Mohz on Fri Oct 12, 2012 12:29 am

The mind of "already accomplished" pt 1



A mind that is "already accomplished" is in a state of refined gnosis that has fused with every action of the practicioner in daily life. It means that in every moment that this mind-state is maintained, experiential insight transmutes into a strange combination of intense joyful abandon and incredible accuracy in the use of innate talents, as every aspect of reality reflects the internally projected state of accomplishment. The potential is a life of 24/7 flow and ease: When there are no obstructions to the natural flow of the magick practicioner, there is no need to engage any specific method of intention or thought, yet magickal faculties, deep insights and material satisfactions come about regardless. This means that no effort, method or ritual is necessary apart from the discipline of unlocking and maintaining the state itself.



Practicing it is hard and requires 100% dedication, but the fruits should be obvious from day 1 and eventually lead to enough motivation to keep it up.



In short, the practice of this state is a continual deepening of the mindset that you are already fully accomplished and have nothing further to do in order to complete or validate yourself. As a result of applying the mindset in action, difficulties and obstructions dissipate without effort. You can and should use this state for anything and everything you could possibly want to do. As good as that sounds, there are many, many difficulties and subtle nuances in the matter of this practice. I am going to try and cover as many of those as I can in this thread.



First of all, the statement that the mind should already be convinced of its accomplishment in order to unlock its abilities is a classic double-bind. It's just like the other ones; you have to stop seeking to find it, you have to believe it to see it, and so on.



To the unexperienced, a statement like that is mostly pretty meaningless and unhelpful. To the more initiated, it can be a typical example of a powerful ally and foe at the same time; a riddle. To some, it is a demonstration of the only necessary spiritual tool to carry with you.



But it is a gate and a riddle. I cannot describe a method that will take care of things for you instantly and make sense of the paradox. It doesn't work like that. To pass the riddle does not mean just coming up with an intellectual answer through a method, but having a concrete experience of something that settles the very core of doubt. The statement is my symbol of the realm of the unusual, we can call it magick, spirit, energy, mind, whatever. But this is where we begin, with questions and riddles. Think about that for a moment. That is where we began very long ago. That is where you began. All of life is a matter of great questions and riddles, one big whooping unknown. Do we slay our demons one at a time to develop the bigger view, or do we go right for the Big Dragon in the hope that it will take all the rest with it? How crazy can these riddles drive us? Just how do we approach life?



In the world of magick, it's pretty standard to begin with simple experiments like Sigils. If you haven't even done sigils, just do a simple one. It takes no effort. Do it and then forget about it. This is not about whether you get a result or not. It's about whether you can apply yourself to a strange ritual. Can you give yourself up, momentarily, for something that you'd usually consider silly and unusual? Isn't that quite a challenge? Where are your limits? Why are they there?



But this is the point of my riddle. It is not about intellectual understanding, it is a matter of raw experience, the core essence of one's interaction with existence itself. Everybody knows that if we want to actively change our experience, we have to do something. When that change reaches beyond our scope, our only hope is heading right into the unusual and unfamiliar with absolutely no guarantee. A good occult practice is in its essence a matter of thriving in that environment.



It seems everybody's got their own definition, but I'd say that fundamental magick practice begins when you realize that something as simple as a Sigil works. I'd like to say that Chaos magick begins when you realize that you don't even need a Sigil for it to work. Just that one special action, that one moment of focused output, be it in thought or feeling or action, will result in something very strange. It is extremely difficult to do such a simple act properly and that is the point of rituals. Rituals provide us with a focal point to get rid of that judgmental inhibitory thinking, which allows the magickal effect to transpire precisely because we get rid of the obstruction by the ritual itself. Is it then true that the more crazy, the more extravagant the ritual is, the better the result will be?



My approach has nothing to do with rituals. It attacks the root of the problem: Fear, uncertainty and doubt. As it applies to virtually every aspect of our lives, I am not going to prioritize any specific type of occult practice here even though I might mention a few. It means something much bigger.



