Great that some of you are still here, particularly if you read that Ego post a few times..
Not put you off then, feel up for this, think it’s relevant to you? I hope so, cause it’s gloves off now, I’m going to talk you like a seeker, like someone who is prepared to TRY, like it’s important to you. Thankfully these assumptions mean I no longer have to go on trying to put you off, or reading you endless warning labels, much as there will have to be some cautions on certain topics.
Please Remember… you need to continue to develop your Enthusiasm via the Ride, build it up so it is eventually every present, so you can start to practise the spiritual rite of ‘Power over yourself’, changing the way you relate to yourself, your EGO. Until you have started to develop this power over yourself you can do nothing spiritually on the Left hand path, indeed all attempts at dealing with your ego are doomed to eventual failure. With this power, you rise above it, you control your ‘affliction’ with Ignorance, you learn how to fight back. I know I have compressed an entire book into a few short posts however it is all there, all you have to do is not worry that you are doing it right and just keep at it, as often as you can.
So, there is a change in tone and content style from me now, driven by the assumptions I’m going to make about you, having chosen as an adult to read on. Fact is there is no one process, set of instructions I can give you, without knowing you, so this is non-linear from now on, a shorter topic focus per post if you like. I can see that there are currently 30 or 40 of you that read this stuff everyday, down from the start and the bounce rate has dropped to nothing, and that makes me happy. All good teachers look for the serious, over the dilettantes and day trippers, plus the generally assumed percentage of the gifted used by folks like me tracks quite well. I have also turned on the comments and contact forms sections, so more than happy to answer any questions.
The next posts are going to jump around a little so will categorise them according to their focus, however I promised you secrets and secrets you are going to get, one way or another, so best to be clear when I am doing this.
The categories will be as follows and I will add to them as and when I have the time:
- Basics – posts designed to give you information on what is out there, in terms of defining the spiritual world, like this one.
- Awful Truths – discussion about what is wrong, what bad things have happened to make such a mess of the modern world of spirituality.
- Key Lessons – very important things you need to know on the left hand path, important methods to help you.
- Secrets – facts and processes that are the mainstay of spiritual development, the stuff that works, the things that are being hidden.
I’m going to try and keep these posts much shorter on this basis, and not overwhelm you with multiple pieces of information, making it much easier to dip in and out, as per the structure of reading in our modern world, or so it has become. Please don’t expect it to get easier however.
But First, as a seeker you need to know what you are getting into, the context of this path, what it means in relation to the others. To do this I’m going to use the age old concept of the left hand and right hand paths, based on the ancient obsession with hands relating to, even being controlled by different parts of your psyche. Note, if you are going to read up on this know that the modern versions of these paths has been confused with the western approach to the occult, its resurgent’s and use in the latter part of the 20th century, a modern interpretation and not the true ancient one.
So there are 4 paths into spirituality, including the 4th one itself, real spirituality. These are defined now as they always have been through the ages as:
The Right Hand Path – worshipping a god, a spirit et al so that, over time, they may thank you for this worship by ‘blessing’ you, so you are exchanging your own power for some form of divine intervention, usually dressed up in the language of ownership, fatherhood, creator god et al. This covers all organised religion you know about, and is the only path for folks who have no spiritual gift at all, who have no interest in spirituality. Of all current, public religions the only ones left that still enforce an effective form of worship in the real sense are Islam and Judaism. With one or two exceptions, the various strands of Christianity have become ‘intellectual’, a secular force, and no longer focus on forms of feeling.
- The Right Hand/Right Hand Path – the path for normal people, the domesticated animals of the world, who simply go to or create a special place to worship, gives thanks and be blessed in return. They generally follow a predetermined schedule, and the better ones have defined physical practises that lead to a ‘state change’, which usually include forms of feeling, with the gold standard being Islam – there is a good reason for all that repetitive standing up and bending down.
- The Left Hand/Right Hand Path – the priest and prophets of the world, who worship their gods a little harder than most, trying to stay in that state all the time. At the top end of this category are the ones who step into no-mans-land, who ask god to show himself, to change them into a better instrument of his divine will, to develop them a little to better serve. They are the ones who see the signs or hear the voices, the saints and truly ‘righteous’. This is where the highly gifted mainly head in this day and age, given they have some tradition of it in the family, cause its the only thing they can relate to – they don’t know any better. These people not only worship a god, they literally ‘hand themselves over to him’, they gift there whole being to their creator, should you wish to see it that way.
The Left Hand Path – you empower yourself so that, over time, you develop, you build your OWN spiritual power, you don’t give it away. This covers the founders of most religions and their actual authentic teachings but these tantric, secret traditions are not released to the ‘public’. They are passed on behind closed doors to people who are ‘worthy’, as most have no interest in throwing ‘pearls before swine’, but end up getting lost and downgraded overtime. The only decent public teachings that remain are the Indian and Asian ones, particularly Daoism and Shaktism but, in short this is the way of yoga, of meditation, and a massive range of other things you have never heard off. In the west, the pagan cults, eg Celtic Druidism, the practise of magic still exist but they are a side show now, the Christian church has waged a very successful and bloody war against its rivals for centuries, with only Freemasonry really keeping the flag flying, after a fashion.
