Subsidiary Exercise #5

Openness

Develop the feeling of confronting every new experience with complete open-mindedness.

Break entirely with the attitude which, in the face of something just heard or seen, exclaims:

  • I never heard that before;
  • I never saw that before;
  • I don’t believe it;
  • It’s an illusion.

At every moment: be ready to encounter and accept absolutely new experiences.

What you have hitherto recognized as being in accordance with natural law, or what you have regarded as possible, should present no obstacle to the acceptance of a new truth.

Although radically expressed, it is absolutely correct that if anyone were to come to you and say, `Since last night the steeple of such and such a church has been tilted right over’, you should leave a loophole open for the contingency of you becoming convinced that your previous knowledge of natural law could somehow be augmented by such an apparently unprecedented fact.

If you turn your attention towards developing this attitude of complete open-mindedness, you will notice creeping into your soul a feeling as if something were becoming alive, astir, in the space referred to in connection with the Positive Attitude Exercise. This feeling is exceedingly delicate and subtle.
Be attentive to this delicate vibration in the environment.
Let it stream, as it were, through all the five senses, especially

  • through the eyes
  • through the ears
  • through the skin
    (the skin contains the sense of warmth.)
  • At this stage of esoteric development, less attention is paid to the impressions made by these stimuli on the other senses of taste, smell and touch.
  • At this stage it is still not possible to distinguish the numerous bad influences which intermingle with the good influences in this sphere; you therefore leave this for a later stage.