There was a secret Work school that existed in Afghanistan for thousands of years called “Sarmoun Darq,” which means “The Beehive” or the “Collectors of Honey.” The purpose of this beehive was to collect human knowledge during the times when knowledge was dissipating and store it for future times when it could be used again. Most often undertaken in times of difficulty on earth, times of turmoil or war, this activity is so profound that most people cannot even conceive of what is involved and what significance it has. When we say the Sarmoun Darq stores human knowledge, we do not mean information. Information can be collected in books. There is no need to form a school or a secret society to store information. Unlike information, this knowledge is material in the way that honey is material. The knowledge is actually collected in the same way that bees collect nectar from flowers and change it into honey. This is why the school is called The Beehive; its function is to collect all kinds of nectars—aspects of essential knowledge. The members have the capacity to concentrate it and change all the aromatic, beautiful nectars into very thick, sweet honey which they can then store in special flasks. When the right time comes, the flasks are opened and the knowledge is given out according to what is needed. The nectars are the different aspects of knowledge about Essence, and the honey is the distilled pure knowledge of Essence. The image of the bees and the honey and the hive and the nectar is the closest description of the actual reality of the school. It is the closest description of the actual reality because knowledge of Essence is material that can be collected, concentrated, and distilled. This becomes obvious when we understand that Essence actually exists just as honey exists, just as nectars exist. The real knowledge about Essence is Essence itself. Essence is itself the knowledge.

We will describe the characteristics of the Merging Essence, which should make it clear why this aspect is connected with the symbiotic stage. ……….. Its most characteristic property, which distinguishes it from all other aspects of Essence, is its feeling of melting. It feels melted and melting. It feels melted like melted butter, but clear as some kind of very light and delicate honey. It has the effect of melting one’s sensations, one’s tensions, one’s mind. When it emerges in consciousness, one feels melted by a sweet and delicious kind of love. The heart melts and flows, and the mind becomes rested and contented. It has the characteristic color of clear gold. When seen with the inner senses of Essence it looks like a very delicate clear honey-like flow, which has a luminosity, as if the sun is shining through the delicate honey. This probably accounts for using the golden color in popular expressions describing intimate, romantic or gratifying situations.

AH: Yes. The knowledge of the mind is not the most real knowledge. The most real knowledge is the substance, the honey that the Sarmoun Darq collect. The content of the mind is information. Information can be about real knowledge, but it is not knowledge yet. Information contains memories, theories, descriptions, images, but real knowledge is taste. What you taste, you know. If you do not taste, you do not know. But that doesn’t mean that if you tasted it before, you know it now. Yet if you can remember that you knew, and remember exactly what you knew, if you can remember it totally, Essence will no longer be a memory; it will be there now. So memory can help us get back to real knowledge. Memory can reach toward it and come very close. Then we must leap, and the essential knowledge will be there.

To have the quality of openness is to let something that you are not directing come out and emerge by itself. You’re not saying, “No, what’s next is a pomegranate.” How can you know? If you’re a tree, you don’t know what’s going to come out of you. A human being can predict that a pomegranate will appear on a pomegranate tree, but the tree itself doesn’t know that. Let’s say that after a while you see that you just want love; that’s what you really want. But love as you know it is an emotional thing, an emotional kind of excitement or high. To let yourself change, maybe you have to experience love as a drop of honey inside your heart. You may say, “No, there’s no such thing as honey in the heart. Bees make honey. I use it on my toast, on my granola.” You don’t allow yourself something else: the possibility that at the next stage of development, your heart is full of honey. If you don’t allow that, you’ll never experience the deeper, finer quality of love. So, you need to be willing not only to allow your dreams and your self-image to change completely, you also need to allow your inner experience, your inner sensations, to change in kind and in quality. Otherwise you’ll stop your growth