- The Right Hand/Left Hand Path – these are the seekers who ask a god or prophet to help them develop, in order for them to get better, be more. This is an odd category because its an attempt by seekers who for some reason are blocked and cannot progress to play both sides of the field. There is no worship here, you are very much fixated on yourself, but you no longer believe you can do it by yourself. Many, many seekers fall into this trap in the East Asian traditions, in fact more often than not, and it is often the guru, the leader of your tradition you end up devoting your life to. This is Falun Gong, these are the kings of old who chopped and change religion at the drop of a hat, these are the doomsday cults in western society, the David Koresh’s and his Branch Davidians.
- The Left Hand/Left Hand Path – this is the pure path, the 4th way, the path of real spirituality, without a church or leader, without a god to pray to. This is a total focus on developing yourself, to be spiritual in and for itself, not to serve, not to be blessed by something else, to see it for what it is, to exist in the real world. This is what I’m going to write about, cause its the mother load, everything else above, all the systems associated with those processes are what Zen men call ‘partial’, incomplete.
So, there is NO worshipping in the 4th way, there is no church on the left hand/left hand path, no altars, no need for incense (much as I like incense), no saffron robes, no meditation cushions, no new age predilections, no alternative lifestyles. Go ahead and continue to live like you have always done, and in the future, as you have always wanted too. Do the Ride enough and your life is going to change anyway.
Most importantly – there is no ZONING OUT on the Left Hand path, you NEVER aim to lose yourself in day dream like states, waking hallucinations, deep meditations, and when it happens to you, as it will, you snap out of it as quickly as possible, bring yourself back to you, your primary consciousness. In time you will come to realise that even becoming absorbed in random, unbidden thoughts with an emotional content is a form of zoning out, but leave that until you get there. I will write more on this later but for now Know this is the 4th way, you keep ‘hold of yourself’ on the 4th way, by the practise of Power over yourself. You DO NOT give into yourself, give in to the ‘god’ within you, that is the right hand path, the path of sheep in the flock, and that not you is it, you are nobody’s fool, you are a lion, a wolf, a fox, not fecking livestock.
I emphasis this as zoning out, losing yourself is a particularly common trap that the untrained gifted tend to experience, often through the excessive use of strong stimulants and can be very confusing, given what happens when you do, on the visual trip you are ‘taken’ on. You want the experience of the real world of spirituality all the damn time, not just when you drink ayahuasca. Remember this – the 4th way is characterised by you doing it ‘all the damn time’, not just on Sunday.
Following quickly behind this breakdown comes the basic processes people follow. Much as the actual mechanism of spiritual progress is the same for all, the processes used vary VERY widely. On the right hand path this is easy – just follow the instructions your founder gave you and crack on, should you be lucky enough to still have them, and worship away, go mad for it. I have no further interest in these processes but I will reference them for interest when they crop up, otherwise its bye bye Right hand path, see ya later..
In the left hand path, you have a specific sequence of goals you need to achieve, first and foremost to break the power of your ego and its hold over you so you can start to ‘experience’ the real world of spirituality, usually after an ‘enlightenment’ experience or 2, a ‘satori’, a ‘kensho’ a ‘nirvana’, but they are not necessary, and the ferocity of them is directly related to just how ‘big’ a hold over you your ego has. Many, particularly strongly gifted folks have little more than a succession of ‘moments of clarity’, of a feeling of dropping off the weight of your mind and often barely notice them. However it happens, you need to be free, in your mind, to act differently – your whole psyche is upside down, you, the master has become a slave to ‘yourself’, to your ego, which actually should be carrying out your bidding, your orders.
The rest of the goals, the high end stuff only has meaning after you have done the first one, so they will only appear when relevant on this blog, much as there are a good few of them.
Only thing left to add, to confirm to you, is that if you are gifted, drawn to all this, then the 4th way is the ONLY way forward for you, nothing else is going to work. Indeed, after you own fashion and experience you are already living a very personal version of it, you just don’t have a fecking clue what you are doing, so you are forced to work with what you have got. I’ll do a post about this in the Awful Truth category.
So that’s it for today, hope you are looking forward to the secrets and lessons to come, look forward to chatting more to some of you too. All I would ask is no more comments on the dense nature of what I’m writing – you are gifted are you not, kick it up a notch and try please.
Quote to end as always, this time from a quiet, strange man, who like Churchill changed the course of history – an Anglo-Irishman called Arthur Wellesley.
‘All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I called “guessing what was at the other side of the hill.’ – Duke of Wellington.
Laters..
TOB
