18 Chapter 1
tional, or physical state. Maintain this equilibrium for five minutes. Then, when you’ve achieved success at emptying your mind for the predetermined time, increase your next practice session by one minute. Repeat this process until you’ve achieved ten minutes again. This process should take you roughly a month.
The Hermetic Approach It is only a matter of perspective that separates yoga and witchcraft philosophies, not belief. As with all conflict, the resolution of this apparent disagreement rests in clarifying the concept of truth being debated. In The Kybalion, we find out that there is a paradox surrounding the nature of the universe. Looked at from an absolute viewpoint, the universe is simply a mental creation of Spirit, a figment of the divine imagination or an illusion. This is the perspective espoused in texts on yoga. However, looked at through a relative lens, the universe is actually very real indeed. This means that at all times the universe is both illusion and reality. It really just depends on how someone chooses to look at it in the moment. From the absolute viewpoint, only the eternal and unchanging is real. Within this perspective, the only thing that truly qualifies as eternal and unchanging is Spirit or Deity. Everything else is illusion. The concept of the dreamer and the dream is often used to describe this theory. However, the absolute perspective is only half the story. It’s the story from the divine perspective. It says nothing of humanity’s perspective within the dream. Though it is easy to write a dream off as illusion upon waking up, the events are all too real while the dreamer dreams. The knowledge of the dream’s illusory nature does little to help the dreamer negate the emotional investment in the Dreamtime, even upon waking up. That is the situation a human spirit faces during each incarnation. The relative viewpoint addresses this perspective by erecting the actor’s fourth wall and makes the dreamscape as real as waking reality while the dream is in progress. By buying into the context of the dream, the overarching story line can be played out to its natural conclusion and the dreamer wakes up with new insight.
