(Continued from Part three on Sun in Gemini)

The spiritual, stripped of the trappings of religion, is a search for the real. We may protest that we already live lives that are real. It is one of the hardest and yet most profound jobs of a magical or mystical school, such as the Silent Eye, to show, as gently as possible, that this is not true…

The real is what is in front of us, but the way we see that is conditioned by our lives to that point. Young children see what is. They live in the real, but, other than see they can do nothing with it, because the slow climb to adulthood and outward ability is ahead of them. The conditioning, which is an essential part of all our lives begins then, when the first reactions to life are felt – often very vividly. A process begins in the infant soul; a process that develops a psychological self-for-the-world.

By the time we achieve adulthood, this self-for-the-world has crystallised into a largely mechanical set of beliefs and opinions. This hard shell, completely necessary for our survival and success in society, is what prevents us seeing what is in front of us – the real. But the process is, thankfully, reversible, in the sense that, when the climb to success loses its sparkle, and we long for something lost and deeper, our adult self can gather enough resolve and personal power to use where it is as the fuel and map for the journey back…

Continue reading at The Silent Eye