The Supreme Doctrine - neo-alchemist

THE FIVE MODES OF THOUGHT
mode is the highest. The non-human animal is incapable of satori because he
only possesses the first four modes of thought, and not the fifth. Abstract
meditative thought is necessary in order to understand the vanity of all the
direct efforts that man can make in order to satisfy fully and definitely the
aspirations of his nature. This thought alone is capable of conceiving other
new methods in view of this satisfaction, then to realise that these methods
also are vain, and to succeed at last, after a long process of elimination, in
reaching the heart of the problem.
But the primacy of meditative thought only applies to this preparatory
phase of the acquisition of theoretical understanding. If we suppose now that
the man has discovered the inner conditions which, by establishing
themselves and growing within him, are ultimately going to lay him open to
the explosion of satori, this man has at the same time discovered that none of
his five modes of thought constitutes by itself these necessary inner
conditions. He has understood that for this final phase of the inner labour the
five modes of thought are equally ineffective; dreamless sleep is inefficacious
because the Not-Self is absent from it; and the four following modes of
thought are ineffective because, as soon as the mind works in order to take
hold of reality, this formative instrument separates man from any immediate
union with Informal Reality.
The condition necessary for the release of satori consists in a perception
that we are going to try to demonstrate, and which is not natural or
spontaneous in the ordinary man as are his five modes of thought.
In order to succeed in our attempt we shall have to make a few
digressions. Let us study, to begin with, the circumstances of a certain
psychological phenomenon which no doubt a good many men have
experienced. One day, comfortably installed, I am in process of reading a
book which takes up my attention without in any way reminding me of the
preoccupations of this period of my life; I do not identify myself with any of
the heroes of my book and I follow their adventures as a completely detached
spectator. With regard to my personal life I am enjoying an absolute truce,
my fears and my hopes have been expelled from my mind; the discourse
represented by my book is, in my mind, purely a monologue, without any
other voice intervening either to comment upon it or to interrupt it with
reflections concerning my cares or my personal hopes. My body, very
comfortable, does not send to my mind any message to trouble it and
everything runs smoothly in me. Then the attention, already so slight and
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