The Fool
Everyone knows the tarot card called the fool. The fool is the one who starts his journey, his adventure, with good mood, with an airy temperament. His airy state makes him feel carefree. No doubts, no fears, no critical thoughts but the lightness to take his stuff and start wandering the path which lies in front of him. The carelessness is a typical characteristic of the fool. He has no burdens, nothing holding him back. He just enjoys the sunshine. He is in a cheerful state.
Probably all adventures start in this way and it can remind us of the hobbit who starts his journey to help the dwarfs getting back their kingdom. It is the innocence, the complete lack of knowledge what is waiting, what tests need to be passed, what dramas and pains must be taken but also what gifts will be received.
The innocence of the fool can be the guarantee for fortune, but it can also easily be the doom. Being unprepared for an adventure is not the best start and can lead to a sudden end before it really beings.
Now, when we think about the spiritual path and adventure, the long journey into the unknown, then we meet the fool at the start again.
You might have heard and read a lot of stories about the spiritual journey, but this does not prepare you. You can also be a professor, a doctor, a scientist or whatever and you are not prepared. At the start of the spiritual journey all are equal, all are fools.
And the biggest fools are those who believe that they know what will come. The second big fools are those who believe that their title or position in society helps them in anyway.
So, at the start all are fools, innocent, ignorant, with different ideas in their heads, trusting in their fortune.
Quite early on the path, they all meet the gate to initiation. This gate can be passed only completely naked and so they have to leave behind all what they perceived as important in their lives. Money, property, title, position, education, human skills and characteristics, – nothing matters on the path and nothing passes the gate. Behind the gate completely different values count. Your heart will be scaled. Your soul be checked on impurities and imbalances. Your karma account is checked. Your aims and idols are checked. Your motivation and will to take the burdens of development are proved. And so on.
And you will meet the truth sitting on throne, laughing about your limited ideas, asking you in the end if you are willing to accept it in its purest nature.
By walking the path and undergoing all kinds of adventures and initiations, you develop yourself to the magician who symbolizes the opposite of the fool.
In conclusion, it doesn´t matter what you think, what you believe, what kind of desires or intentions you have. It doesn´t matter who you are in the human society, which position you have and what you believe about yourself. The path of initiation does not care about all these things as they have only human values which play no role at all for the spiritual journey. Truth does not care about your beliefs or wishes. Truth does not discuss your opinions. Truth or reality is omnipotent and makes you only one offer, – to accept and integrate it or to stay ignorant. And this is very important to understand for all spiritual seekers, independent from your self-perception, you are simply a fool at the start of the journey. The earlier you understand this in the appropriate humbleness, the earlier you can cast off all the human stuff to pass naked the gate to initiation.
In fact, it is a trap and a big obstacle to stick too long to all the human illusions about yourself and the path. Free yourself and become the empty chalice, the naked one and open yourself for the truth, for reality.
These things are the reason why initiates talk about “mysteries” and secrets which cannot be revealed to the profane. The profane simply cannot understand them. Give a profane a spiritual pearl and he will think it is a stone without value. Give a profane a spiritual stone and he might believe that it is gold in the human world.
The ego of the spiritual seeker produces all kinds of illusions which makes it hard to perceive reality as it is. Don´t stay trapped in your own illusions, free yourself, become naked and humble, open your eyes for the beauty of truth. Accept that you are an ignorant fool at the beginning, on the way to become a true magician.
Unfortunately, most seekers are so driven by their egos that they do not realize who ignorant they really are. And this makes it hard for them to take advice or to follow the true light. Many take their opinions in higher value and then wonder when they get lost.
Hello Ray … interesting perspective, I’m a new Fool, I’m barely in Step 1 of IIH, but I also practice other systems and books, I do not have much experience and I’m not iluminated, I do notbelieve much in the “iluminated” all they want to impose their own “truth” by denying all the others …
I just look for happiness, achieving my mundane and magical goals and objectives, I do not seek spiritual ideals, but I do seek to refine my ego, at least to a certain extent, and that’s why I am a little concerned about your affirmation about not valuing my own goals and objectives or my own perspective, I understand that without a certain level and understanding one could be wrong in some things but…
I am very impressed by its publication, and from the point of view of a fool novice and ignorant as I am, that Truth seems quite totalitarian, “or you accept or lose”
It reminds me of some religious sect where they try to impose a truth under the excuse that the beginner can not understand by not being in this or that situation, that he must go through a process to accept that Truth and only when he accepts it, he can understand, but it is only a brainwashing, when they brainwash you any “Truth” they impose on you will be legitimate…
perhaps one is forced in the end to accept a “Truth” without having another positive exit?
Bardon’s system could be used to go the way you want?
I had hoped that the Middle Way Bardon talked about was freer, not only do what one believes to be right, but, be free to do whatever it is, nor do I speak of destroying everything at the pace, but of being more free in whatever, taking the good and other things from each path LHP and RHP (as examples)
Happy New Year
I wish you the best of the universe ✌
There is absolute truth and relative truth. Absolute truth is pure reality and does not care if one likes it or not or if one´s opinion agrees with it. Relative truth is the opinion of people about the world, etc. So there are countless individual truths, – things people believe. The relative truth can change easily by new insights, etc.
Absolute truth is far away from any brainwashing or dogmas. It doesn´t care about these things.
Let´s take an example. Let´s imagine there is a person interested in martial arts, in Ninjutsu. This person looks nice movies where Ninjas “work” and this person reads nice books about Ninjutsu. Doing so, the person believes that it knows a lot or maybe everything about Ninjutsu. In reality, this person works only on the intellectual level with questionable information. Only if this person becomes a master in Ninjutsu, it is really initiated and has real experience, real understanding. We see here the difference between the fool “who knows so much” and the reality where only the master knows.
Today, most people don´t take the practical way of making own experiences, undergoing a process of transformation. People prefer “intellectual” discussions with an entertaining effect and then they believe they truly know something. Fools in this regard appear in countless numbers, especially on FaceBook and in the internet.
After all it is a part of creation and how life works. But it is more useful to understand the real degree of knowledge that one has instead of wasting precious time with ego feeding discussions.
Happy New Year to you too, with all the best wishes!
Ray