Many of the implications around occult practice suggest a very difficult statement: All obstacles are self-created. There is a way to do it right, and if you aren't doing it that way, you won't get that result. You're either too stupid to do it right, you just haven't found the right way to do it, or maybe it just doesn't work. This can set off a very long line of questions and doubts. Sensible individuals can just decide that if something doesn't work, it's not for them, but for some people, it's not that simple.



If you go a bit deeper, that difficult statement becomes more defined: If you can't do it, it's because you don't believe in it or yourself. If you are able to conjure up that special state of mind that nobody can describe or give to you, you will have no problem.



But how does that help us deal with our obstacles? What do we do if we aren't able to conjure up that "special state of mind"?



I can probably only speak for myself, but the common reaction seems to be to try vastly different methods and learn as much as possible in the head to make it happen. We can then begin to flay ourselves with strenuous practices and rituals, and this process can go on forever. There is literally no end to it. You can start another type of practice, and fail at that just the same. And because there are so many interesting things to do out there, we can go through our whole lives just trying different things out. Just sampling. I'm not saying that's too bad, you might not want to get too involved with this thing called living. But if it's not enough to just try, this is why I'm writing this. I have been in that camp many, many times, and it quickly gets very boring!



The reason I find magick so interesting is because it can completely reveal how we deal with daily life: What I found out when I analyzed the difficulties of my practice was that no matter what I wanted to do, I had questions about doing it, specifically, doing it right. The sole reason I had the questions was because I didn't think I was able to do it, and because I didn't think I was able to do it, I wouldn't actually do it. Whenever I thought I did it, I didn't really do it because reality proved that I didn't. This compounded the doubt because I realized that I couldn't even believe my own thinking that I could do it. You can apply that to just about every activity you can imagine, occult and ordinary.



This is why this state of "already accomplished" is very difficult to achieve and easy to misunderstand. It is not a mantra, a thought or a method. It is a direct and powerful experience that does away with the need to even think about it. You can't think yourself into accomplishing something. You have to do it without question. Being able to understand what this "do it" actually involves, and getting there, no matter if one begins with a mind full of confusion and doubt, is what this thread is about.



An important breaking point that I eventually experienced was the insight that the questioning of my own ability wasn't spurred by a question, but by an underlying conviction that I was unable to do it right. I didn't question because I didn't know how, I questioned because I was certain I didn't know how - it was unfamiliar to me. This didn't help me one bit at first, but it halted the rampant search for another method or way of approach, because I finally had to admit to myself that if there is a problem, it has to be in here. Realizing this is about the most important aspect of developing an occult practice, because now you have something to build a foundation upon: Your own sorry ass.



The Idea of a Path



This is a matter of opinion but I'd say there are no paths, really. There is no big end goal. It goes on forever and you're just here for the show. If you like to think that you're going through stages or leveling up, that's your own game. Life doesn't work like that. It's a cyclical hula-hoop rollercoaster of weird twists and bends, and when you find yourself just right, you might find yourself just where you started. You might also find yourself being somewhere and being someone completely different. You might have everything down one day, and the next you will once again find yourself at the mercy of your own incompetence and the world's indifference. And then there's the bit where you go away and don't return and can't take any of those precious levels with you.



I think that any path that can start with that kind of self-deprecating and relaxed attitude is good enough to end with it. That is my idea of a path. One that begins and ends every day. It doesn't have to be very special. It's often not until many years after the fact that we realize we have been on a kind of path, and that our difficulties pointed to something important that we didn't see in retrospect. But our realization was the point of the path, the learning was the point of it, the experience of not knowing and then knowing. Knowing from the start wouldn't have been fun. But that's just the beginning. Then there's something new and inspiring, just right for who we are at the time. So don't be anxious to reach an end goal, because there isn't one. There isn't a next stage. The next stage is when you drop off all crutches, all ideas of attaining something, and start finding out who the fuck you are right now in the first place.



The problem with establishing a path that involves an imaginary end goal is the same problem with magick in the first place: nothing, no matter how big the attainment is, ever sticks with you as a guarantee. There is no reason you shouldn't be able to drastically change your reality in the next second, but there is no reason that should stick even throughout that one second. Anything else would rule out the complex dynamics of change and individual choice. You might be able to completely understand what I'm talking about while you're sitting and meditating on your own, but what happens when you do something unfamiliar and unsafe? What happens when you experience pain and disappointment?



