종교적 천재성과 영적 경험의 본질

### 진리 찾기: 종교적 경험과 천재성의 본질에 대한 고찰
* 😔 존재는 슬픔으로 가득 찬 것으로 묘사되며, 모든 사람은 자신도 모르게 피할 수 없는 운명을 기다리면서 **그 운명을 연기하려는 보편적인 욕망**으로 이어집니다.
* 🔍 역사적으로 불멸과 보상을 약속하는 종교와 철학이 등장했지만, 이러한 믿음이 쇠퇴한 것은 **그 주장에 대한 가시적인 증거**를 요구했기 때문입니다.
* 🤔 이 텍스트는 종교에 대한 비판적 검토가 필요하며, 특히 **그리스도, 부처, 모하메드와 같은 영향력 있는 인물들의 다양한 가르침**에도 불구하고 공통점에 초점을 맞출 것을 제안합니다.
* 🧘 반복되는 주제는 이러한 지도자들이 새로운 법을 전파하기 전 **침묵과 고독의 시간**을 보내며 내면의 심오한 변화를 암시하는 변혁적 경험입니다.
* 📖 이 인물들에 대한 역사적 기록은 다양하지만, 이들은 **영적 각성이라는 공통된 경험**을 공유하며, 이 경험의 본질은 아직 밝혀지지 않았지만 사회에 큰 영향을 미쳤습니다.
* 💡 이 책은 명상과 정신 수양의 중요성을 강조하며, 존재에 대한 더 깊은 진실을 밝히기 위해 **자제력과 집중력을 키우는 수행**을 옹호합니다.
* ⚖ 마지막으로, 이러한 현상을 이해하는 열쇠는 초자연적인 설명에 의존하기보다는 **훈련된 수행을 통해 배양할 수 있는 관찰자와 관찰 대상의 통합**에 있다고 가정합니다.
* 🌌 궁극적으로 이 내러티브는 천재성과 혁신적인 통찰력에 기여하는 숨겨진 에너지를 활용하기 위해 **의식에 대한 체계적인 탐구**를 장려합니다.

위대한 리더는 종종 침묵 속에서 나타나 심오한 통찰력을 공유하기 위해 변화된 모습으로 돌아옵니다.

EXISTENCE, as we know it, is full of sorrow. To mention only one minor point: every man is a condemned criminal, only he does not know the date of his execution. This is unpleasant for every man. Consequently, every man does everything possible to postpone the date and would sacrifice anything that he has if he could reverse the sentence. Practically all religions and all philosophies have started thus crudely, by promising their adherents some such reward as immortality. No religion has failed hitherto by not promising enough; the present breaking up of all religions is due to the fact that people have asked to see the securities. Men have even renounced the important material advantages which a well-organized religion may confer upon a State, rather than acquiesce in fraud or falsehood, or even in any system which, if not proved guilty, is at least unable to demonstrate its innocence. Being more or less bankrupt, the best thing that we can do is to attack the problem afresh.

without preconceived ideas. Let us begin by doubting every statement. Let us find a way of subjecting every statement to the test of experiment. Is there any truth at all in the claims of various religions? Let us examine the question. Our original difficulty will be due to the enormous wealth of our material. To enter into a critical examination of all systems would be an unending task; the cloud of witnesses is too great. Now each religion is equally positive; and each demands faith. This we refuse in the absence of positive proof. But we may usefully inquire whether there is not any one thing upon which all religions have agreed: for, if so, it seems possible that it may be worthy of really thorough consideration. It is certainly not to be found in dogma. Even so simple an idea as that of a supreme and eternal being is denied by a third of the human race. Legends of miracle are perhaps universal, but these, in the absence of demonstrative

proof, are repugnant to common sense. But what of the origin of religions? How is it that unproved assertion has so frequently compelled the assent of all classes of mankind? Is not this a miracle? There is, however, one form of miracle which certainly happens, the influence of the genius. There is no known analogy in Nature. One cannot even think of a super-dog transforming the world of dogs, whereas in the history of mankind this happens with regularity and frequency. Now here are three super-men, all at loggerheads. What is there in common between Christ, Buddha, and Mohammed? Is there any one point upon which all three are in accord? No point of doctrine, no point of ethics, no theory of a hereafter do they share, and yet in the history of their lives we find one identity amid many diversities. Buddha was born a Prince and died a beggar.

