In Liber Al vel Legis, I:26, our Lady Nuit tells the Prophet: “And the sign shall be my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence…”
Most of us, however, only dream of attaining that state of consiousness during incarnation. Tenzin, Gyatso, aka the Dalai Lama, is accepted by many as having done just that and through more than a dozen incarnations at this point.
The Sunday New York Times Magazine published a lengthy feature on the Dalai Lama, that touches on his personal history, his experiences as a temporal and spiritual leader and the vast changes in his mission he’s proposed and has been putting into action in the past few years.
Aleister Crowley, of course, studied Buddhism and self-identified as a Buddhist for many years and Thelemic philosophy and magical practices still show significant Buddhist influence.
“Indeed, even as he seems the paragon of saintly forgiveness, he advances a claim to ordinariness. ‘‘I am a human being like any other,’ I heard him repeat in several public appearances over the last year. In Tibet, he told me, too many superstitious beliefs had overlaid Buddhism’s commitment to empirically investigate the workings of the mind. Tibetans believed that he ‘had some kind of miracle power,’ he said. ‘Nonsense!’ he thundered. ‘If I am a living god, then how come I can’t cure my bad knee?'”
Which certain seems to harmonize with the aims of “Scientific Illuminsim”
“He embodies an ancient spiritual and philosophical tradition that enjoins a suspicion of the individual self and its desires, and stresses ethical duties over political and economic rights.”
“Today, the man who in old photos of Tibet can be seen enacting religious rites wearing a conical yellow hat — in front of thangkas, or scrolls, swarming with scowling monsters and copulating deities — speaks of going ‘beyond religion’ and embracing ‘secular ethics’: principles of selflessness and compassion rooted in the fundamental Buddhist notion of interconnectedness.”
Which resonates nicely with Nuit’s command:
“Since I am Infinite Space and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus. Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing: for thereby there cometh hurt.”
Of course, part of the Great Work we’re pursuing is based embracing opposites…
“He often informs conservative audiences in America, ‘I am Marxist’ (and he is one — at least in his critique of inequality). He has also declared himself a true jihadi in his everyday struggle against ‘destructive emotions.’ In Washington this February, he told a startled group of American Muslims that ‘George Bush is my friend,’ before revealing that he wrote to him immediately after 9/11 pleading for a measured response and later chided him for prolonging the cycle of violence.”
I’m sure you’ll find many interesting points to ponder if ye read the whole thing:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/the-last-dalai-lama.html?_r=0
