July 18, 2025

Bhutanese painted thangka of
Milarepa (རྗེ་བཙུན་མི་ལ་རས་པ་)

Friday:
My views on Enlightenment and liberation – July 18, 2025

The man who has ascended above the Earth and transcended beyond the material and the laws of its domain can be said to be enlightened and truly liberated, but this liberation is very different from the liberation as conceived of by the liberal man, for the state of being enlightened has nothing to do with the dogmas of the humanist axiom – true liberation is about existing in full harmony with the cosmos. To be liberated is to transcend beyond humanity and indeed beyond suffering, and that requires the end of all materialism, the end of all advantageous and adverse material impositions on the soul, it requires the state of complete health. I can't fully conceive of the liberated and enlightened man, but I can fully conceive of the man who is not liberated yet yearns for "freedom", for he exists all around in the modern world; he is the modern man completely in awe of himself and under the illusion that he has all the answers and that materialism once and for all will solve the human condition and end man's suffering. Indeed, modern man is blinded by his own image, for he has fallen in love with himself – he commits idolatry and believes himself to be better off because of it. But if you've been reading this blog you already know my views on modern men, so what's all this got to do with becoming enlightened? The impulse for men to become liberated stems from their wish to end all suffering, in themselves and all around them, for the state of life is the state of constant suffering; suffering is a passive part of life, it happens whether you like it or not. Man has to acquire skillful means, he has to actively work against death, decay, and corruption. So, while the liberal paradigm have demonstrably bad outcomes for humanity and indeed all sentient life, it is clear that most men act not out of spite but out of goodwill to all men and all life, but modern men are misguided, for they know not of the true liberation and the value of ascending above the material, even though some of them claim to know this.

    Esoteric would be the right word to describe the nature of the man who has achieved enlightenment, for that man has seen the light and in our days the light is dimer to and seen by fewer and fewer men; these men have actually achieved liberation and enlightenment. Verily, it would be quite natural for modern man to assume that he has seen the light and that he has successfully enabled himself to ascend above the Earth, but this would be and indeed is a mistake, for what modern mas has achieved is the opposite of liberation, it is the incarceration of his spirit, the impulse to seek adventure and to put the world into proper order; modern man has entered into a pact with evil and as a result he has become the slave that he has sought to distance himself from. I surely understand the thought that what modern man perceives to be "progress" and steps towards the liberation of ever more people is a good and honorable development, but what modern man fails to see is the societal and moral implications of these rapid and revolutionary changes, for they stand in opposition to the nature of man; they are indeed extra natural to man and as a result the world finds itself in evermore turmoil and commotion. The gentile character of any society is shaped by tradition, religion, and deep time; qualities that the humanist axiom has no problem with completely turning upside down, and inside and out. It would be quite preferable then, that man should seek the true liberation and reject the beastly and control his sin, but for this to happen, man has to defeat the beast, and indeed modern man would have to defeat himself and commit ritual suicide in order to become reborn as the hero. Verily, in this context it should become quite clear that the hero is the primitive shape of the enlightened man; the opposite of the formless man.

Bodhidharma Yoshitoshi (達磨)
1887

    How then can a man become enlightened? While I can't provide any clear and absolute answers, I believe that the example of the Buddha should continue to stand, but there are many other great teacher as well, and any man that can be said to be a master of his field can be thought of as a master of the art of endurance, and somewhere on that road I believe that achieving liberation and enlightenment is possible. But to be frank and more clear: I believe that the nourishment of your vital essence is key to health and a proper bodily balance of the qualities that make up man, and this would begin with the practice of celibacy and abstention from sin and lust; reject the lust for meat and the call to transform into the beast. In the end, victory is within all of us, even in this dark period of the Kali Yuga. You must cast out the demons and reject the beast, reject the beast in yourself as well as in others, and this will require of you the application of wrathful Bodhichitta, for the compassionate thing to do would not be to allow for the disease to fester, even though this may seem alluring. Do not seek the thrill of the entropy, the willing chaos! Again, I cannot define for any given man his path, he must seek his own adventures, but I can try to argue in favor of the righteous and any man that is seeking the path of modernism is going to fail, for he will not attain liberation, but for too many modern men this is a realization that will come to them much too late.

    I continue to hold true to my own purity, for the good and the righteous, is pure and that is the true nature of justice: the imposition of purity and the defeat of corruption. It may surely seem harsh to impose the righteous way, but it is nonetheless the right thing to do, but corruption will work its magic and twist the nature of reality into the nature of the beast. The more in line with nature you are, the closer you are to attaining noble status and actual freedom – keep the course.

Reginald Drax – July 18, 2025.