INTRODUCTION
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III / IV / V
I
had a dream, one of those dreams that are by all their inherent
qualities and texture obviously very rare and not of the
unconscious activity type, but rather a moment of some definite
supraconscious state. It made me experience and hear the
following: there are two levels of perception, a real, 'woken
up' state (metaphysically speaking), and our ordinary woken
up state, the latter being made of secondary interpretations
and that is like an irresistible magnet leading us to 'sleep'
(metaphysically speaking; the ordinary woken up state is
this 'sleep'). The older we get, the more conditioned we
become to codify our experience through the filter of secondary
interpretation; it is for this reason that children, less
conditioned by the categories of this secondary plane, are
more liable to break the 'sleep' and see the Originary Reality
that causes the external stimuli that are mechanically codified
by us into our fantasistic secondary concepts. I was then
told that the mathematical concepts that are taught to us
in school are responsible for this. The effort in order
to 'wake up' has to be enormous as everything conspires
towards inertia and the forgetting of primary reality. Perhaps
the relevance of this dream to the Work is similar to the
relevance of Christ having said that unless we become as
little children we shall not enter the Kingdom of God.
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...this
dream took me by surprise, with its intensity and overt pedagogical
status; I wrote it down still in a half-dreaming state, trying
not to move in bed so as not to lose its extreme vividness
and to avoid adding anything to it... my first associations
were post-Kantian philosophy, especially Schelling and Mendelssohn,
and also Henri Bergson's notions about homo faber...
I also thought of Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,
but with a twist, this event as a 'strife for knowledge in
a dreame', although Polia is very much a symbol of it too,
like Dante's Beatrice; as to the rather enigmatic remark about
the way we are taught mathematics, I think it could be two
things at the same time: our dessacralization of mathematics,
and I'm thinking here of Guénon's thoughts on that
(also of M. Ghyka's efforts at revivifying this aspect of
this science), and of mathematics being an emblem, in the
context of this dream, for the crystallization of the Kantian
a priori categories of sensibility (of course Kant
thought they were inherent, not learned, but some post-Kantians
thought otherwise, and Piaget made some interesting research
on that...).
As
to the necessity (or not) of a master in order to learn traditional
disciplines, I think René Guénon had definitely
something to say on the subject, as he was perhaps for the
West the great esoteric master of the 20th century. Nota
bene: I am not a 'Guénonian', and I have a good
number of objections to the totalyzing thought of this author,
indeed to all kinds of totalyzing mental procedures; his position
towards Buddhism was too myopic, his criticism of democracy
and modernity in general was simplistic and manicheistic.
But he had great insights about the real meaning of traditional
Initiation...
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Clearly,
daily life itself is magical... There's a Zen story where
the disciple of a Shingon master meets a disciple of a Zen
master and starts boasting his master's magical abilities.
After enumerating his master's magical feats, he asks the
other:
"What about your master, what does he do?"
The Zen disciple answers: "My master accomplishes a far
greater magic".
"And what is this magic of his?"
"His magic consists in not doing any of that! It is thus:
he eats when he is hungry, and sleeps when he is tired".
Indeed,
Heidegger, quoting Leibniz, wrote the greatest mystery resided
in the fact that the world existed, and not simply emptiness.
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In
my opinion, it is best in these matters to become a blend,
to be in the one hand skeptical and in the other not, to have
a healthy research spirit in nebulous matters but at the same
time to be open to all the transcendant happenings in our
common daily life. But it is important to flee from all systemic
temptation, from our eternal desire to fit everything in a
consistent conceptual grid... for this grid will inexorably
lead us to error, it is a product of the narcissic anxiety
to explain everything conceptually, a real poison in the spiritual
path. Avoid great synthetic endeavours, do not be afraid to
be contradictory or inconsistent. Who told you the world is
comprehensible or consistent? Live the world, do not worry
to understand it with your head. It is far more important
that you try to figure (and follow) what the world seems to
be asking of you at a certain moment, what it is asking you
to DO.
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The
great or perhaps the only existential issue: our finitude.
The wisest answer: I do not know. I do not know if I
survive death, or what in me would survive it, I do
not know if there is a soul, and if it is independent
of the body. Many asked the Buddha about that, or about
reincarnation, the nature of matter and spirit, etc.
His invariable answer: Nothing of that helps in the
Way, forget these questions and strive to erradicate
suffering by cutting its root which is attachment. Buddha
was the first existential thinker in recorded History!
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You
should know how to choose the initiatic path that is most
appropriate to your temperament and personality, and in this
sense we live in a particularly propitious historical moment,
for thanks to cultural and religious interchange the West
now has a much wider field of options than before. Contemplative
paths of a devotional bent, typical of monotheistic religions,
are well represented by Christian monasticism and by Islamic
esotericism. Certain physical paths are available through
Indian Yoga and also through Western Alchemy. At last, a contemplative
path of an existential nature is offered to us by Zen-Buddhist
practice. The globalization phenomenon was, in this area,
extremely beneficial.
