Jump for the Rope

Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
– Matthew 7:7

The aphorism, “jump for the rope” is an important Work prescription for those who humbly recognize the need for help from higher influences. The aphorism is based on two foundational principles:

“As we are, we cannot do.” With our current level of understanding, level of being and progress in the purification of our emotional center, we cannot in and of ourselves effect a new outcome.

“The Universe is response to request.” Recognizing the above, we can “ask, seek and knock” by a prayer from mind, body and heart, known in the Work as Wish – and by “jumping” – make payment with efforts of attention and will to reach for Work ideas to apply. When we make these kinds of efforts, we will be “rewarded.” Our prayers will be answered, though not necessarily in the ways we expect in our limited vision and understanding.

“You know that it is said that mechanical man is on the edge of a precipice, esoterically speaking, and that there is very little hope for him unless he looks up. If he looks up he will see a rope above his head. To catch this rope he must jump. It is just this jumping to catch this rope that the word payment or paying the price refers to. Some people think that it is a sudden thing that happens only once or does not happen. This is quite wrong. It is happening all the time, every day, when swamped with your mechanical reactions to life, you have to jump, to lift yourself to get above your machine. … Now this jumping up, this lifting up in yourself, this catching of the rope, is Self-remembering.”
– Maurice Nicoll, Commentaries, “Further Ideas About Self-remembering,” Oct. 29, 1949, Vol. 4, p. 1336