The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

THE EXISTENTIALISM OF ZEN
Zen literature contains, among many others, a remarkable little parable:
'Once upon a time there was a man standing on a high hill. Three travellers,
passing in the distance, noticed him and began to argue about him. One said:
"He has probably lost his favourite animal." Another said: "No, he is
probably looking for his friend." The third said: "He is up there only in order
to enjoy the fresh air." The three travellers could not agree and continued to
argue right up to the moment when they arrived at the top of the hill. One of
them asked: "O friend, standing on this hill, have you not lost your favourite
animal?" "No, Sir, I have not lost him." The other asked: "Have you not lost
your friend?" "No, Sir, I have not lost my friend either." The third traveller
asked: "Are you not here in order to enjoy the fresh air?" "No, Sir." "What
then are you doing here, since you answer 'No' to all our questions?" The man
on the hill replied: "I am just standing."'
Reading this, the natural man will think in general that 'to be just
standing' has no meaning. 'This man on the hill is an idiot,' he will say to
himself, 'since he is doing nothing'. (That is to say, since he is not seeking
there any egotistical affirmation. One remembers the ironical phrase of
Rimbaud: 'L'action, ce cher point du monde!')
'Exist' comes from ex sistere, 'to stand outside of', outside the immanent
and transcendent Principle of all that exists; existing is the manifestation
which emanates (centrifugal impulse) from the Original Being. To exist is
dualist, it is positive through 'sistere' and negative through 'ex'. Therefore
man feels himself to be therein both well and ill: he possesses something
there and he lacks something. The situation in the state of existence
necessarily comports, then, a tendency to complete itself, to fill up the void,
to neutralise 'ex' by obtaining the consciousness of the Principle from which
existing man emanates. But the human intellect develops progressively in
such a manner that it is capable of procuring for itself the illusory, and always
provisional, appeasement of the egotistical affirmation before being able to
feel the fullness of the 'sistere', that is to say before being able to feel that
emanation of the Principle, he is bound to the Principle by a direct filiation
which confers on him the very nature of the Principle with its infinite
prerogatives. When his intellect arrives at the stage of development at which
man can be conscious of his identity with the Principle, this man has already
firmly crystallised in his mentality the fascination of the egotistical
affirmation; turned towards this affirmation which is the ersatz of the 'sistere'
and which, because ersatz, cannot neutralise the 'ex', he turns his back on the
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