The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

THE IDOLATRY OF ‘SALVATION’
believe in him still. They imagine their satori, and themselves after their
satori, and that is their personal God, a coercive idol, disquieting, implacable.
They must realise themselves, they must liberate themselves, they are
terrified at the thought of not being able to get there, and they are elated by
any inner phenomenon which gives them hope. There is 'spiritual ambition' in
all this which is necessarily accompanied by the absurd idea of the Superman
that they should become, with a demand for this becoming, and distress.
This error entails, in a fatally logical manner, the need to teach others.
Our attitude towards others is modeled on our attitude towards ourselves. If I
believe that I must achieve my 'salvation' I cannot avoid believing that I must
lead others to do the same. If the relative truth that I possess is associated in
me with a duty to live this truth-duty depending on an idolatry, conscious or
otherwise—the thought necessarily comes to me that it is my duty to
communicate my truth to others. At the most this results in the Inquisition
and the Dragonnades; at the least those innumerable sects, great and small,
which throughout the whole of History, have striven to influence the mind of
men who never questioned them, of men who asked nothing of them.
The refutation of this error that we are here studying is perfectly
expounded in Zen, and as far as we know, nowhere perfectly but there. Zen
tells man that he is free now, that no chain exists which he needs to throw off;
he has only the illusion of chains. Man will enjoy his freedom as soon as he
ceases to believe that he needs to free himself, as soon as he throws from his
shoulders the terrible duty of salvation. Zen demonstrates the nullity of all
belief in a personal God, and the deplorable constraint that necessarily flows
from this belief. It says: 'Do not put any head above your own'; it says also:
'Search not for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.'
Why then, some will say, should man strive to attain satori? To put
such a question is to suppose absurdly that man cannot struggle towards
satori except under the compulsion of a duty. Satori represents the end of this
distress which is actually at the centre of one's whole psychic life and in
which one's joys are only truces; is it intelligent to ask me why I strive to
obtain this complete and final relief? If anyone persists in asking I reply:
'Because my life will be so much more agreeable afterwards.' And, if my
understanding is right, I am not afraid that death may come, today or
tomorrow, to interrupt my efforts before their attainment. Since the problem
of my suffering ends with me, why should I worry myself because I am
unable to resolve it?
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