did this in a very effective way in the beginning but as the culture became more complicated, the bureaucracy was crystallized into an outer-directed religion with only superficial meaning.

Esoteric teaching always has as its aim to bring a person to a point of change of being. One must first wake up to the actual, see and receive help that is offered, undergo a change in knowing (metanoia), willingly choose to die to the old, and be reborn on a higher level of being. Rebirth is a complete change of being. One is not the same creature but an entirely transformed being. This new life was called by Jesus, Eternal Life, and the idea that the new being does not die cannot be understood by those who think from and exist in the conditioned state called the “state of sin”. Indeed, little of this higher level can be understood by those in the lower level of life because the two levels do not operate under the same laws. Jesus called the higher level the Kingdom of Heaven…the true birthright of a human being. He did not define this state in ordinary language but only “likened” it, compared it, to ordinary ideas by way of parable. This is obviously because it is impossible to use the language of one level to apply to a completely different level. The phrase “let those who have ears hear…” is a clear indication that in the usual state of consciousness people do not have the organs of reception necessary to understand the higher psychological meaning. Jesus most probably gave direct instruction on how to acquire these “ears” to his disciples, but it is not given directly in the gospels.

Not only are the gospels built around parables and events with meaning above the literal, they follow on the example of the same teaching device used by the writers of the Old Testament.

An example:

If one reads the account of Lot and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah literally, as a historical event, there are parts that are revolting to the mind and spirit. But if one reads this story as a teaching about Change-of-Being of an individual, -- change to a higher state, -- it comes alive with meaning. Lot represents every human being, living in a city (a culture) in the “plain” (a state where all things are equal -- there is no higher meaning than ordinary sensual life). The cities represent the collective in the person, -- identification with mass influences. The two angels are representatives of a higher potential of life in Lot (in every person). They first are “in the street,” (mixed in with collective influences), but Lot must take them into his house (inside himself). He tries to compromise as the mass forces, the men in the street, threaten to have intercourse with the angels (to lower them to the ordinary). Lot offers his “two daughters” (immature aspects of himself which have potential for new life) in place of the angels. This compromise cannot work…the lower cannot be substituted for the higher…so the angels make the men in the streets blind (take away the power of the collective to control) and insist that Lot leave this state. He is reluctant but leaves taking his “two daughters and his wife”. The “wife” represents a quality in Lot that is a wrong union with the old life…with the world. The “wife” looks back to the old and has to be made sterile and dead. Lot is told to leave the plain and go to the mountain (a higher level), but he does not have the will to do this, again seeking compromise. He asks to go to a small city, Zoar (meaning a small place. Lot says, “Is it not a small place?” meaning that although it is still a collective state, it is not as big as Sodom or Gomorrah), rather than to the higher destination. This is allowed, but Lot is fearful there (the old forces are still strong and threatening) after the destruction of the old (cities in the plain…the conditioned, social self). He lives in a “cave in the hills” (an isolated, protective shelter on a slightly higher level of life, in himself) with his two daughters who have intercourse with him unknowingly (become active creative forces) and conceive new life that is fruitful (can increase). So Lot is saved, but his compromise has kept him from reaching his highest possible level. This is the story of every human who is called by the Higher.

This story, and its meaning, is repeated in many ways: Noah and the flood; Moses and Egypt; David and Bathsheba; Jonah and the whale; Jacob and Esau, etc. All tell about the necessity of leaving one state of being in order to find another. The Gospels retell these parables through the life and teaching of Jesus, which teaches change without compromise.

Esoteric wisdom can be found in literature, in art and architecture, in ritual, and in most any human expression. It is not the outer expression but the inner meaning which is missed entirely without the “keys to the kingdom”.

This wisdom is not owned by any religion, culture, or group. It is not secret, only unseen because it is not wanted. While there are different approaches, for people of today, the most accessible method is the Fourth Way approach that is also called The Work.