Confidence in the Dharma
A thing I've been struggling with. Not that I lack confidence in the Buddha's teachings for real. If I'm honest with myself, Buddhism is the only way through life that has ever made sense to me, even when my still-forming teenage brain first discovered it and could only grasp the most superficial and basic concepts ("Whoa. You mean, if I want a thing, then it's going to suck if I don't get it? Or, if I lose it once I do get it it's going to suck even more? Especially if I lose it by dying? Duuuuude.") I think in some unalterable sense I am a Buddhist dyed in the wool and will always be.
But I waver. Lately I waver like a sine wave modulates its amplitude. The wavering is part of myself as defined. This is especially uncomfortable because I'm not wavering over, say, secular humanism, or scientific realism, or some other acceptable model of the universe. I'm wavering over the Western Esoteric tradition. Let me explain.
I don't believe in magic in the vulgar and superstitious sense of the word. I don't believe that casting spells will cause curses on people you don't like or that you can talk to entities that exist on some plane of reality that is invisible to ours. I'm not convinced the latter is completely absurd but neither do I feel comfortable accepting it as real without significant evidence to that effect. I do, however, believe that rituals and spells can affect our lives by dropping "commands" (to use a computer programming metaphor) into our subconscious minds which cause those commands to be actualized in the space of our minds that exist beyond our conscious control. I think ritual and the technology of magic (like sigils) are a means of doing this. I have no doubt that it is all perfectly congruent with the world of physics, but I think it impossible to deny that we can operate on our minds in that way.
Incidentally, I feel that this is not alien to the Buddhist understanding of mind and the self. The tantric traditions of Buddhism seems to touch on all of this in ways that are more profound than anyone else ever has. I do however feel that it introduces an element of personal corruption into the work of realization. We are bringing about our desires. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but I think it does lead to some profound and unbuddhist outcomes. We fall into the delusion that fulfilling our desires can make us happy, for one thing. For another, we're mucking around with stuff that by definition we don't understand very well. The short and miserable lives of so many people who get involved with this stuff is a perfect example. Did Aleister Crowley strike anyone as being fulfilled and happy? Did AO Spare enjoy living, as his contemporaries described it, "like a swine?" Was John Balance's magical practice worth the drug and alcohol abuse that would ultimately kill him? I see these lives and I think that it probably wasn't worth it.
And yet I still waver. Why? Because it's interesting! Because I am drawn toward hidden and ill-understood technologies and knowledge. Because I enjoy the mythological stories of the West, including the Gnostics, the Neoplatonists, the Greek mystery religions, and especially Egypt. That stuff strikes a deep and dark chord within me that I can't ignore or set aside. Also, I'm fascinated by power. I'm not going to justify or apologize for that, though I do recognize that power isn't the key to happiness. But it just is what it is.
These things tug at me. They take me away from what I know is the true path I must traverse. I am not exactly asking for sympathy or an answer. That will all happen in its own time, hopefully without too much suffering. I'm just hoping that I'm coherent. What do you think?
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