Seeds of attainment
The answers are so simple, and we all know where to look
But it's easier just to avoid the question.
Kansas, "On the Other Side"
You've been told many times before
Messiahs pointed to the door
But no one had the guts to leave the temple.
The Who, "I'm Free"
Easy, you know, the way it's supposed to be.
Jefferson Airplane, "Wooden Ships"
Every day a little sadder, a little madder
Someone get me a ladder!
ELP, "Still You Turn Me On"
Nothing is more common in occult lore, and in art influenced by it, than the idea of a hidden but simple path to enlightenment. The idea that transcendence is tantalizingly close -- perhaps through as simple a trick as asking the right question, like Parsifal -- is fascinating and frustrating. Fascinating, because it means that we're not necessarily years (or lives) away from attainment; it could happen to any of us at any moment, were we to find the key. Frustrating, because demonstrably most of us do not find that key, and are left struggling forward (or staying put where we are).
On the other hand, we have the numerous "systems of transcendence", schools (formal or informal, manifest or otherwise) which train individuals to attain enlightenment "the hard way". These systems vary in almost every respect but one: they demand years of discipline and sacrifice from the student who would succeed. Just for example, Aleister Crowley was more insistent on this point than on any other; time and again he reminds his readers that constant, sometimes agonizing, unwavering practice is required to achieve even the earliest intimations of true Mastery.
How are we to reconcile these two ideas? If transcendence is close, why is so much work and time involved in achieving it? If it is far away, how are we to interpret the omnipresent archetype of the "secret key" which would unlock all doors "before an hour hath struck upon the bell"?
In my view, the answer can be found in Jesus's parable of the sower: Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them.
Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away.
And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them.
But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
The sown seed is the ubiquitous potential for transcendence. It is scattered everywhere, in all things, in all people. There is no need to search for it. "'Come unto me' is a foolish word: for it is I that go." This seed will immediately grow wherever the soil is fertile.
And that, of course, is why attainment is hard. We are not groping toward Nirvana or fighting our way up Abiegnus. Instead, we are acknowledging a gift of life which we already hold, and working to become fit vessels for its growth. The formula is, in fact, uterine rather than phallic; needless to say, the phallic "storming heaven" model of attainment has been more popular with the (mostly male) adepts of the past.
The paradox remains: Enlightenment is near at hand and far away, all at once. But the fresh-planted field is also both near and far from the harvest.