Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- The Voyage into Night
- 1 Ariel
- 2 The Serpent
- 3 The Hidden Continents
- 4 The Foundation
- 5 The Light of Darkness
- Selected diary entries for the period during the composition of The Quest for Gold
- Punishment for the Transgressors
- Symbols of Creation and Destruction
- Appendix Revised versions of two poems
- Platesection
Selected diary entries for the period during the composition of The Quest for Gold
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- The Voyage into Night
- 1 Ariel
- 2 The Serpent
- 3 The Hidden Continents
- 4 The Foundation
- 5 The Light of Darkness
- Selected diary entries for the period during the composition of The Quest for Gold
- Punishment for the Transgressors
- Symbols of Creation and Destruction
- Appendix Revised versions of two poems
- Platesection
Summary
16.1.82
I also want to write, but more fundamentally I have to look at my spiritual life, and see what that means. I progress to peaks of awareness and insight and then fall back into the conditioned world and begin the cycle all over again. But what can one say in the face of my experiences? If the Buddha appears to you and shows you the way, as has happened to me on two occasions, how can you continue unchanged by it?
I have come closer to understanding what this means. For me retreating into the monastic life is out of the question. I believe in living in the world too much for that. No, it is a question of one's conscious development. Moving from occasional flashes of enlightenment to experiencing it in a sustained way. That really is the question and when it comes I must not shirk it, but accept it.
13.2.82
At the beginning of this particular period I had a dream which coincides with what John said about not trying too hard. The dream was far too long and detailed to summarise accurately at this stage, but the meaning was very clear indeed. It dealt with attaining Buddhahood and enlightenment. The dream itself was heavily hallucinogenic. It was spectacular and beautiful. At the culmination of it, the domed towers of the cathedral in Munich, burst into petals of flowers, and then suddenly contracted. As if a film was reversed and the action went backwards. The towers shrank into budlike forms, and then my own Buddha, myself in Buddha form spoke. He spoke of the No-path. Attaining Buddhahood, he said, was only possible when attaining Buddhahood was put to an end. The blossoming was curtailed and stopped, and with it the dream ended.
26.6.82
The last few weeks have witnessed very much a coming apart for me. Robin, the flat, Edinburgh, Davidh and the fact that I can't concentrate on my work. It's been so inexorable that it's very much like a re-run of events with Hedvig. I am convinced that she was practising black magic against me then, and it could also be the case now. My father is the only link these things have in common.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Quest for Gold , pp. 139 - 160Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2016