Mohammed was born a beggar and died a Prince. Christ remained obscure until many years after his death. Elaborate lives of each have been written by devotees, and there is one thing common to all three -- an omission. We hear nothing of Christ between the ages of twelve and thirty. Mohammed disappeared into a cave. Buddha left his palace and went for a long while into the desert. Each of them, perfectly silent up to the time of the disappearance, came back and immediately began to preach a new law. This is so curious that it leaves us to inquire whether the histories of other great teachers contradict or confirm. Moses led a quiet life until his slaying of the Egyptian. He then flees into the land of Midian, and we hear nothing of what he did there, yet immediately on his return he turns the whole place upside down. Later on, too, he absents himself on Mount Sinai for a few days and comes back with

the Tables of the Law in his hand. St. Paul (again), after his adventure on the road to Damascus, goes into the desert of Arabia for many years, and on his return overturns the Roman Empire. Even in the legends of savages, we find the same thing universal; somebody who is nobody in particular goes away for a longer or shorter period and comes back as the great medicine man; but nobody ever knows exactly what happened to him. Making every possible deduction for fable and myth, we get this one coincidence. A nobody goes away and comes back a somebody. This is not to be explained in any of the ordinary ways. There is not the smallest ground for the contention that these were from the start exceptional men. Mohammed would hardly have driven a camel until he was thirty-five years old if he had possessed any talent or ambition. St. Paul had much original talent; but he is the least of the five.

Nor do they seem to have possessed any of the usual materials of power, such as rank, fortune, or influence. Moses was rather a big man in Egypt when he left; he came back as a mere stranger. Christ had not been to China and married the Emperor's daughter. Mohammed had not been acquiring wealth and drilling soldiers. Buddha had not been consolidating any religious organizations. St. Paul had not been intriguing with an ambitious general. Each came back poor; each came back alone. What was the nature of their power? What happened to them in their absence? History will not help us to solve the problem, for history is silent. We have only the accounts given by the men themselves. It would be very remarkable should we find that these accounts agree. Of the great teachers we have mentioned, Christ is silent; the other four tell us something; some more, some less. Buddha goes into details too elaborate to enter upon in this place; but the gist of

it is that in one way or another he got hold of the secret force of the World and mastered it. Of St. Paul's experiences, we have nothing but a casual illusion to his having been caught up into Heaven, and seen and heard things of which it was not lawful to speak. Mohammed speaks crudely of his having been visited by the Angel Gabriel, who communicated things from God. Moses says that he beheld God. Diverse as these statements are at first sight, all agree in announcing an experience of the class which fifty years ago would have been called supernatural, to-day may be called spiritual, and fifty years hence will have a proper name based on an understanding of the phenomenon which occurred. Theorists have not been at a loss to explain; but they differ. The Mohammedan insists that God is, and did really send Gabriel with messages for Mohammed: but all others contradict him. And from the nature of the case proof is impossible.

The lack of proof has been so severely felt by Christianity (and in a much less degree by Islam) that fresh miracles have been manufactured almost daily to support the tottering structure. Modern thought, rejecting these miracles, has adopted theories involving epilepsy and madness. As if organization could spring from disorganization! Even if epilepsy were the cause of these great movements which have caused civilization after civilization to arise from barbarism, it would merely form an argument for cultivating epilepsy. Of course, great men will never conform with the standards of little men, and he whose mission it is to overturn the world can hardly escape the title of revolutionary. The fads of a period always furnish terms of abuse. The fad of Caiaphas was Judaism, and the Pharisees told him that Christ blasphemed. Pilate was a loyal Roman; to him they accused Christ of sedition. When the Pope had all power, it was necessary to prove an enemy a heretic.

