Manifested Individuality

The supra-real Reality, the unified and indivisible being/consciousness, the Great Spirit, in knowing itself through its aspects, differentiates subject-object binaries of varying degrees of synthesis. And if, in its “highest” section, the “objective” component of these binaries reduces to a homogeneous, essentially unified World Environment, the “subjective” component reduces to the totality of an infinite number of individual “viewpoints” of the Great Spirit upon itself in the mirror of that Environment — the totality of Monads.

Having only potential existence, the Monads manifest as distinct streams of consciousness, emerging in the universal consciousness of the Great Spirit, which, by entering into interaction with the Environment, lead to the manifestation of “real” worlds unfolding through that interaction.

Thus, individuality is a fundamental property of any manifested flow of awareness, of any actual being, any subject in the world process.

We have already said that this property manifests in each particular flow of mind in the form of two actively operating forces – 1) repulsion of what is not part of it, and 2) attraction to what is akin to it. Accordingly, any search for and manifestation of individuality involves shedding foreign layers that accumulate in any flow of mind under the influence of its own and external destructive influences, and bringing its own qualities forward. At the same time, striving to rid itself of the foreign, the mind often slips into denial and nihilism, while attempting to manifest its unique qualities — it simply tends to pursue mere originality.

Both of these destructive forces deserve closer examination.

The tendency to devaluation, to denial, arising as one of the manifestations of the force of repulsion, deprives the mind of creative energy, and needs to be transformed into a sense of universal impartial equanimity, in which any phenomenon, object, or process is perceived as worthy of attention and awareness. The mind “repels” something not because that something is “bad” and “unworthy” in itself, but only because in the given state of the flow of mind that flow lacks sufficient affinity with that object. Nevertheless, it must be clearly understood that at the same time that object may be useful or necessary for interaction with another flow of mind, and, of course, sooner or later may become necessary for that flow as well, since as that flow grows the number of elements akin to it will steadily increase.

The drive toward dissimilarity, toward originality, born of the need to manifest the unique properties of a given flow of mind, can likewise have both constructive and destructive expressions. On the one hand, originality of manifestation can be considered a concrete support for that flow’s self-determination, finding external expressions corresponding to its unique nature. In this sense, of course, any sufficiently self-identical mind manifests outwardly in a way unlike others. A person’s distinctive way of life can be a genuine expression of the uniqueness of their mind.

However, it is often the case that the pursuit of external originality substitutes for the search for inner individuality, when the desire to be “not like everyone else” is reduced to merely showing off in unusual ways, regardless of how much those ways actually reveal the individuality of that mind.

For the Magus it is essential to understand this duality.

On the one hand, the Magus sees that the world is infinitely diverse and deserves attention and awareness in all its aspects and manifestations, although this does not mean that all these manifestations must appeal or be akin to the Magus himself in his current state. At the same time, the Magus recognizes the mobility of his mind, understanding that what yesterday was alien to him may tomorrow become a necessary component of his Way.

On the other hand, the Magus understands that his individuality, of course, needs external expression, but that external expression is by no means required to be “unusual,” “freakish,” or oppose the surrounding world, although, undoubtedly, it may turn out to be exactly that. For the Magus it is not important how “ordinary” or “original” his manifestations are; what matters is how truly those manifestations reflect his individuality, how much they support its expression and development.

Without falling into denial or into self-assertion at any cost, the Magus finds a truly unique way of self-expression, self-development, and self-realization, thus fulfilling his task as an embodied being — a singular gaze of the Great Spirit upon itself.