This last year or so had brought many changes. One of my main themes has been simplification and refinement of practice, a casting off of the unnecessary in an effort to distil practice into a form with as little 'extra', as possible. This attitude, along with a tendency to seek out authenticity in all things has led me to drop off 93% of Thelemic and Occult ideas. Magick, Qaballah, Gematria, Visions and Divinations, in favour more and more, of simple sitting meditation.
I have repeatedly echoed the sentiment of the Tibetan Poet and Siddha Milarepa: "My religion is not deceiving myself".
Even my meditation naturally underwent simplification. The effort to concentrate on mantras or mental images naturally went, and I saw no reason to continue to think along the lines of chakras, energy lines, Kundalini and the rest. My practice of Aikido has shown me what 'extending ki' means, and nothing extra in terms of theory is required, nor observed either subjectively or objectively. Ki moves because it moves, anything else is extra and liable to be a barrier to progress. When I extent Ki I just do it, I don't use any theory, it's just a feeling. Imagine having to understand the complexities of our nerve fibres in order to walk.
My dabbling with Christianity last year taught me two things. The first is that without a robust set of ethics, spiritual practice is solipsistic, something done for the self, a self which cannot exist in isolation from others. The second is that I simply don't believe most of what many religions and spiritual systems require me to believe. I discarded Christianity as being neither ethically viable (too much blood on the churches hands for me to recognise them as a moral authority) nor intellectually honest (who on earth believes in the virgin birth and resurrection?). Thelema likewise, while useful in my 20's and most of my 30's as a philosophy of action, expects too much in terms of complex and unnecessary theory and having too weak an ethical framework. The caveat here is that the concepts of Nuit/Hadit/Ra-Hoor-Khuit, are in my opinion viable in their essence, but too flowery for my taste.
There is no need to gild the lily, but reality as it is, is an acquired taste and we are accustomed to artificial flavourings.
It is clear that Crowley collected ideas that he liked from older traditions and cobbled it together into his new religion, I don't for a moment believe in the reception theory. To me Thelema seems contrived, synthetic, and not something I want to identify with. Thelema too often leads to a sort of self absorbed attitude which is essentially selfish and narrow in too many people, and many are more interested in proving others wrong and having things their own way, calling this their 'True Will', while displaying high levels of immaturity and no real desire to move beyond the cosplaying stage, what my supervisor called the 'burning ground'. Professional soldiers who dare not fight, as Liber Al would put it. Spiritual practice is all too often a case of trying on new hats in order to demonstrate one's status to others. As the Buddhists would put it, this is having a head on top of your own head. While fun, it's really 'something extra'.
So I closed that door behind me too. On attaining the K&C of the HGA, I realised by degrees that there is no Angel, only the formless, emptiness which is at once fullness. In the Christian mystical traditions there is a parallel phenomena, where the mystic gets so close to God that God seems to disappear. Some mistake this for 'losing their faith', while those who persist realise that what has happened is really a sort of Dhyana, the I/Thou relationship of the beginner, the supplicant and the angel, God and the worshipper is now simply one of identity, there is no need to have any image of God, an Angel or anything else. What presented itself to me as the angel was shown to be emptiness, the 'image of an image', to quote Liber 65, a way to come to grips with the idea but a means that must eventually be discarded if real union is to occur.
A core tenet of the A.'.A.'. no longer has any meaning for me at this point, there is no angel, and form is at it's heart emptiness, ever changing, not constant and having no real eternal substance that I could grasp on to. Hadit proved to be not a constant point, but simply a point of view, ever flowing and changing.
The tree of life was once described to me as 'useful to hang things on'. At the time (all of 18 years old) this struck me as too dismissive of something that I found profound. Now I am inclined to agree with it, and the A.'.A.'. system too is merely a way of keeping track of a series of stages, but in itself has no real meaning. It is a tool, nothing more, yet is too often used as a banner to wave and a social identifier (look at me, I'm an A.'.A.'. initiate!). "Aha", says the cynic, "but which lineage?", and we are right back in the relative world of I, me, mine.
Have I then left the A.'.A.'.? It is more accurate to say that the A.'.A.'. has fallen away as 'something extra'. You don't keep wearing your old uniform after you finish high school. I've not taken on students in years and don't really think of my practice in A.'.A.'. terms, or even tree of life terms, except to facilitate conversation with one or two people who I still talk to in that world.
So what's left after this wholesale iconoclasm of ideas and affiliations? Not much, yet everything, just as it always was before I started trying to make more of it. The only thing that approaches this is Zen. This is something that has always been in the background, but which I only now, approaching my 41st year, begin to appreciate.
More precisely, the Soto Zen school has taken my interest. It's fair to say that I have jumped in with both feet. I have in fact been practicing meditation for many years, and through my martial arts practice Buddhist concepts have become second nature, they just work and I don't need to contort myself to their shape. Over the last few months I have studied a lot of the historical and theoretical background, done a lot more zazen, and made contact with various Zen Buddhist teachers and groups and aim to formally receive the 16 Bodhisattva precepts in the not too distant future. 'Converted' to Buddhism isn't how I would describe it. It's more a case of, when everything else is removed, what's left is essentially that most austere outcrop of Buddhism. One could say that I simply made a conscious decision to follow what was already there, a fair definition of doing one's True Will.
I moved to a new city in a new country yesterday. I am here for work for two years on a project related to climate change, an issue which I regard as an existential threat. Possibly in some small way I might do some good. Anyway, yesterday I was exploring the town, I found an antique shop and had the idea that I should go in and look for a Buddha statue. Within minutes I had found exactly that, and exactly the right Buddha for zen practice; Shakyamuni Buddha (Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism). Rendered fairly crudely in a lump of ancient ebony wood. While not cheap he was within my budget, and (old habit perhaps, I don't like to haggle for this type of thing) so I bought him outright. I now have a makeshift alter in my temporary accommodation.
This is an early iteration. Over time it will develop. I need light and incense, but not much else. I like the physical reminders of spiritual practice. The clothing, the paraphernalia and ritual. These provide a supporting framework on which to develop a practice, although care needs to be taken that we don't take up the outer expressions and forget the heart of practice.
As I get older and past obsessions fall away, the straightforward humanity of a practice based on the facts of existence suits me more than detailed theories and intellectual baubles. Thelema was always trying to get somewhere and magick is always trying to get something. I realised some time back that there is nowhere to 'get' to, no goal, True Will is a process of living authentically, not a task to perform. Besides that, all I really want is to live naturally in the world as part of it, and making peace with the facts of nature, the facts of getting older, and living in a world which is constantly passing away before our eyes, whose one constant feature is its impermanence. I may perhaps be able to help others to do the same since we are all in the same boat. It is in this spirit of openness to what is, the small things of daily life, as well as the larger questions of life & death, suffering, purpose, that I hope to pursue the path into middle age.
Pertinax
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