Advancing today towards a medical oligarchy, we try to prove that our opponents are insane, and (in a Puritan country) to attack their morals. We should then avoid all rhetoric and try to investigate with perfect freedom from bias the phenomena which occurred to these great leaders of mankind. There is no difficulty in our assuming that these men themselves did not understand clearly what happened to them. The only one who explains his system thoroughly is Buddha, and Buddha is the only one that is not dogmatic. We may also suppose that the others thought it inadvisable to explain too clearly to their followers; St. Paul evidently took this line. Our best document will therefore be the system of Buddha; but it is so complex that no immediate summary will serve; and in the case of the others, if we have not the accounts of the Masters, we have those of their immediate followers. footnote: We have the documents of Hinduism and of two Chinese systems.

But Hinduism has no single founder. Lao Tze is one of our best examples of a man who went away and had a mysterious experience; perhaps the best of all examples, as his system is the best of all systems. We have full details of his method of training in the Khang Kang King, and elsewhere. But it is so little known that we shall omit consideration of it in this popular account. The methods advised by all these people have a startling resemblance to one another. They recommend virtue (of various kinds), solitude, absence of excitement, moderation in diet, and finally a practice which some call prayer and some call meditation. (The former four may turn out on examination to be merely conditions favorable to the last.) On investigating what is meant by these two things, we find that they are only one. For what is the state of either prayer or meditation? It is the restraining of the mind to a single act, state, or thought.

If we sit down quietly and investigate the contents of our minds, we shall find that even at the best of times the principal characteristics are wandering and distraction. Anyone who has had anything to do with children and untrained minds generally knows that fixity of attention is never present, even when there is a large amount of intelligence and goodwill. If then we, with our well-trained minds, determine to control this wandering thought, we shall find that we are fairly well able to keep the thoughts running in a narrow channel, each thought linked to the last in a perfectly rational manner; but if we attempt to stop this current we shall find that, so far from succeeding, we shall merely break down the banks of the channel. The mind will overflow, and instead of a chain of thought we shall have a chaos of confused images. This mental activity is so great, and seems so natural, that it is hard to understand how anyone first got the idea that it was a weakness and a nuisance.

Perhaps it was because in the more natural practice of devotion, people found that their thoughts interfered. In any case, calm and self-control are to be preferred to restlessness. Darwin, in his study, presents a marked contrast with a monkey in a cage. Generally speaking, the larger and stronger and more highly developed any animal is, the less does it move about, and such movements as it does make are slow and purposeful. Compare the ceaseless activity of bacteria with the reasoned steadiness of the beaver; and except in the few animal communities which are organized, such as bees, the greatest intelligence is shown by those of solitary habits. This is so true of man that psychologists have been obliged to treat of the mental state of crowds as if it were totally different in quality from any state possible to an individual. It is by freeing the mind from external influences, whether casual or emotional, that it obtains power to see somewhat of the truth of things.

Let us, however, continue our practice. Let us determine to be masters of our minds. We shall then soon find what conditions are favorable. There will be no need to persuade ourselves at great length that all external influences are likely to be unfavorable. New faces, new scenes will disturb us; even the new habits of life which we undertake for this very purpose of controlling the mind will at first tend to upset it. Still, we must give up our habit of eating too much and follow the natural rule of only eating when we are hungry, listening to the interior voice which tells us that we have had enough. The same rule applies to sleep. We have determined to control our minds, and so our time for meditation must take precedence over other hours. We must fix times for practice and make our feasts movable. In order to test our progress, for we shall find that (as in all physiological matters) meditation cannot be gauged by the feelings, we shall have a notebook and pencil, and