But this is the good thing about chaos. It means that nothing is final and we are always beginners of the moment. What we think of as being stuck is just an autonomous habit of resuming an attitude that we don't want. Why do we get stuck? Because the familiar, no matter how uncomfortable it is, might be better than the unfamiliar to a doubtful mind. So in order to get un-stuck, we must brace the unfamiliar.



I'm writing this both for beginners and the advanced in mind. In order to be well-prepared, we have to become beginners every day. I don't care how much of a grandmaster of sorcery you think you are, you have to become a beginner every single day or that type of thinking is going to result in serious stagnation. It is a natural law. Every time we build up a character of ourselves, we put up a charade that usually creates more obstacles than we need. You just are what you are, you know?



The Foundations of Practice



In the ordinary world, practice is a very boring word. Sure, it makes perfect, but it takes alot of time and effort: It's only that boring grind before you get what really matters. In the occult, practice is an amazing word. It's about the only thing that matters, you. Practicing being you, practicing mistakes, practicing success. Correct practice brings instant results. Being attentive to who you are and what you want is what constitutes practice, so it is a matter of being attentive in the correct way.



What elements do we need in this practice to make it a kind of foundation? That depends completely on who's asking. What do you want to get out of life? What you want, what intrigues and inspires you are the elements that you want to bring into your foundation. The problem with a bad foundation is that the result will always be that you are dissatisfied, while at the same time, you are not even remotely involving yourself with what you want.



Within the world of the occult, building a foundation usually means a great deal of mind training.



I can say that it's not very difficult, once you get the hang of it, to let loose in the privacy of your mind and believe that you're invoking Satan's butthole while flying across the Ultraverse in a doghouse, even though reality shows all signs of the contrary. It's possible that some people think this is what magick is about. It's fun for a while, but it's clumsy and ineffective. There's an art to the power of mind, an art of experiencing the depths of it, of maintaining stability and experiencing concrete results. It is incredibly difficult to pull off greater occult feats, which require that kind of self-knowledge that the mind training brings. Additionally, I believe that any reasonable practicioner needs to have one foot on solid ground, in ordinary life, and both worlds reflect eachother. Otherwise there's the risk that you're going to start invoking Satan's butthole in the mall. No, not really. But one should remain perfectly capable of ordinary matters while practicing, and that is why mind training is so imperative.



If you can appreciate this, you can safely disregard the big deal with going insane or wreaking serious havoc in your life. All the proposed dangers of occult practice are results of approaching it in the completely wrong way, due to conditioned negative thinking and failures in self-observation. Here, we are going to deal with that type of thinking first and continue with it as a subset of our magick practice.



Mind training usually begins with some type of very simple concentration practice or meditation. I practice meditation every day and I can only heartily recommend it. It wasn't easy for me in the beginning, and I'm going to bring it up later as separate topic. But basically, the practice of training the mind into remaining effortlessly focused on one thing only opens up your mental periphery to such a degree that every aspect of reality becomes utterly transparent on a level beyond the normal. This is where we enter into the realm of Gnosis, which is related to that special state I talked about earlier.



Any type of concentration practice will do. Anything. Focusing on a candle, a small object, a mental visualization is a good way to start. Or just have a seat and follow your breath. Try anything and everything, for as long or as short as you'd like. I prefer to meditate with my eyes open facing a wall, in silence and in a posture that keeps me awake on the floor, but my idea is that one should be able to concentrate in all situations; with music, unwanted noise, in a certain posture and no certain posture. Flexibility is key, but the most important ingredient is consistency. You have to do something every single day. The real effectiveness of mind training comes when one can invoke this concentration practice in almost every moment of the day, when the line between being acutely aware and perfectly relaxed starts to blur. This is intimately connected with the effectiveness of magickal endeavors - it all comes together in this practice of mind training.



So, it is not only necessary to train the mind to be able to adjust for spiritually and mentally engaging tasks such as an act of magick or astral projection, but also to remain stable and perfectly able to deal with all ordinary situations in reality. When this is obvious, we can begin to apply ourselves in order to experience the mind-state of "already accomplished" and just how effective it is...