The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

THE COMPENSATIONS
unstable equilibrium, and this equilibrium is conditioned by the
compensations. Therefore he should not totally pass beyond the
compensations before satori, for satori alone constitutes this complete
passing-beyond. But before the transformation (passing beyond form) which
represents an inner event that is unique and instantaneous, there are produced
in the human-being modifications and changes of form. These changes reveal
the progressive elaboration of the inner conditions necessary for satori, and it
is in this sense that we will speak of passing-beyond compensations as a
progressive process. An illustration will make this point clear. It is said that
the fox, when he wants to rid himself of his fleas, seizes a piece of moss in
his mouth and enters the water backwards; the fleas leave the parts that are
immersed and take refuge on that which still remains above water. Little by
little the fox carries his fleas on an ever smaller part of his body, but this
reduced surface is ever more and more infested with fleas. Ultimately all the
fleas are concentrated on his muzzle, then on the piece of moss, which the
fox then lets go into the flowing stream. Up to the instant at which the fox
abandons the totality of his fleas he is not freed from a single one of them;
nevertheless a certain process has modified the distribution of the parasites
and prepared their complete and instantaneous disappearance.
Progressively passing beyond the compensations, thus understood as a
reduction of extent and an increase of intensity, corresponds to a purification
of the compensating image which evolves from the particular towards the
general. All compensation being an image of the Universe centred by my
Ego—a constellation of which the Ego is the central star and certain images
the satellites—the purifying process of which we speak consists in the
satellites becoming more and more subtle, whereas the central star increases
in density. But then occurs something very particular which no illustration
can demonstrate: the Ego having no reality, either absolute or relative, the
density which accumulates there remains without any manifestation.
Progressive detachment is a purification of that attachment to oneself which
is at the centre of all attachments in general; but this central attachment to an
illusory hypothetical image can purify itself and condense itself again and
again without manifesting itself by anything perceptible. When St. John of
the Cross passes beyond his mystical compensation, when he detaches
himself from the image of 'God' after this image has been as far as possible
rendered impersonal, he does not feel attached to the image 'Ego' from which
the image 'God' drew its apparent Reality; he does not feel attached to
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