we shall also have a watch. We shall then endeavor to count how often, during the first quarter of an hour, the mind breaks away from the idea upon which it is determined to concentrate. We shall practice this twice daily; and, as we go, experience will teach us which conditions are favorable and which are not. Before we have been doing this for very long, we are almost certain to get impatient, and we shall find that we have to practice many other things in order to assist us in our work. New problems will constantly arise which must be faced and solved. For instance, we shall most assuredly find that we fidget. We shall discover that no position is comfortable, though we never noticed it before in all our lives! This difficulty has been solved by a practice called Asana, which will be described later on. Memories of the events of the day will bother us; we must arrange our day so that it is

absolutely uneventful. Our minds will recall to us our hopes and fears, our loves and hates, our ambitions, our envies, and many other emotions. All these must be cut off. We must have absolutely no interest in life but that of quieting our minds. This is the object of the usual monastic vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience. If you have no property, you have no care, nothing to be anxious about; with chastity no other person to be anxious about, and to distract your attention; while if you are vowed to obedience the question of what you are to do no longer frets: you simply obey. There are a great many other obstacles which you will discover as you go on, and it is proposed to deal with these in turn. But let us pass by for the moment to the point where you are nearing success. In your early struggles you may have found it difficult to conquer sleep; and you may

have wandered so far from the object of your meditations without noticing it, that the meditation has really been broken; but much later on, when you feel that you are getting quite good, you will be shocked to find a complete oblivion of yourself and your surroundings. You will say: Good heavens! I must have been to sleep! or else What on earth was I meditating upon? or even What was I doing? Where am I? Who am I? or a mere wordless bewilderment may daze you. This may alarm you, and your alarm will not be lessened when you come to full consciousness and reflect that you have actually forgotten who you are and what you are doing! This is only one of many adventures that may come to you; but it is one of the most typical. By this time, your hours of meditation will fill most of the day, and you will probably be constantly having presentiments that something is about to happen.

You may also be terrified with the idea that your brain may be giving way; but you will have learned the real symptoms of mental fatigue, and you will be careful to avoid them. They must be very carefully distinguished from idleness! At certain times, you will feel as if there were a contest between the will and the mind; at other times, you may feel as if they were in harmony; but there is a third state, to be distinguished from the latter feeling. It is the certain sign of near success, the view-halloo. This is when the mind runs naturally towards the object chosen, not as if in obedience to the will of the owner of the mind, but as if directed by nothing at all, or by something impersonal; as if it were falling by its own weight, and not being pushed down. Almost always, the moment that one becomes conscious of this, it stops; and the dreary old struggle between the cowboy will and the buckjumper mind begins again.

Like every other physiological process, consciousness of it implies disorder or disease. In analyzing the nature of this work of controlling the mind, the student will appreciate without trouble the fact that two things are involved -- the person seeing and the thing seen -- the person knowing and the thing known; and he will come to regard this as the necessary condition of all consciousness. We are too accustomed to assume to be facts things about which we have no real right even to guess. We assume, for example, that the unconscious is the torpid; and yet nothing is more certain than that bodily organs which are functioning well do so in silence. The best sleep is dreamless. Even in the case of games of skill, our very best strokes are followed by the thought, I don't know how I did it; and we cannot repeat those strokes at will. The moment we begin to think consciously about a stroke, we get nervous, and are lost.

In fact, there are three main classes of stroke: the bad stroke, which we associate, and rightly, with wandering attention; the good stroke, which we associate, and rightly, with fixed attention; and the perfect stroke, which we do not understand, but which is really caused by the habit of fixity of attention having become independent of the will, and thus enabled to act freely of its own accord. This is the same phenomenon referred to above as being a good sign. Finally, something happens whose nature may form the subject of a further discussion later on. For the moment, let it suffice to say that this consciousness of the Ego and the non-Ego, the seer and the thing seen, the knower and the thing known, is blotted out. There is usually an intense light, an intense sound, and a feeling of such overwhelming bliss that the resources of language have been exhausted again and again in the attempt to describe it.

