Apathy

From the Darker Teachings on the original forum:


One of the darkest truths of the darker teachings is that you will lose interest in the path...

I'm sure you're waiting for me to add... "unless you do this or that" or "until this or that occurs to bring you back in alignment..."

Unfortunately, you will lose interest in the path and there is very little to be done about it other than to be constantly renewing your Intent with the awareness that if you don't seduce your immortal Other, she will find better things to do, and like an animal left unfed, she will return to the wild where you may see her peeking at you from the midnight from time to time, though her appearances will be less and less until, eventually, she will disappear altogether.

"Damn, Mikal got up on the wrong side of the coffin this morning," you might think. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps it is just how you console yourself when you realize you are still human with human failings and human needs and human excuses for purely human behavior.

Why do humans lose interest so quickly? Do they lose interest, or am I just harping on the negative to scare you out of your complacency?

If you have any doubt of just how quickly humans lose interest, take a look at the member list of this forum. What you will see is that a lot of seekers come on board all fired up and filled with enthusiasm - if they ever post at all, that is. They will even report tremendous successes with their twin and their path in general... then one day (usually a few weeks or months at the most) they are gone. Out the door. Through the window. Into the ether where they are promised all manner of earthly joy and delight if only they will give their full attention to... fill in the blank. And just when I was being so charming.

Essentially, humans are fickle fuckers. They chase rainbows for awhile (usually in their late teens and early 20s), but when the rainbow remains always in the distance (as muses and rainbows are wont to do), they declare sour grapes and move on to some other rainbow. But by the time they have chased a few, they tend to realize that rainbows are made of pixels of light and drizzle, and since light and drizzle don't make for something to be held in the hand or placed like a trophy on the mantle, rainbows are generally disregarded from that point forward, while the (former) seeker chooses to knuckle down, get with The Program, and put one foot in front of the other, straight on to the grave. "It's the responsible thing to do after all, and all that nonsense about vampyres and immortality and the twin is just a fairy tale I told myself when I was young and irresponsible and rebelling against the world."

It's all but inevitable.

Unless you are the 1% of the 1% who have within yourself the ability to dismantle The Program, you will lose interest in the path. Sooner rather than later. You will tell yourself that Mikal is a liar and immortality is a fanciful fiction, and the immortal Other is a muse who can never be caught. Maybe you will even believe it and never look back in that obsidian mirror where the night that never ends mocks you with vague but vanishing memories of the fire you felt when the Other was creeping around in the shadows, leaving notes of gnosis on the pillow of your Dreaming, and you stood psychically naked and mortally terrified at 3 a.m., knowing it was all real, feeling the essence of eternity swirling all around you, penetrating you like a lover's tongue, embracing you with all the fierce love and forbidden passion the universe could possibly contain.

You will glance askance at those memories a time or two... and then, like a phantom, you will be gone. From the path. From the Other. From your Self.

What to do? Where's the happy ending? Where's the 5-minute-a-day-meditation that will make it all come rushing back?

Sorry to say, there is no cure for this syndrome. There is only you and your mirror and whatever unbending Intent you can summon. There is no magical ritual to keep your passion at a peak. There are no guardians or allies or mentors who can kick you in the ass to keep you focused. There isn't even the Other, unless that is your long-term and relentless and ruthless Intent.

Intent is built on Intent.

The only thing you have is that awareness. And the absolute certainty of what happens if you don't rekindle those embers whenever you see them flickering toward ash and extinction. Do it or die. There is nothing in between but the in between, and it's no place you want to be.