Everyone who first encounters the Left-Hand Path (LHP) starts thinking that it is the path of selfishness and egocentrism. But that is not the case. Egocentrism and selfishness are the path of the weak, those who have already been devoured by their own hungry spirits—the passions they used to serve.
An adept of the LHP serves their true I—the Self—not the base little ‘I’, the Ego, to use psychological terminology.
In essence, the aim of the LHP is to become like gods: to attain a state of truth and equilibrium, to move beyond conventional limitations.
A limitation is dogma. An adept of the LHP does not follow dogma. In essence, they create their own sect, their own philosophy and their own space in which to act.
But to develop anything of the kind, one must go beyond the most fundamental limitations: one’s own passions.
Passions are demons, your hungry spirits. A true adept of the LHP does not serve them, but commands them, because they have no power over someone who is no longer troubled by those passions.
Yet the adept of the LHP will not avoid passions. They will accept them and recognise their worthlessness.
Power, money, pleasures—these are all temptations. To succumb to temptation is to imagine oneself a god.
To leap into the Abyss, you will have to understand yourself, to understand the causes of your passions, so that you can shed this burden.
And here comes another distortion. An adept of the LHP does not become a penniless hermit or try to mould themselves into an ideal in this world. What matters is balance: not becoming a hostage to passions, but ruling over them.
What does it mean to rule over passions? Conscious control. Not neurotic attempts at control, but awareness. Take my own example: I smoked for a long time, until I decided to give it up. One act of will was enough. Today I can be perfectly comfortable among smokers; it does not trouble me psychologically, although physically I dislike the smell. And I will never want to smoke. That is what control means. In other words, the habit no longer concerns me; in this instance, I have power over it.
Neurotic attempts at control mean imposing an ideal on yourself. For example: ‘I don’t smoke because it is bad, because it is harmful,’ and so on. No, that is just building a wall. I am talking about accepting the thing and consciously excluding it.
I hope the example makes it clear.
So the LHP is not about playing at being the most terrifying and evil black magicians—sometimes that is simply funny to watch. The LHP is absolute freedom for the individual, not through merging with a deity but through proclaiming that divinity within oneself.
Are the goals of the Right-Hand Path and the Left-Hand Path different? I don’t think so. In essence, both seek to pass beyond the boundaries of human understanding. But that is a difficult philosophical question.
An adept of the LHP differs from an adept of the Right-Hand Path (RHP) in creating their own reality, their own worldview and their own individuality—in order to unite with that ideal.
The RHP, on the other hand, leads towards union with a universal ideal.
The goal is an ideal, in both cases.
But how different are these ideals, really?