Foundations and Superstructures

The development of mind is the incorporation into its active field of increasingly new areas and elements that until then existed only as potential. Although mind as such has no limits, by focusing, localizing, it begins to confine and limit itself, and, accordingly, the reverse process requires gradually expanding those boundaries.

We have already said that this process can occur in three ways:

· the mind can shift its focus of attention from its actual part to the potential, thereby identifying with the boundless ground (“the Way of Fading”);

· the mind can cast off impediments and limitations, rapidly converting potential into actuality with high efficiency (“the Way of Exhaustion“);

· the mind can find the absolute ground within its actual part and transform imperfections from within (“the Way of Rebirth“).

We have discussed that the Western Way is predominantly a collection of approaches from the second group, combined with methods of external and internal alchemy (the third strategy).

At the same time, the central strategy of the traveler on this Way is the search for, identification of, and realization of desires that constitute the primary “engine” of gilgul. In other words, it is held that the path to liberation from the cycle consists in transcending its driving forces, and thus in emerging from their influence.

At the same time, it is clear that desire is not something that can be imitated or artificially induced; desires arise as a natural consequence of the development of mind and lead to its further expansion.

Therefore, on the one hand, desires must not be ignored or misidentified, and on the other hand they cannot be forced. This view is summed up in a well-known magical maxim: “the Magus must do his utmost to be precisely who he is, and under no circumstances attempt to be someone he is not.” That is, on the one hand the best strategy for development is simply “to be”, to be present in one’s life, to act and be aware in its flow, and on the other hand one should avoid the temptation to “play” attractive roles, to attempt things for which no basis is laid in one’s own actual nature.

It is obvious that our actual nature is the result and the natural consequence of actions and aspirations performed over a series of incarnations, just as by our current actions and aspirations we lay the foundation for the subsequent conditions of manifestation of our stream of mind.

Therefore the strategy outlined above can be stated differently: the traveler striving for development must at every moment of his existence 1) do his utmost to reap the fruits of his past impulses and 2) create a sound foundation for the further manifestation of the mindstream. We should live as fully as possible what we have created for ourselves and approach with the greatest care the creation of what we are yet to live.

At the same time, instead of clearing their field of perception and correctly identifying and realizing the impulses matured in the mindstream, people often spend time and energy on realizations that seem appropriate or attractive for some reason, try to play other people’s roles and live other people’s lives. It is clear that such a strategy leads only to dissipation of energy and entanglement in karma: old “debts” do not disappear, and no platform for development is created. This does not mean that “a soldier must not try to become a general”, it means that “a soldier must not pretend to be a general”. A soldier must understand that every general once began as a private, and even if he was greatly helped in his promotion, it is because prerequisites and foundations for that were once laid by his mind. Nothing that happens to us has causes other than those lying in our minds, and nothing that will happen to our mindstream will arise from other sources.

Nevertheless, if we are sufficiently successful and effective, we can create causes and conditions so that the impulses and aspirations we generate in the present are realized promptly, so that they “break through” the karmic ballast and surpass its prerequisites. In other words, we cannot cancel or defeat our karma, but we can rise above its shackles if we make a determined effort. Of course all debts will still have to be paid and all tasks completed, but this may be stretched over many lives, or it may be compressed into a single moment of a “supernova explosion”.

And there is a fine, yet quite perceptible, line between pretending to be accomplished versus genuinely striving. The issue, firstly, is one of the level of honesty, and secondly of the primary direction of the flow of energy: with any pretense the energy will force its way toward where one’s true nature leads, whereas with an honest aspiration it flows easily and freely in that direction.

Thus, the Magus’s Way comes down to four strategies:

• purification of perception
• the search for and identification of desires
• their realization
• their transcendence,

and the task of the Magus is not only to find and realize himself, not only to “atone for” old karma and properly sow new karma, but also to surpass himself, to go beyond karmic prerequisites and limitations. If we do not strive to turn the circle into a spiral, and the spiral into a ray, then however successful we may be, we will remain a squirrel, running more or less swiftly on the wheel of gilgul.