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The
maieutics of Socrates is the basis of true Philosophy, for
it makes philosophical activity accomplish its originary function,
as it was intended to be the vestibule or propedeutics to
esoteric initiations. It is a sacred role, and what we learn
in universities is but a pale shadow of it, something decayed
in the exact measure of the sad times (or yuga) we
live in...
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There
is an interesting story about animal behaviours... It is the
story about the dog and the cat. When we feed a dog it thinks:
"This person treats me so well, is so nice to me... He
must be a divine being, a god!" When we feed a cat it
thinks: "This person treats me so well, is so nice to
me... I must be a divine being, a god!"
Humanity is divided in these two responses to the donating
gesture, either valuing the donator or the receiver... We
do not realize how none of this matters, what counts is what
is being given and the transmission itself which is a flux
that encompasses the two specific individuals involved, provided
the receiver is prepared and worthy of such a gift. The reason
why a certain specific receiver was chosen is obscure to us,
and we seem to be led, through the whole transmission process,
by a higher force of which we are but the more or less conscious
instruments... Hence the importance of a certain degree on
anonymity in the transmission of traditional Initiations.
Perhaps we will never know for sure the reason why we have
been chosen to be, in a certain cosmic moment, the donator
or receiver of a given Initiation.
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Truth does not exist. What exists is the more or less complete
realization of Emptiness. This Emptiness is sensed by the
mind as Ignorance (for the mind's mechanicism is broken by
it), although it is also sensed and realized in a concrete
and positive way by the "heart". This does not mean,
however, that the ignorance of the fool and the ignorance
of the wise are identical. On the contrary, the ignorance
of the wise is a product of long inner work, the fool's ignorance
is just darkness. The result might be similar, but the causes
are profoundly different.
But
this is just one view on the matter. As you live what is described
above you will see that it is not the correct view. There
is no correct view.
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I
have the firm belief that in pictorial/symbolic hermeneutics
it doesn't matter in the end what the original message or
intention was, as long as the object is fit for profitable
symbolic tranfers on the part of a qualified viewer... In
my opinion, such is the case of a good number of those famous
analysis of sculptured motifs made by Fulcanelli. This
fact shouldn't diminish the intrinsic value of pictorial hermeneutics
made by highly qualified individuals, as the work of an adept
of the stature of Fulcanelli clearly proves. I mean by 'qualified
individual' a person well advanced in a specific traditional
path... For those individuals, and in a lesser degree for
us, the world is clearly perceived as a mirror of the soul,
and vice-versa, for now they seem to tap the Anima Mundi,
where the symbolic intentions behind phenomena are concealed.
Or, if they do not after all possess such mystical abilities,
at least we will all gain from their knowledge as they expound
it through the support of these pictorial symbols...
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What defines a Master? It is someone who, by blood, sweat
and tears, achieved mastership of a certain subject, art or
science. He will not ask any less of you if you wish to learn
his craft. He is not specially nice or easy-going, he is a
man like the rest, with defects and qualities... False masters,
on the contrary, are melifluous, angelical, conspicuously
virtuous or of a "transcendant" appearance... For
your own good you must stop to project on others your fantasies
on how should a "spiritual" individual be, on how
should be his personality, appearance or manners... Otherwise
you will always be an easy prey.
A
Master can teach you a traditional activity, not theories.
Distrust theories. Only a traditional activity is capable
of producing real qualitative change. This is another way
for you to distinguish between a Master and a false master.
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Just as Zen works body posture, Alchemy works matter in order
to obtain a spiritual elevation or depuration, for body and
spirit are one, are inseparable in our present and concrete
existence. These paths include the body, and Buddhism itself
is emphatic in denying the distinction between body and soul.
We do not know if this is only a pragmatic denial.
Body
is the exteriorization of soul, they are both concentrical
layers of one sole thing. From this fact derives, among other
things, our ability to sense someone's soul by observing his
physical presence. To some, the nucleus of these concentrical
layers is what was named the Atman in Hinduism, understood
as the divine spark which may be the only part of us to survive
death. But do not give this thought too much importance, as
it is unverifiable in our present state. The Atman
is probably chimerical, a word or notion aimed to cover the
enourmous and painful emotional hole that is our urge to have
some kind of individual or personal immortality.
This urge might well be an extension of our survival instinct...
Freeing ourselves from this rather rudimentary paradigm, how
about being the World's "immortality", living here
and now and in our own death? Can you embrace this radical
religious existentialism?
Completely
accept your death for what to all effects it seems to be:
your end. Even if by chance it is not... As you embrace
your death in such a manner you will be finally opening yourself
to true spirituality, one that is not compensatory,
greedy, escapist or afraid anymore.
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The
Apocalypse. Eschatological considerations are unconveivably
inane. What is not perceived is that if indeed the end of
the world occurs it does not affect existentially the initiate
in any way. The so-called end of times is still a time form
and not Eternity. Eternity is present here and now, it is
the infinite vertical line that perpendicularly crosses the
Present point, the latter being situated in the horizontal
line of chronological time. To fully live the present moment
is to live this Eternity. This is one of the profound meanings
of meditative practices like zazen. It does not matter
if the world ends, for this world always ends, anyhow, in
the individual death of each one of us.
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