The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

OBEDIENCE TO THE NATURE OF THINGS
with his imaginative mind, he does not think that he is anything more.
Everything happens as though he said to himself: 'Who would work for me
except myself?' And not seeing in himself any other self than his imaginative
mind and the sentiments and actions which depend on it, he turns to this mind
to rid himself of distress. When one only sees a single means of salvation,
one believes in it because necessarily one wishes to believe in it.
However, if I look at the life of my body I observe that all kinds of
marvellous operations are performed spontaneously in it without the
concourse of that which I call 'me'. My body is maintained by processes
whose ingenious complexity surpasses all imagination. After being wounded,
it heals itself. By what? By whom? The idea is forced upon me of a Principle,
tireless and friendly, which unceasingly creates me on its own initiative.
My organs appeared and developed spontaneously. My mediate
dualistic understanding appeared and developed spontaneously. Could not my
immediate understanding, non-dualistic, appear spontaneously? Zen replies
affirmatively to this question. For Zen the normal spontaneous evolution of
man results in satori. The Principle works unceasingly in me in the direction
of the opening of satori (as this same Principle works in the bulb of the tulip
towards the opening of its flower). But my imaginative activity counteracts
this profound genesis; it wastes by degrees the energy generated by the
Principle, which otherwise would accumulate until the explosion of satori. As
an old Zen master said: 'What conceals Realisation? Nothing but myself.' I do
not know that my essential wish—to escape from the dualistic illusion,
generator of anguish—is in process of being realised in me by something
other than my personal 'me'; I do not believe that I can count on anyone but
on myself: I believe myself therefore obliged to do something. I take fright in
believing myself alone, abandoned by all; necessarily then I am uneasy and
my agitation neutralises by degrees the beneficial work of my deeper self.
Zen expresses that in saying: 'Not knowing how near the Truth is, people
look for it far away.... what a pity!'
This manner of thwarting the profound spontaneous process of
construction is the work of mechanical reflexes. It operates automatically
when I am not disposed to have faith in my invisible Principle and in its
liberating task. In other words, the profound spontaneous process of
construction only makes progress in me in the degree in which I am disposed
to have faith in my Principle and in the spontaneity, always actual, of its
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