It is an absolute knock-out blow to the mind. It is so vivid and tremendous that those who experience it are in the gravest danger of losing all sense of proportion. By its light, all other events of life are as darkness. Owing to this, people have utterly failed to analyze it or to estimate it. They are accurate enough in saying that, compared with this, all human life is absolutely dross; but they go further and go wrong. They argue that since this is that which transcends the terrestrial, it must be celestial. One of the tendencies in their minds has been the hope of a heaven such as their parents and teachers have described, or such as they have themselves pictured; and, without the slightest grounds for saying so, they make the assumption This is That. In the Bhagavadgita, a vision of this class is naturally attributed to the apparition of Vishnu, who was the local god of the period.

Anna Kingsford, who had dabbled in Hebrew mysticism and was a feminist, got an almost identical vision but called the divine figure which she saw alternately Adonai and Maria. Now this woman, though handicapped by a brain that was a mass of putrid pulp and a complete lack of social status, education, and moral character, did more in the religious world than any other person had done for generations. She, and she alone, made Theosophy possible, and without Theosophy, the world-wide interest in similar matters would never have been aroused. This interest is to the Law of Thelema what the preaching of John the Baptist was to Christianity. We are now in a position to say what happened to Mohammed. Somehow or another, his phenomenon happened in his mind. More ignorant than Anna Kingsford, though, fortunately, more moral, he connected it with the story of the Annunciation, which he had undoubtedly heard in his boyhood, and

said, Gabriel appeared to me. But in spite of his ignorance, his total misconception of the truth, the power of the vision was such that he was enabled to persist through the usual persecution and founded a religion to which even to-day one man in every eight belongs. The history of Christianity shows precisely the same remarkable fact. Jesus Christ was brought up on the fables of the Old Testament and so was compelled to ascribe his experiences to Jehovah, although his gentle spirit could have had nothing in common with the monster who was always commanding the rape of virgins and the murder of little children and whose rites were then celebrated by human sacrifice. Similarly, the visions of Joan of Arc were entirely Christian, but she, like all the others we have mentioned, found somewhere the force to do great things. Of course, it may be said that there is a fallacy in the argument; it may be true that

All these great people saw God, but it does not follow that every one who sees God will do great things. This is true enough. In fact, the majority of people who claim to have seen God, and who no doubt did see God just as much as those whom we have quoted, did nothing else. But perhaps their silence is not a sign of their weakness, but of their strength. Perhaps these great men are the failures of humanity; perhaps it would be better to say nothing; perhaps only an unbalanced mind would wish to alter anything or believe in the possibility of altering anything; but there are those who think existence even in heaven intolerable so long as there is one single being who does not share that joy. There are some who may wish to travel back from the very threshold of the bridal chamber to assist belated guests. Such at least was the attitude which Gotama Buddha adopted.

Nor shall he be alone. Again, it may be pointed out that the contemplative life is generally opposed to the active life, and it must require an extremely careful balance to prevent the one absorbing the other. As it will be seen later, the vision of God, or Union with God, or Samadhi, or whatever we may agree to call it, has many kinds and many degrees, although there is an impassable abyss between the least of them and the greatest of all the phenomena of normal consciousness. To sum up, we assert a secret source of energy which explains the phenomenon of Genius. footnote: We have dealt in this preliminary sketch only with examples of religious genius. Other kinds are subject to the same remarks, but the limits of our space forbid discussion of these. We do not believe in any supernatural explanations, but insist that this source may be reached by the following out of definite rules, the degree of success depending upon the capacity

of the seeker, and not upon the favor of any Divine Being. We assert that the critical phenomenon which determines success is an occurrence in the brain characterized essentially by the uniting of subject and object. We propose to discuss this phenomenon, analyze its nature, determine accurately the physical, mental, and moral conditions which are favorable to it, to ascertain its cause, and thus to produce it in ourselves, so that we may adequately study its effects.

