The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

Chapter Twenty-One
ON THE IDEA OF ‘DISCIPLINE’
O
UR reflections, in the light of Zen, have enabled us to understand that
there cannot be recipes for the attainment of Realisation. No
systematic manner of living can release the synthesis of all possible
manners of living; no conscious activity can reintegrate us in the original
Unconscious. No training, no discipline comprising a struggle can make us
pass beyond the dualism in which such struggle takes place. And we arrive
thus at the conclusion that understanding alone can dissipate our present
illusion and obtain satori for us.
Besides, we understand that the explosion of satori supposes the
accumulation in us of energy, which is not disintegrated and that this
accumulation supposes, in its turn, not only theoretical understanding but the
practical utilisation of this understanding in a very special activity of our
attention. Thus we see that, if nothing else but understanding can obtain
satori for us, this understanding should not be realised under the single aspect
of a directing theory but also under the aspect of inner phenomena which
actualise in a practical manner this theory. These phenomena could not be
correctly produced without the understanding of which they are a simple
practical prolongation—and this is why they do not constitute a recipe for
realisation sufficient in itself—but they constitute nevertheless a certain
practical inner task, in the course of life, distinct from the abstract vision
obtained during moments of retreat within the ivory tower of the intellect.
We reach thus two certitudes that are apparently contradictory. On the
one hand no intervention methodically imposed upon our way of living, on
our phenomena external or internal, can be effective in obtaining satori; on
the other hand obtaining satori necessarily implies a practical inner task in the
course of our daily life. We have arrived at these two certitudes by different
routes, but these routes have both left us with the impression of evidence
which makes us believe that the idea is true.
Every contradiction of this kind is for us an occasion for a precious
deepening of our understanding; it pushes us towards the discovery of a
192