What enables the enlightened rulers and good generals to conquer the enemy at every move and achieve extraordinary success is foreknowledge.
"What enables the enlightened rulers and good generals to conquer the enemy at every move and achieve extraordinary success is foreknowledge." — Sun-tzu, ping-fa, Chapter 13: Using Spies
As dark students we are attempting to do battle with the forces that be. Many forces have shaped our lives, our fears, our natural reactions; we make hundreds of reactions a second and the majority of them we do without thinking. We don’t know why. Doing things ignorantly is not a strategically good idea. Many of our reactions are based on what has worked before. Life has events that change the very fabric of one’s life, from the physically demanding challenge of puberty, to the mystically symbolic event of divine intervention. It is good to highlight our reactions to understand them, to see if they are efficient choices in life, or instead detrimental to our well being.
The second task of the dark student is to invoke an emotional state which takes the brain to a state where it will ignore thoughts that cloud up the working of the brain. Thoughts like the next great invention, the weather, what I’m going to have for tea tonight, one’s next sexual conquest. You are to take your brain to a state where all that matters is reaction to a single thing - your concentration is that tight. The only brain processes functioning are the most fundamental things, the very modus operandi of your being.
The rest of the world and its influences will be taken away, and you will simply be left with yourself. Star Wars fans can liken this to the cave on Dagobah.
The most fundamental psychological force is fear. Anger is out of fear, so it is a means to invoke it, as you get angry because something that should be right isn’t right. You desire it to be right. Why do you fear the world? What do you want out of it? If we know what we're scared of, we can then work out why; if we know why, we can change it.
To invoke fear there are many ways, many catalysts, some legal, some less legal, some illegal. You can indeed enter a dark scary cave, or a massive forest of darkness. Many people when robbed of their sight are scared, it is a sense over relied on, and the clever would do well to disable themselves from this handicap. Hallucinogens exist which highlight your natural impulses and highlight them in a different way, often exaggerating them to a fearful point. Legal hallucinogens do exist. Hallucinogens are called de-hallucinogens in some cultures, as they rob the world of its mundane materialistic nature and leave you with the more real nature of life. What governs you. To me this is the most real. My universe is the manifestation of my actions.
You can choose a way. The ones above are common, many more exist, for example using ones own phobias against oneself. Many people fail this early on if they are not dark. Only the drive to perfect from those who are dark will allow oneself to be taken so far from their safe world into this unstable horrific state of chaos.
When in the state you have the perfect chance to analyze the situation. What exactly am I scared of at the main root of my reactions? It will generally come down to a single issue, though it is possible to have more than one. If you fail to reach a conclusion the task needs to be redone.
Write in your journal your modus operandi, and a word to the wise is to keep it secret, for if a dark master finds one’s MO, then he has a shopping list of how to manipulate the person laid out in front of him.
The dark student now works to understand, manipulate, and mutilate the fear. So that he is master of his fear, and not the servant. Why is this your fear? Think back into your past, right back into your childhood, when most of your impulses were molded into you. Over the next few weeks, take time to meditate on this issue, and write down any events you come across in your journal. The better the brainstorm, the more pieces in the puzzle exist. It is difficult to pick up and crumble an invisible piece of puzzle, especially if it is not surrounded by visible pieces hinting at its place. The more meditations the better essentially, and indeed this should be an activity carried on and practiced until death, because as your life goes on, the puzzle grows, and it is much harder to understand and process if it is bigger, so destroy bad pieces as soon as you find them.
Now you know why you are who you are on the most basic level. David Hume said custom is the great guide in human life, and he was very correct. Habit drives us as beings, from lighting a cigarette (because nicotine is proven as non-addictive), to driving to work. Some of us have difficulty reaching for a cigarette, and some driving to work, simply because we are not custom to such practices. Humans don’t do what is right, they do what they are used to, which brings us back to the nature of decisions poised at the beginning of this piece.
Techniques to change the self are covered in detail later in this course. But for now, student, be happy, as for the first time in your life you have met yourself. Work to find it in your heart to be a good person, and show pity rather than remorse towards this hapless character.