Equilibrium and Indifference

The way of mental development is always a Way of revealing and subsequently neutralizing dualities, balancing and integrating the biners.

Accordingly, every step in the expansion of the mind, every new awareness can be viewed as a composite of three acts: 1) the revelation of a biner; 2) the search for ways in which its poles reflect one another; and 3) the neutralization of the biner. At the level of action this appears as the familiar three steps of problem-solving: see the problem, understand its causes, remove the problem by neutralizing its causes.

In any case, the action of the mind is threefold, and includes three principles — active, passive, and neutral.

Each element of this process has its own character and its own difficulties.

However, while the first two phases or two forces are usually more or less self-evident, complications very often arise with the process of neutralization.

These dangers take two forms.

The first pitfall is that often, when people speak of “going beyond duality”, they somehow mean that one must accept one pole of the duality and deny or ignore the other. Since each pole of a biner contains within it a reflection of the opposite pole, an illusion of “neutralization” arises: the accepted pole is “balanced” by the reflection of the other pole within it, and they equate with the opposite pole. It is well known that people dislike engaging with other people, preferring to form relationships only with images of those people created in the mind (without making any real effort to make the image correspond closely to the prototype), and they are deeply hurt and offended when they discover discrepancies between the real person’s actions and the scenario devised for the image. Denial of the problem is, in general, people’s favourite way of dealing with it.

Another manifestation of the same pitfall is the drive for “absolute protection”, isolation from all harmful influences, which leads to closing opportunities for mental growth and transformation. It is no secret that any protective amulet is simultaneously a brake on development, because it is impossible to expand the mind by cancelling, denying, or blocking some elements while trying to perfect others. Protection should not be merely external; it is effective only if rooted internally, and it must alternate with forays into the dark, into unknown regions that are always full of danger, but only there do new Gates open. It is impossible to develop effectively by locking oneself in a safe and cozy but cramped fortress.

The second pitfall shows itself in replacing the neutralization of a biner with its potentialization. This refers to the situation where harmony is merely proclaimed but not actually achieved. In other words, the biner is neutralized only theoretically, remaining even improperly revealed, and therefore less processed. For example, the world may be unconditionally declared “beautiful” or “perfect“, “good” and “evil”, and indeed the multiplicity of its manifestations ignored, while the being fancies itself very wise and enlightened.

We have already noted how often, in travelers’ minds, the notion of equality is replaced by indifference, and the state of equilibrium by barren apathy. In general, indifference — the absence of inner intensity, the absence of life in the mind itself — is no less a problem or obstacle than possession or destruction. The real situation is that most travelers lose their way, stray from the Way precisely by falling into the trap of indifference, rather than under the influence of greed or anger. For the Magus’s heart, the danger of cooling is more real than the danger of burning in the furnace of passions.

A successful Magus never in any situation withdraws from the reality of his being. A Magus always is, always is present; and as he advances along the Way this presence becomes ever less personal, although all the more individual. Yes, he is open to all winds and all dangers; he stands in the midst of the battlefield, yet he does not turn away or hide, for only by realizing all that must be realized and awakening all that can be awakened can the Magus attain his Great Perfection.