If we want to truly understand esotericism, the only approach is that of an ‘insider’.

—William Quinn

The esoteric tradition is, of course, nothing without practice. By ‘practice’ is meant many things, but all forms of practice hold in common the essential basis of participation. To ‘participate’ here refers to an active engagement with the process of investigating one’s mind, something that applies to even the most seemingly passive of contemplations.

All inner work can be reduced to three over-arching categories: self-acceptance, empowerment, and self-observation. Engaging the first is the basis of psychotherapy; engaging the second is the basis of all self-expressive forms of work (art, music, ritual/ceremony, and physical practices such as martial arts); engaging the third is the basis of meditation.

Meditation and study are essential aspects on the path of transformation. Excepting for rare cases where deep awakening may happen through a purely devotional, heart-centered spiritual practice, most everyone will have to go through some sort of meditation and discipline of learning in order to facilitate the development of insight, which is that crucially important ability to look within and understand the workings of the mind.

The essence of meditation is awareness. Not awareness of anything, but the simple resting in awareness itself. This is called ‘consciousness without an object’, or ‘non-dual awareness’. For the Western mind, conditioned as it is with intellectual training and the scientific objectification of reality, the notion of ‘resting in awareness’ may at first seem difficult to grasp, as it may seem too simple and too unconcerned with bearing witness to, or perceiving, anything outside of ourselves. However, if we are concerned with coming to an understanding of our true nature, that is, what we really are, then it is going to be vitally important that we develop the ability to see ourselves, and directly experience the ground of this true nature, which is consciousness.

Rene Descartes’ famous line, cogito ergo sum (‘I think therefore I am’), is perhaps the classic summation of the Western rationally oriented world-view that lies at the heart of the rapid advances in science and technology from the 17^th century and beyond. It also clearly defines the quintessence of a civilization that schools its people in such a way that they become strongly identified with their thinking minds. In such a conditioning, it is only in thought that I can define my identity―I think, therefore I am. However, if we examine the nature of our thinking processes, we will soon find that when not engaged in a specific discipline that requires our focused attention our thoughts are generally lacking in any cohesive structure that would seem able to truly define our identity. In fact, a simple focusing of attention on our thought process will soon reveal that thought itself is incapable of directly experiencing anything, and is most certainly incapable of directly experiencing the nature of our identity (who ‘I am’). At the most, thought can describe things, much like a menu can describe a meal or a map can describe an area. Because of this, it is necessary to train the mind to experience awareness of the movement of thought within consciousness, something like the movement of clouds through the sky. Doing so enables us to organize our thoughts more efficiently, to utilize their energy creatively, and to recognize the nature of our inner being as pure awareness that both transcends and includes thought.

Self Remembering

Self-remembering, in one form or another, lies at the heart of inner work. It has gone by various names over the centuries within the various spiritual traditions, but it always boils down to the practice of maintaining an elevated state of awareness throughout one’s daily life activities. Self-remembering is based on the idea of divided attention. In typical semi-conscious living, our attention flows outwardly, toward the object we perceive. It is a one-way movement of attention, from us, to the object. The less alert, the less conscious we are at the time, the more we are aware of only the object, and nothing else. (This is, of course, the basis of being caught up in the external ‘glitter’ of reality, everything from the dazzle of a charismatic person, to the dazzle of a cause we identify with). A good example of this occurs in our dreams at night. Typically our dream state is governed by a lack of self-awareness during the dream. All that is ‘real’ are the objects (things, people, etc.) of our dream. This is why we do not know that we are dreaming at the time, because there is no substantial self-awareness. Thus, we wake up after and realize that it ‘was only a dream’.

In divided-attention, what we are endeavouring to do is to ‘split’ our attention two ways, so to speak. We try to keep our attention on the object of our perception (say, a tree), and, at the same time, we remain aware of ourselves—‘I am’. We attempt to remain aware simultaneously of both self and tree. Accomplishing this is an act of self-remembering. In the beginning the practice may seem just intellectual, a forced and artificial mental effort that probably will not be sustained for very long. With consistent practice it becomes easier and more natural and can be done for longer periods of time. Persisted with, we can reach a state where we are naturally remembering ourselves much of the time. As our ability with the method progresses, it becomes less and less a detached mental exercise, and more and more an alive, sensory experience of being present in our environment and experiencing the moment more vividly.

To self-remember is to be present. Lack of presence is akin to operating in a kind of auto-pilot state. The main purpose of self-remembering is to begin to learn to experience reality free of mental projections and of the cloud of ‘daydreaming’ that obscures our ability to truly be here. Self-remembering, persisted with, leads to a quieter mind, a mind that thinks more economically and efficiently and is able to let go and relax when appropriate.

It should be understood that with all meditation methods, including self-remembering, we are not trying to force the mind to be still. Trying to will the mind to be silent usually leads to just repression of thoughts and feelings. Self-remembering is not about repression. It is rather a practice that allows us to be more involved in our life in a real fashion, while being able to see things more clearly and truthfully as well. We can practice while driving, eating, going to the washroom, walking, etc. In the beginning it is good to try this method when not engaged in anything serious, but over time we can do it in increasingly complex situations.

Exercise #1 (Self-remembering): Attempt to remember yourself as the one who is having this thought, or the one who is having this feeling, body sensation, etc.—that is, hold the sense of ‘I am’ whenever possible throughout your daily activities. This does not mean that you can’t engage in regular activities or thinking that requires your full attention. It simply means that you remember the sense of ‘I am’ when having such thoughts, feelings, and so on. In the beginning self-remembering can seem like a tedious mental exercise, in that you have to make a mental effort to remember, ‘I am’. But over time this ‘I am-ness’ becomes less and less a disconnected thought, and more an overall sense of presence, and one that becomes easier to remember.

Exercise #2 (Recording Thoughts): Find a ten-minute period of time during which you will be undisturbed. Sit at a table with a note pad, or several sheets of paper, and pen. For ten minutes straight, simply write down every thought that comes into your awareness. It is important to write down everything, without censoring at all. Practiced regularly, this simple method will make it clear just how random and apparently unrelated thoughts are, and how fast and how spontaneously they are arising in our mind. (This practice reveals, to some extent, the validity of David Hume’s ideas about ‘constant conjunctions’, and of the way in which so much of what we assume to be cause and effect is really just imagined). We have just learned (for the most part) to block and filter out those which seem unrelated to the tasks we are engaged in—or we indulge in such ‘unrelated’ thoughts, a process we know as ‘daydreaming’.

Recording thoughts also will make it clear to us how similar such thoughts are to the nature of our dreams at night. More importantly, the very recording of the thoughts begins to slowly make us more aware of the field in which the thoughts are arising—the field of pure awareness.

There are two basic forms of focusing awareness, what we can call ‘concentration’, and ‘attention’. Neither of these are, strictly speaking, true meditation, and yet both are important as preliminary skills to develop prior to tackling the deeper forms of meditation. Concentration is mental focusing in a ‘one-pointed’ fashion. The mind can be likened a bit to a laser in this regard, in that whatever it concentrates on with unwavering focus will sooner or later yield information, something like a wall being pierced by an information-gathering laser. Or, put another way, as the mind concentrates, thought-associations are stimulated, generally yielding deeper insights into whatever is being concentrated on. (This is one of the secrets to the esoteric technique of ‘roaming’, discussed in the next chapter). The capacity for concentration, like a physical muscle, can be developed with practice. Here is one very well known and simple technique for sharpening concentration:

Exercise #3 (Counting Breaths): At first, attempt this practice for no more than twenty minutes. After a couple of weeks of practice, you can lengthen sessions to thirty minutes, or even one hour. But give yourself some time to work up to longer sessions if you feel so inclined to pursue this technique.

Sit down in a comfortable position, either in a straight back chair, or cross-legged, or semi-lotus if this is comfortable for you. Keep the spine straight but not rigid. Be relaxed, yet alert, calm, but attentive. Take a few deep breaths, and then breathe in a calm, natural fashion. With your eyes closed, locate the inhale/exhale rhythm of your breathing either in the pit of your belly or at the tip of your nose. Then, breathing at a normal pace, simple begin to count your breaths. Count only the inhales, and on each exhale, let-go and relax. Inhale-one, exhale relax, inhale-two, exhale relax, inhale-three, exhale relax, and so forth. Continue this until there is a break in your attention and you forget which number you were on. As soon as you realize you have lost the thread of attention and have forgotten your count, start over again. Do not cheat, make sure you start over each time you forget. Do not be concerned about how many times you forget. In the beginning you will forget many times and find yourself wandering off into thought-dreams. The important point is to just keep doing it, exercising patience. Persevere until the twenty minutes are up then make a note of the highest number you reached.

If you persist with this, soon you will be able to retain an unbroken count to very high numbers.  This method is a very good tool for sharpening the ability to focus and concentrate. In addition, it affords interesting insights into the nature of consciousness and its ability to ‘entangle’ with thoughts, become identified, and lose self-awareness.

Exercise #4 (Paying Attention): This method is a simple process of focusing your attention on various parts of your body. As with the previous exercise, sit down and be comfortable. Close your eyes and place your attention in your left foot. Be mindful of the sensations of your left foot. Allow your consciousness to rest as totally as you can in your left foot. After a short time there (about two minutes), then move your attention up to the rest of your left leg, scanning from the ankle to the hip. Take about two minutes for this as well. Continue up the left side of the body, allowing about two minutes each for the left side of the pelvis, the left side of your torso, your left arm, left hand, left arm again, left shoulder, left side of neck, and left side of your head. The whole thing should take about fifteen minutes to do. Then scan downwards on the right side of your body, starting at the head, and continuing down the neck, right shoulder, arm, and hand, back up arm again, and down right side of torso, pelvis, and right leg, ending at the right foot.

You should take about thirty minutes to scan your whole body. Once done, take five minutes to sit quietly with your attention focused on the totality of your whole body. Simply be aware of it, and any sensations in it. (If at any time you have to scratch, do so with slow, attentive movements. Remain conscious of all movements).

Exercise #5 (Listening to Sounds): This exercise works very well out in nature, but if you do not have access to a trail where you casually walk or hike, then simply use wherever you find yourself. It is necessary, however, to make sure you will be undisturbed. The exercise is for twenty minutes at first, later you can extend it to thirty or sixty minutes if you feel so inclined.

When walking on a trail through a natural setting (or sitting in your home with whatever sounds are audible), simply focus all your attention on listening to whatever you are hearing. This could be birdsong, wind, the sound of your feet on the ground, your breathing, traffic, people around you, whatever. Just allow all of your attention to dissolve into the sounds. Stay with the sounds. Persisted with, this method is effective for quieting the mind and opening your perception, on more than one level, to a fuller experience of sensory reality. It can lead to a profound sense of connectedness to the world of your sensory experience, as well as the ‘Ground of Being’ that, according to the wisdom traditions, both world and consciousness are deriving from.

‘Wide range’ meditation is distinguished from concentration in that it is not a process of focusing on anything in particular, but rather one of resting in our natural awareness—an awareness that may be roughly characterized as ‘deep’, ‘vast’, and ‘wide’. In the beginning it may be difficult to meditate this way, which is why it is useful to practice concentration or focusing methods such as the ones given above. In time, as we strengthen our ability to concentrate and truly pay attention, we also will develop the ability (or knack) of meditation, which is ultimately about resting in our naturally pure awareness.

Exercise #6 (Self-Observation): In selected situations throughout a typical day, practice simply observing yourself, without comment or attempt to change anything at all. Just try to catch yourself doing and acting and thinking and feeling and behaving however you may be in any given moment or situation, but don’t try to change anything—just bear witness to yourself, be as aware as possible of yourself.

This exercise can be a bit difficult in the beginning and as such is best at first to practice in simple, routine situations. These may include when you stop at a red traffic light, standing in line at the bank, interacting with the bank teller, or the waiter in a restaurant, or the grocery clerk, etc.  In all these situations, remember whenever you can to simply observe yourself.

Exercise #7 (Self-enquiry): This exercise is best done in a sitting fashion for at least twenty minutes or longer, though it can also be done at any time during the day, as with self-observation and self-remembering.

Self-enquiry is what it suggests, a direct enquiry into the Self. It is the eternal question ‘Who am I?’ At first it may take the form of a somewhat disconnected intellectual process, attempting to locate the source of yourself amongst the long lists of self-defining categories that comprise the identity of who you think you are—‘I am a man, woman, parent, doctor, teacher, secretary, clerk, healer, happy person, loving person, sensitive person’, etc.—all the way down to more simple self-definitions, like ‘I am warmth, love, fear, anger, emptiness, despair’, and so on. Eventually, if Self-enquiry is persisted with, the process becomes less and less abstract, as the mind runs out of definitions for itself, and longer spaces of silence appear in between the answers to the question.

At this point, a deepening is happening in which insight in its true sense—‘directly seeing within’—is beginning to be aroused, and discriminating intellect is being relaxed. With persistence profound breakthroughs are possible with this method, in which the tacit and immediate sense of deeper and vaster sense of being can arise, often accompanied by glimpses of non-dual consciousness.

Exercise #8 (Zen Koan): This method derives from the Buddhist schools of the Orient, such as in China and Korea, and especially Japan, where is has been widely practiced in the Rinzai Zen lineages. A koan is a paradox that cannot be solved by reason (thus, is not a riddle), but can only be penetrated by insight, or a leap to a higher level of understanding. It is very similar to Self-enquiry, and in fact, the question ‘Who am I?’ is a koan.

Traditionally, a practitioner of Zen meditation might work on a given koan for many years before breaking through and opening up to a higher level of understanding. This higher level of understanding is poorly approximated by the English word ‘intuition’, but in fact is best defined by the Japanese word kensho, which means ‘direct seeing into reality’. Though here again, there is some inaccuracy with the definition, because the breakthrough defined by kensho involves a direct understanding and experience of Oneness, which is non-dual, i.e., there is no ‘seer’ who is separate from what is ‘seen’.

Choose a rationally insoluble question, such as ‘What is the size and weight of love?’ or ‘Where is the end of the universe?’ or ‘What is a tree?’ or ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ Then, hold the question within, coming back to it whenever you can, and giving full attention to it. Allow yourself to exhaust all possible intellectual answers, and then continue to inquire into the question. In time, you will notice a shifting inside and the gradual opening of what we may call the ‘inner wisdom eye’ which apprehends reality in a direct fashion, without images, concepts, or words. This method is often effective for people with strong, active minds.

Exercise #9 (Vipassana): Vipassana is an old Buddhist meditation technique believed to originate from the time of the Buddha, and probably even before that. It is very simple and effective, yet requires sincere discipline, commitment, and patience. Begin with twenty-minute sessions, increase up to one hour as you feel ready. Seated comfortably, back straight but not rigid, take a few deep breaths, and relax into yourself. Then, locating the breath in either the pit of the belly, or at the tip of the nose (choose one location of the other, and then stick with it), simply follow your natural in-out breathing rhythm with your awareness. No matter what, keep your awareness on your breath. Simply stay with the breath. At first, you will forget the breath again and again, as you drift off into thought-dreams. That is normal, try to not get frustrated or self-reproachful, simply keep returning your awareness to the rise and fall of the breath. As you follow the breath, simply bear witness to whatever is happening, but keep your awareness anchored to the breath. This method is excellent for focusing and grounding, as well as clearing the mind and centering within.

Exercise #10 (Witnessing): This is the simplest technique of all, and in some ways, the most challenging. In essence, it involves ‘just sitting’ and being witness to whatever is happening, or arising, in this moment. In Zen Buddhism they call this Shikan-Taza. The meditation can be done sitting with eyes open or closed, and it can also be done while driving, standing in line, or doing anything that requires nothing more than ‘auto-pilot’ responses from you. However, in the beginning, you may find it easiest to attempt this in a sitting posture with the eyes closed. In Witnessing, you are simply resting in your natural state, which is that of pure consciousness, pure awareness. Let your awareness be big, all-embracing, all-encompassing. Let it be natural. And simply rest in it, being purely aware, and nothing else. Let go, and be relaxed and yet alert, sharply watchful, and calmly observant.

Exercise #11 (The Body of Light Meditation): Sitting in your meditation posture, generate positive thoughts for all of existence, bless everyone. Then spend a few minutes following your breath, so as to settle inwardly and relax. Follow this by spending a few minutes visualizing a sphere of clear white light, about the size of a grapefruit, directly above your head. This sphere of light is representative of your own highest nature, a visual analog of your deepest and greatest self. After seeing and feeling its presence, imagine it declining in size until it is about an inch in diameter. Then visualize it dropping down through the center of your head until it comes to rest in your heart center. Then imagine this sphere of brilliant light expanding, flooding your whole body with its radiance. In so doing, imagine your body transfiguring into pure shimmering, translucent light. Imagine this powerful light converting all negativities within you into a state of radiant contentment. Rest in this presence for at least fifteen minutes, longer if comfortable. Then end the meditation by directing and dedicating the energy raised to the benefit of all beings.

Active Meditations

Exercise #12: Rebirthing: This is a potent deep breathing technique that is not recommended, in the beginning, to do alone. It is best to seek a trained facilitator to be coached through the process. It is mentioned here because it is one of the more effective tools, especially when done in a series of weekly sessions for about ten consecutive weeks.  Owing to various factors many cultures unwittingly condition their members to be shallow breathers. The flow of breath plays a large part in determining the overall health of a person, and especially their ability to feel alive, vital, and to express spontaneously. Rebirthing as a tool is very effective for improving over-all breathing, and the subsequent ability to both access and express passion. It was termed ‘rebirthing’ when it was first developed in the 1960s (initially via Leonard Orr) because some of the first people to experience the method found themselves spontaneously reliving their birth and experiencing a degree of healing as a result of such re-visiting (which was the essence of the original idea of ‘catharsis’ as developed by Freud, Otto Rank, and others). But, the vast majority of people who use this technique do not experience anything as spectacular as consciously remembering their birth. For most, it is simply an experience of release and purification. A number of yoga techniques that originated in India, such as those from kriya and kundalini yoga, are very similar. Rebirthing is, in theory, a breathing technique tailored for Westerners.

Exercise #13: Deep Breathing: This breathing method is simpler and easier to perform than rebirthing. It consists of thirty minutes of deep breathing, done in three stages, repeated once. It is helpful to do this with some sort of gentle, rhythmic music, though not required.

Sitting down comfortably, preferably cross-legged on a comfortable surface, close the eyes and begin to breath deep, slow breaths. Try to inhale to a maximum, and then relax on the exhale. Have each inhale start in the lower diaphragm, and finish at the top of the chest. Do this slow, deep breathing for five minutes. Then for the next five minutes switch to a somewhat faster pace of breathing, keeping the focus on the inhale, and relaxing on the exhale. After five minutes of this, switch to rapid breathing: short, shallow, panting style. Do this for five minutes as well. Then, repeat the three stages again, for a total of thirty minutes of breathing. Once the thirty minutes are complete, simply sit silently for at least ten minutes. This exercise is especially effective for generating energy and revitalizing.

Exercise #14: Taking Risks: Choose an activity that will challenge you in some way. This activity should be something you have resistance doing, or fear engaging in, and it should involve either a physical challenge, or a challenge in the area of confronting your fears around being judged by others or being disapproved of by others. Good examples of physically challenging tasks might be climbing up to a high place if you have fear of heights, spending time alone in nature if you have fear of this, or similarly related activities. For working on fears of disapproval, a good exercise is to apply some sort of unusual face paint to your face, and then go out into a public market and walk around, allowing yourself to be seen. Such seemingly absurd activities are actually very effective for drawing attention to unconscious fears that are preventing a greater sense of empowerment in life. The main idea here is to create balance in the personality by pushing ourselves out of our ‘comfort zones’.

Exercise #15: Mindfulness of Speech: For one whole day, practice being as mindful (consciously attentive) as possible of how you speak to others. Be especially aware of the ‘contraction’ that occurs when you are negatively activated by some situation, along with any knee-jerk impulse to disagree, argue, not listen, criticize, or judge. Every time an impulse arises to do one of these, simply take conscious deep breath, and say nothing. Alternatively, throughout the course of the day practice taking one conscious breath before you speak to anyone.

Exercise #16: Examining Self-contraction: Pay attention to the tendency to contract inwardly whenever you are emotionally activated by a given occurrence or situation. Note how the contraction often registers in the solar plexus region, as a tension or ‘knot’ that feels uncomfortable. Try to be mindful of this contraction as long as possible before being directed by it. See if you can entirely avoid being directed by it, instead simply bearing witness to its movements within, until it dissolves naturally.

Self Realization: Does the personal self actually exist?

It is a given that by ‘Self-realization’ the referent is the greater Self, or Ground of Being, not the personal self (ego, personality, etc.). That said, the most obvious, but probably the most commonly missed, of all questions, is simply who am I? When universally recognized sages such as Socrates and Ramana Maharshi give supreme weight to this question (‘know thyself’ and ‘who am I?’), it suggests something noteworthy (and even Jesus appeared to be addressing the same question when, according to John, he uttered ‘I and the Father are one’, speaking to an ultimate realization of universal identity). That said, what these sages seem to be pointing toward is something more subtle and profound than any superficial identification with a greater, higher, or divine self as we would commonly imagine that to be. The Buddha (for one) based his entire teaching on a profound recognition: that the personal self (or ego) does not appear to exist at all when the matter is closely examined via deep and sustained contemplation and meditation.

That of course does not mean that ‘we’ do not exist; rather, it means that our real nature is not at all what we assume it to be, that we are living under the effects of a mental construct and an elaborate illusion. More recent Western philosophers reasoned their way to similar conclusions, most notably Kant and some of the Idealists who followed him, including and up to William James, although few claimed to have direct experience of this alongside their intellectual comprehension. The clearest example was David Hume, who in the 18^th century wrote,

…when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist.¹

Hume’s conclusion was that perceptions existed, but no self independent of them. Similar conclusions have been reached by contemporary Western philosophers who invoke new and fresh approaches (including neuroscience); two of the more articulate recent examples are Owen Flanagan (b. 1949) and Thomas Metzinger (b. 1958). Flanagan, a neurobiologist and philosopher, is a materialist (or ‘naturalist’ as he prefers) yet arrives at conclusions remarkably similar to those of certain wisdom traditions that examine the idea of a discrete inner self (and do not find one). In his 1992 work Consciousness Reconsidered, in a chapter titled The Illusion of the Mind’s “I”, he wrote,

We are egoless…the main idea is that the self emerges as experience accrues, and it is constructed as the organism actively engages the external world…in this sense the ego is an after-the-fact construction, not a before-the-fact condition for the possibility of experience…the posit of the mind’s “I” is unnecessary.²

Metzinger, a German philosopher, published a difficult book in 2003 called Being No One: The Self-Model Theory of Subjectivity, and then wrote a more layman-friendly version of it called The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self (2009). He drew from neuroscience, robotics, and experiments with virtual reality, but his central point is simple: we do not, and have never had, a ‘self’. It is the various functions of our brain that generate the conditions leading to our subjective construction of the self. This ‘inner self’ is little more than an imagined homunculus, a ‘little person’ dwelling within that we assume to be at the command seat of our consciousness, picking and choosing what thoughts to generate each moment, and appearing to exercise a free will with assumed autonomy. Metzinger wrote,

No such things as ‘selves’ exist in the world…We are Ego Machines, but we do not have selves. We cannot leave the Ego Tunnel, because there is nobody who could leave. The Ego and its Tunnel are representational phenomena: they are just one of many possible ways in which conscious beings can model reality…the Ego is merely a complex physical event—an activation pattern in your central nervous system.³

Both Flanagan and Metzinger agree that the ‘self’ is essentially a representation, a process or mental phenomena brought about by a number of factors but lacking intrinsic nature. This is very close to what the Buddha taught (though without the comprehensive psycho-spiritual instruction that the Buddha provided to support the realization of no-self; and without the systems of development offered by the Western esoteric tradition that seek to ground the representation of self within the context of something much greater). Some of these ideas were expressed in differing ways by early 20^th century magicians such as Crowley and Austin Osman Spare, but were perhaps most creatively expressed in the writings of Peter Carroll (b. 1953), co-founder of so-called ‘Chaos Magic’ and author of Liber Null, Psychonaut, and other works. Carroll wrote,

A curious error has entered into many systems of occult thought. This is the notion of some higher self or true will that has been misappropriated from the monotheistic religions. There are many who like to think that they have some inner self which is somehow more real or spiritual than their ordinary or lower self. The facts do not bear this out…there is no sovereign sanctuary within ourselves which represents our real nature. There is nobody at home in the internal fortress…the center of consciousness is formless and without qualities of which mind can form images. There is no-one at home.⁴

Carroll did not hold a nihilistic position, however, maintaining that we do have a higher self or ‘Holy Guardian Angel’ (or ‘Kia’ as he called it, borrowing Austin Osman Spare’s term) but that it is a minimalist force of pure will and perception to be shaped and applied. It is not an intrinsically divine, wise, loving, overarching presence watching benignly over us, but rather a pristine force to be developed. (This closely parallels Gurdjieff’s idea of the ‘essence’).

Analytical Meditation

Owing to the challenges of healthy ego-formation and the central illusion that the ego generates (separation), the wisdom traditions are clear that the ego or sense of personal isolation ultimately lies at the source of human suffering. This is due to the premise that ego is all about limitation. The Sanskrit term for ego is ahamkara (literally, ‘I-maker’). It is regarded as basic to survival, but seen as getting in the way of higher truths precisely because it thinks in terms of personal ownership only—‘my ideas, my-self, my feelings’, etc. It has difficulty in understanding what is not I. That in turn sets up and reinforces a false division between self and universe, and leads to a deep-seated mistrust in what appears to lie ‘outside’ of self. Analytical meditation is a method to see directly into the emptiness of the ego-self.

Exercise #17: Analytical Meditation: We can try a thought-experiment of ‘analytical meditation’, as follows. Does the body exist—independent of it being solely a conceptual entity?⁵ And if so, can we locate it? Let us examine the matter. The body consists of arms, legs, organs, and so on. It is a construction of various parts. But each part is not the body. We cannot say that the arm is the body, or the eye is the body. Clearly that would be nonsense.

Can a grouping of non-body parts make a body in anything other than a conceptual sense? Practically speaking, ten chairs together do not make a table. Four legs and a table top together may make a table, but ‘table’ exists only as a conceptual label. Seen clearly, the table is really the legs and the top. Similarly, the body does not truly exist other than as a conceptual entity. It is purely a concept, a label. And this is the same wherever we look, and is true for whatever we look at. What is a hand? A grouping of fingers, skin, etc., none of which is a hand. Therefore, there is no hand in any absolute sense—there is only the concept of a hand, a pure abstraction existing only in the mind. The same applies for all so-called objectively existing things. Wherever we look, we see only the externalization of our ideas, all the way down to subatomic particles and empty space.

So, if nothing exists inherently in objective reality, beyond it being an externalized concept, then what about if we look within? Clearly our ‘I’ is not consistent, as it can be related to many things—thoughts, moods, feelings, memories, and so on. ‘I’ is a composite of many different mental and even physiological states. Because it would be unsound to refer to one state as ‘me’—I am anger, I am fear, I am this memory (but not that one), etc.—then the same thing can be concluded, that being that this ‘I’ has no real inherent existence as something specifically and separately definable. ‘I’ is not a discrete thing, isolated from everything else.

If this is so, what is left over? In some traditions it is called ‘luminous emptiness’, in others ‘cosmic Mind’, a kind of continuous whole in which there is no truly real division between what we experience as ‘me’ and the universe. That may be called ‘absolute reality’. Then there are conventional realities to be recognized, such as the reality of ‘I feel hungry, tired’, etc. In the investigation of absolute reality, conventional reality is not ignored or denied.

Exercise #18: Laughter. When waking up, first thing in the morning, begin to laugh. Laugh for at least several minutes, longer if you feel like it. If you find the exercise too artificial, just begin laughing, and soon you will laugh authentically at your own attempts to laugh. (If not wishing to disturb your sleeping partner, laugh silently, or go into another room). Laughter is a means for reconciling opposites and integrating absurdities. Existence has a fundamental absurdity to it, and laughter is arguably the best way to resolve most issues.

Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. –A Course in Miracles (T-27.VIII.6:2-3)

Laughter is the only tenable attitude in a universe which is a joke played upon itself.—Peter Carroll.⁶

Notes

1. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739).
2. Owen Flanagan, Consciousness Reconsidered (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1992), pp. 177-182. Flanagan draws openly and substantially from William James in this chapter. His most recent work is the provocatively titled The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized (MIT Press, 2011).
3. Thomas Metzinger, The Ego Tunnel: The Science of the Mind and the Myth of the Self (New York: Basic Books, 2009), pp. 8, 208. Some of Metzinger’s lucid lectures can be viewed on YouTube (as of early 2013).
4. Peter J. Carroll, Liber Null & Psychonaut (Samuel Weiser Inc., 1987), p. 164. Liber Null was originally published in 1978, Psychonaut in 1982, and both merged in the 1987 publication. Carroll, along with Ray Sherwin, are the founders of post-modern Chaos Magic, although they certainly had past inspirations they drew upon, most notably Austin Osman Spare and to a lesser extent Aleister Crowley. Liber Null is a concise and lucid essay on practical magic, remarkable in that Carroll wrote it in his early 20s, reminiscent of other precocious esotericists such as Pico della Mirandola, Cornelius Agrippa, Israel Regardie, and Manley Palmer Hall, all of whom wrote important and influential works within the Western esoteric tradition while in their early 20s.
5. This meditation is from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, but has universal applicability. See Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Mahamudra Tantra: The Supreme Heart Jewel Nectar, an Introduction to Meditation on Tantra (Glen Spey: Tharpa Publications, 2005), pp. 130-139.
6. Carroll, Liber Null & Psychonaut, p. 17.