We find many ways and methods within the Gnostic work to understand and practice the teachings. It is necessary to analyze the things that happen to us and around us since they have a vital importance for us and therefore, must be studied, analyzed and understood.

A lot has been said about observation but this will have no transcendence if we don't make a discernment of the places and the things around us.

If we observe ourselves we see the mechanicity in which we live and which places us in worse conditions every day in relation to our consciousness.

It should be noted that if we find ourselves in a certain place with certain people, it is not by chance. Everything has a ”why and a why-for”. That's why at the same instant of the happening of the event, we must identify it and ask ourselves who it is and what it has to do with us.

You, dear reader, will ask, "What is this? How is this done?" Have you ever found yourself with a person who looks very much like another? Perhaps you have related this with a simple coincidence saying: "This man really looks like "what's his name."

Wouldn't this be a motive to interrogate this happening? Have you ever seen yourself dead or taken prisoner by the army and have done a discernment: of this phenomenon in its totality? Don't you think you have lost the sense of amazement in ourselves as humans? Have you ever noticed how an animal manifests this phenomenon with great naturalness? The sense of amazement in animals is very developed and acts by instinct of preservation. The wild animal on seeing or hearing something strange acts on the instant and has the capacity of knowing if it deals with something normal or abnormal.

In the domestic animal the same occurs; when he sees his master, he bends to identify himself with him since he gives him his food or simply takes care of him. On the other hand if it is a stranger. The animal simply doesn't give him confidence expressing his rejection.

We see this very rarely act on the humanoid and when amazement does occur. It is related to fantasies or details in the physical world for example: a supersonic plane, an ultramodern arm or with the latest fashion, etc.

The esoteric student or investigator should have his sense of amazement directed to strange happenings towards everything that isn't normal in everyday life.

If we live in a city and go out into the country for a walk, we should, besides run, eat and feel free, also make an analysis of this fact. If we are at the beach swimming and having fun, we should also feel the remembrance of ourselves, without identifying ourselves with only the pleasure of swimming and playing. We must observe our attitude when we are in front of a public servant who asks us for documents to identify ourselves or a person who praises us or another who insults us, etc.

In synthesis we could say that the sense of amazement is the same discernment or sense of self-observation.

We need to awaken our consciousness; we must pay attention, especially to all the details that happen around us.

If, we, in the physical world had the sense of amazement developed in the three-dimensional part, the happenings around us that are not so common would not go unnoticed and they would be very useful for the awakening of our Consciousness.

Sometimes we see ourselves together with friends or maybe with us people we have never seen before and that appears so normal to us. We do not take advantage of that fact to make a discernment.

 When a person praises us or insults us, we react against it but we do not make a discernment of the event.

We look at a sunrise which is very beautiful but perhaps we do not stop to analyse that scene indicating that we are asleep.

On many occasions an animal speaks to us in the internal world and since we here on Earth don't have the sense of amazement developed, we see this phenomenon which is so unusual, in a normal way.

If we observe a child, we realize that whatever event which is not normal, calls his attention indicating to us that that child is more conscious than we are.

The sense of amazement permits us to live self-observation more intensely.

Remember, dear reader, that the language spoken in the internal world to us is generally expressed by symbols and numbers. It is very rare to find a Gnostic student attentive to details of life, to the simple and practical things.

One aspires to awaken Consciousness at once; we don't realize that this is presented to us in a simple way that if we are not attentive, we don't realize it's happening.

It is necessary to develop, as we have said in other chapters, the sense of inspiration which is what will permit us to interpret wisely all those symbols, presentiments and revelations we receive.

Besides, we need to develop the sense of amazement so that by means of that, we can evaluate all these simple things, so transcendental, that are presented to us in our every day life.

If we do not cultivate these faculties, we could say that it is very difficult to capture the teachings we are given by means of these simple very important phenomena that we are shown every day.

If we observe a child. we can realize that he has the sense of amazement in a latent form. If that child goes on a road, for example, and runs into a serpent a few centimeters long, he runs away afraid and goes to tell an adult; the adult informs him, in an indifferent way, who asks about the length of the serpent, and when the child shows it to him pointing, he says that he is a fool or a “scaredy-cat”.

The aforementioned example helps us to comprehend that the adult is only amazed in the face of big things. In the case of the serpent, if it had been various meters long, he would have been impressed; nevertheless, the child was astonished before a small thing and is amazed at any phenomenon.

We see for example: a little boy on a road who finds a coin and with such happiness and admiration he exclaims: "Look! A coin!" The adult, on the other hand, if, indeed, he picks it up, causes no admiration in him.

A child sees the sun coming up with a red colour and impressed by this asks his father: "Why the sun is that colour?" and the father with no amazement and giving the matter no importance simply responds: "Son, that's because it is going to be a summer day", etc.

These comparisons are simple and practical showing us that we have lost the sense of amazement which is what will permit us or calls our attention to the given moment of awaking consciousness.

V.M. Lakhsmi (excerpt from “Light in the Darkness”)