The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

ON THE IDEA OF ‘DISCIPLINE’
he likes, but he does not do so. If his mind does not consciously disturb the
play of his tendencies, it disturbs them subconsciously. If there is no
conscious opposition to the tendencies, if there is apparent composition of the
tendencies, this apparent composition masks to a great extent a subconscious
opposition. This man has not a theoretical, conscious 'ideal', but he has a
practical, subconscious one. From the fact that his tendencies have procured
him affirmations or negations, practical judgments are pronounced in him on
these tendencies, approving or condemning them. The man necessarily sees a
certain relation of causality between his tendencies and their practical results;
his attachment to the results necessarily carries with it a partiality for or
against his tendencies, that is a secondary tendency to control his primary
tendencies. Even the man who appears to struggle only to control the outside
world conceals an inner struggle under the tyranny of his practical 'ideal'.
What takes place in this man is more complex than what takes place
within the partisan of 'will-power'. For the partisan of 'will-power' the inner
control is visible all the time, for a conscious examination of the tendencies
presides as much over their authorisation as over their repression. In fact, for
this man, a tendency is never merely authorised; if it is not repressed it is
activated by the secondary controlling tendency. In the man who,
consciously, only struggles against the outer world, the inner control is only
perceptible in its repressive aspect. When the controlling tendency does not
repress a primary tendency it does not activate it either, it lets it work; it
disappears itself. The mechanisms of this man enjoy from time to time a
certain spontaneity.
In short, the man who performs no conscious inner task does not let-go
on that account. Impartiality does not reign in his inner world. Even this
relative spontaneity that we have just seen is not a real spontaneity. When I
act impulsively my subconscious attitude in face of the inner world of my
tendencies, of my Self, is not a 'Yes' said to the totality of that world; it is a
'Yes' spoken to the only tendency which is acting, but a preferential 'Yes'
which is accompanied by a 'No' said to all the rest of my 'Selves', that is to
say it is a 'No' said to my machine-as-a-totality.
What should one think now of the method which consists in
supervising all my tendencies but in consciously approving the present
tendency? It is the attitude at which the man logically arrives who, after
having cherished in the past a conscious 'ideal', or several, has completed the
task of comprehension which devalorises every ideal. This man understands
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