Aleister Crowley Reads 'Magick, Liber ABA, Book 4 - Part I - Introduction' (1929) [AI Voice]

The Great Beast Reads

위대한 교사들의 삶에서 발견한 공통점

존재는 슬픔으로 가득 차 있고, 죽음에 대한 불확실성 때문에 사람들은 종교를 통해 불멸을 추구합니다.

다양한 종교의 다양한 주장에도 불구하고 그리스도, 부처, 모하메드 등 세 명의 주요 인물은 모두 한동안 사라졌다가 다시 돌아와 새로운 법을 전파하는 공통된 패턴을 보입니다.

'아무것도 아닌 사람'이 일정 기간의 부재 끝에 '누군가'가 되는 우연은 다른 위대한 스승들의 삶에서도 반복되는 주제입니다.

위대한 교사의 힘: 공통 스레드

모세, 그리스도, 모하메드, 부처, 성 바울 등 역사의 위대한 스승들은 전통적인 힘의 원천이 없는 가난하고 외로운 상태에서 세상을 떠났습니다.

이들의 변화 경험에 대한 이야기는 다양하지만 모두 비밀스러운 힘이나 영적 현상에 대한 통달을 암시합니다.

이들의 영향을 설명하는 이론은 다양하며, 일부는 기적적인 것으로 분류되기도 하지만 현대 사상은 다른 설명을 모색하면서 이들이 문명에 미친 영향에 대한 복잡한 이해로 이어졌습니다.

힌두교는 단일한 창시자가 없으며, 노자와 같은 인물들은 덕, 고독, 절제, 기도 또는 명상 수행을 강조하며 비슷한 수행 방법을 공유했습니다.

기도와 명상의 상태는 마음을 한 가지 생각에 집중하는 것이지만, 마음의 방황을 멈추려고 하면 혼란을 초래할 수 있습니다.

외부의 영향으로부터 마음을 해방하고 명상을 위한 루틴을 확립하는 것이 생각을 통제하는 데 중요합니다.

이 연습은 처음 15분 동안 집중하는 동안 마음이 얼마나 자주 방황하는지 세어보고, 매일 세션을 통해 유리한 조건을 파악하는 것입니다.

안절부절 못함, 불편한 자세, 산만한 기억 등은 아사나와 같은 수련을 통해 해결하고 평온한 하루를 보낼 수 있습니다.

명상이 깊어지면 망각과 자기 망각의 순간을 경험할 수 있으며, 의지와 마음 사이에서 갈등을 겪다가 결국 선택한 대상에 자연스럽고 쉽게 집중하는 것을 목표로 삼게 됩니다.

의식은 보는 자와 보는 자 사이의 이중성을 포함하며, 무의식에 대한 일반적인 가정에 도전합니다.

최고의 연기는 종종 의식적인 생각 없이 이루어지며, 완벽한 스트로크는 의지와 무관하게 집중하는 습관에서 비롯됩니다.

행복과 빛에 대한 강렬한 경험은 마음을 압도하여 천상의 본질에 대한 오해를 불러일으키고 중요한 종교적 움직임을 불러일으킬 수 있습니다.

가브리엘의 환상은 예수와 잔다르크 같은 영향력 있는 인물들의 삶에서 신과의 만남이라는 공통점을 강조하며 종교를 창시하도록 영감을 주었습니다.

신을 본다고 해서 모두 위대한 일을 하는 것은 아니며, 신의 환상 앞에서의 침묵은 약함보다는 강함을 의미할 수 있다는 주장이 제기됩니다.

이 텍스트는 천재성을 설명하는 비밀 에너지의 원천을 제시하며, 성공의 핵심 요소로서 뇌에서 주체와 객체를 통합하는 것의 중요성을 강조합니다.