“There is the literal level of understanding sacred writings and there is also the psychological level of understanding them.” ... “The esoteric or inner—that is, the psychological—meaning is quite different. Esoteric teaching is always about [Humanity's] inner evolution. It is about Man's higher development and his relation to what is higher than he is.” ...
“... And here we must realize that all our own civilization and culture arose from behind the form of teaching called Christianity and we must also realize that any teaching of this kind—that is, esoteric teaching—has its period, and eventually loses its force and dies. Then comes a period of violence and evil—that is, a flood—as to-day. This again is followed by a new teaching.”
“The Ark is a story about how the interval between two periods of teaching is bridged. It means that certain people, in this case a certain school called Noah, having eventually three branches, gathered together everything that was valuable and preserved it until the time came when a new teaching could be given. They constructed, as it were, the form of the new teaching and preserved it, by living in it, so that everything was not lost in the flood of evil, and so that mankind did not perish spiritually, through mutual hatred and violence.”
~ Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Volume 5.
Thanks to David Pecotic at Facebook and Twitter/X for this.
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Image: Le déluge - musée de beaux arts de Nantes 20091017 / Léon Comerre (1850–1916) / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain.