@Protagonist
Generally speaking, the larger and stronger and more highly developed any
animal is, the less does it move about, and such movements as it does make are
slow and purposeful. Compare the ceaseless activity of bacteria with the
reasoned steadiness of the beaver; and except in the few animal communities
which are organized, such as bees, the greatest intelligence is shown by those
of solitary habits. This is so true of man that psychologists have been obliged
to treat of the mental state of crowds as if it were totally different in
quality from any state possible to an individual.
It is by freeing the mind from external influences, whether casual or
emotional, that it obtains power to see somewhat of the truth of things.
let us, however, continue our practice. Let us determine to be masters of
our minds. We shall then soon find what conditions are favourable.
There will be no need to persuade ourselves at great length that all external
influences are likely to be unfavourable. New faces, new scenes will disturb
us; even the new habits of life which we undertake for this very purpose of
controlling the mind will at first tend to upset it. Still, we must give up our
habit of eating too much, and follow the natural rule of only eating when we are
hungry, listening to the interior voice which tells us that we have had enough.
The same rule applies to sleep. We have determined to control our minds, and
so our time for meditation must take precedence of other hours.
We must fix times for practice, and make our feasts movable. In order to
test our progress, for we shall find that (as in all physiological matters)
meditation cannot be gauged by the feelings, we shall have a note-book and
pencil, and we shall also have a watch. We shall then endeavour to count how
often, during the first quarter of an hour, the mind breaks away from the idea
upon which it is determined to concentrate. We shall practice this twice daily;
and, as we go, experience will teach us which conditions are favourable and
which are not. Before we have been doing this for very long we are almost
certain to get impatient, and we shall find that we have to practice many other
things in order to assist us in our work. New problems will constantly arise
which must be faced, and solved.
For instance, we shall most assuredly find that we fidget. We shall {11}
discover that no position is comfortable, though we never noticed it before in
all our lives!
This difficulty has been solved by a practice called "Asana," which will be
described later on.
Memories of the events of the day will bother us; we must arrange our day so
that it is absolutely uneventful. Our minds will recall to us our hopes and
fears, our loves and hates, our ambitions, our envies, and many other emotions.
All these must be cut off. We must have absolutely no interest in life but that
of quieting our minds.
This is the object of the usual monastic vow of poverty, chastity, and
obedience. If you have no property, you have no care, nothing to be anxious
about; with chastity no other person to be anxious about, and to distract your
attention; while if you are vowed to obedience the question of what you are to
do no longer frets: you simply obey.
There are a great many other obstacles which you will discover as you go on,
and it is proposed to deal with these in turn. But let us pass by for the
moment to the point where you are nearing success.
In your early struggles you may have found it difficult to conquer sleep; and
you may have wandered so far from the object of your meditations without
noticing it, that the meditation has really been broken; but much later on, when
you feel that you are "getting quite good," you will be shocked to find a
complete oblivion of yourself and your surroundings. You will say: "Good
heavens! I must have been to sleep!" or else "What on earth was I meditating
upon?" or even "What was I doing?" "Where am I~" "Who am I?" or a mere wordless
bewilderment may daze you. This may alarm you, and your alarm will not be
lessened when you come to full consciousness, and reflect that you have actually
forgotten who you are and what your are doing!
This is only one of many adventures that may come to you; but it is one of
the most typical. By this time your hours of meditation will fill most of the
day, and you will probably be constantly having presentiments that something is
about to happen. You may also be terrified with the idea that your brain may be
giving way; but you will have learnt the real symptoms of mental fatigue, and
you will be careful to avoid them. They must be very carefully distinguished
from idleness!
At certain times you will feel as if there were a contest between the will
and the mind; at other times you may feel as if they were in harmony; but there
is a third state, to be distinguished from the latter feeling. It is the
certain sign of near success, the view-halloo. This is when the mind runs
naturally towards the object chosen, not as if in obedience to the will of the
owner of the mind, but as if directed by nothing at all, or by something
impersonal; as if it were falling by its own weight, and not being pushed down.
{12}
Almost always, the moment that one becomes conscious of this, it stops; and
the dreary old struggle between the cowboy will and the buckjumper mind begins
again.
Like every other physiological process, consciousness of it implies disorder
or disease.
In analysing the nature of this work of controlling the mind, the student
will appreciate without trouble the fact that two things are involved -- the
person seeing and the thing seen -- the person knowing and the thing known; and
he will come to regard this as the necessary condition of all consciousness. We
are too accustomed to assume to be facts things about which we have no real
right even to guess. We assume, for example, that the unconscious is the
torpid; and yet nothing is more certain than that bodily organs which are
functioning well do so in silence. The best sleep is dreamless. Even in the
case of games of skill our very best strokes are followed by the thought, "I
don't know how I did it;" and we cannot repeat those strokes at will. The
moment we begin to think consciously about a stroke we get "nervous," and are
lost.
In fact, there are three main classes of stroke; the bad stroke, which we
associate, and rightly, with wandering attention; the good stroke which we
associate, and rightly, with fixed attention; and the perfect stroke, which we
do not understand, but which is really caused by the habit of fixity of
attention having become independent of the will, and thus enabled to act freely
of its own accord.
This is the same phenomenon referred to above as being a good sign.
Finally something happens whose nature may form the subject of a further
discussion later on. For the moment let it suffice to say that this
consciousness of the Ego and the non-Ego, the seer and the thing seen, the
knower and the thing known, is blotted out.
There is usually an intense light, an intense sound, and a feeling of such
overwhelming bliss that the resources of language have been exhausted again and
again in the attempt to describe it.
It is an absolute knock-out blow to the mind. It is so vivid and tremendous
that those who experience it are in the gravest danger of losing all sense of
proportion.
By its light all other events of life are as darkness. Owing to this, people
have utterly failed to analyse it or to estimate it. They are accurate enough
in saying that, compared with this, all human life is absolutely dross; but they
go further, and go wrong. They argue that "since this is that which transcends
the terrestrial, it must be celestial." One of the tendencies in their minds
has been the hope of a heaven such as their parents and teachers have described,
or such as {13} they have themselves pictured; and, without the slightest
grounds for saying so, they make the assumption "This is That."
In the Bhagavadgita a vision of this class is naturally attributed to the
apparation of Vishnu, who was the local god of the period.
Anna Kingsford, who had dabbled in Hebrew mysticism, and was a feminist, got
an almost identical vision; but called the "divine" figure which she saw
alternately "Adonai" and "Maria."
https://decryptedmatrix.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/Meditation-by-Aleister-Crowley.pdf