Before concluding this series on Evola the inclusion of one more “technique” of mind development is in order since it synchronistically ties-in with one from our last series, one that is concerned with “Nimitta—a particularized focal-point, or a ‘brilliant light’ that becomes the singularity (to the exclusion of all other phenomena) within the Mind’s Eye.”
This process of identification produces isolation of the mind not only from physical impressions but also from one’s own person: the “five hindrances” being overcome, the passage to the abstract contemplations is made easier or hastened.
As to technique: one may start with a disc of some perfectly pure color, dark blue, yellow, red, or white, which is placed in front of the person who is to perform the exercise. Alternatively, a round opening can be made, through which an area of bright sky may be seen, or the same can be done in a screen placed in front of a fire in such a manner that a disc of flame is visible. In one way or another, one must arrange to have before one a regular shape occupied by a pure and even color or luminosity. The mind should be detached from all longing or worry and should warm to the thought of the truth and of the awakening of the Ariyas. Thus the mind is prepared for concentration and is pervaded by the thought that the action about to be undertaken will facilitate the grace of the mind’s own liberation. After this is done, one must gaze fixedly at the luminous disc, “with eyes neither too widely open nor half-closed, as one looks at oneself in a mirror,” without interruption, without blinking, concentrating wholly on this perception, until there is created a false image (today we would say, an hallucinatory image) of the shape. One must then continue to concentrate on this image, with the eyes both open and closed, if necessary “a hundred or a thousand times,” until the mental image is established in such a way that one continues to see it even involuntarily, with the eyes closed or open and with the gaze removed from the object. The first phase of the operation is complete when the “reflex,” the mental counterpart of the physical image of the disc, called uggaha-nimitta, is equally visible with the eyes open or closed. One can then stop sitting in front of the disc and pass on to the second phase of the exercise.
In this further phase the “reflex” must, in its turn, serve as the basis for concentration that is now, in a manner of speaking, of the second degree. It is no longer the physical eye that fixes its gaze, but the eye that has been opened by the 7na-jhana-cakkhu. The procedure, however, is the same: one again has to identify oneself with the mental image, forgetting everything else, just as was done previously with the image provided by the senses. If this second concentration on the interior image is rightly carried out, there finally springs out from this image a new reflex of the second degree, something purely spiritual-patibhaga-nimitta-“without form, without color.” This resembles the melting of a fog, or the shining of the morning star, or the appearance of the moon from behind clouds, or is like the flash of a mirror taken from its case, or of a perfectly polished gem. These terms are used to describe the appearance of the new image that “shatters” and annihilates the preceding “hallucinatory” image, and “rises, a hundred, a thousand times more clear.” (The Doctrine of Awakening, pg. 167)
When considering Evola’s work it cannot be stressed enough that the crux of his position resides in the millennium-old problem of the “standardization” that occurs when an original spiritual teaching becomes “neuterized”, and eventually is stripped-down to a “one size fits all” vehicle that is far from the founders original intent. He insists that such was the case with Buddhism. Buddhism’s essential core, as he maintains (from early canonical sources) has nothing of an all-inclusive religious-base, but quite the contrary. It rather has some resemblance with what Jesus the Christ once expressed as the “straight and narrow path to eternal life.” Siddhartha’s original intent was to reveal the Buddhadharma to those few resilient ones who had the inner-resourcefulness to climb the Mount of Noble Wisdom. Evola likened it to “walking on a razor-edge with no help, either human or divine.” Passages from the Uravagga and the Dhammapada back-up his assertion:
“I have passed beyond the brambles of opinions, I have acquired power over myself, I have reached the path, I possess the knowledge, I have none who guide me” says the Awakened One of himself.”
“He has reached the bottom of the element free from death. He has left the human bond and the divine bond and has freed himself from all bonds; no one in the world can conquer him, who has for his domain the infinite and whose path is known neither by the gods nor by angels, nor by men.”
Perhaps the best summation of The Doctrine of Awakening revolves around the following:
That Buddhism sees an essential difference between the “sons of the world” (puthujjana) and the “sons of the Sākya’s son” we know already, as we also know that by “world” Buddhism does not only mean terrestrial existence, but any conditioned form of existence whatsoever, be it higher or lower than the human state. The Ariyan path of awakening is, then, of an absolutely “vertical” nature, it does not conceive of “progressivity”; between the state of nibbana and any other state, demonic, titanic, human, or celestial, it sees a gap. The state of nibbana cannot be found by “going”; it cannot be found in the horizontal direction of time, nor in the perpetuity, longevity, or indefinite existence that are ascribed to the various angelic and celestial beings and to the theistic god himself, Brahmā”. Bodhi, absolute illumination, the “wisdom” that liberates, is sometimes therefore likened to lightning,* a description that clearly shows its extra-temporal character. Everything, therefore, that is connected with extra-samsāric development is to be considered from a quite special point of view. (ibid, pg. 191-92)
*Angutt., 3.25. In this text the spirit of the man who, still alive, has destroyed mania and has achieved liberation is also likened to a diamond. The Sanskrit term vajra (Tibetan: dorje) includes both these meanings-lightning or diamond-and has been particularly used in Tibetan Buddhism to designate the essence of illumination and the nature of one who is made of illumination. AI the same time, it also designates the scepter of the supreme representatives of Lamaist spiritual authority. This symbolism would take us much further in terms of comparative mythology-as far as the lightning-force symbolized by prehistoric hyperborean axes and the symbolism of the lightning that always accompanied divine “Olympian” figures of the Aryan civilizations. The “path of the vajra.” or the “path of the diamond and of lightning (vajra-yana), is the designation of Tantric and magic Buddhism, on which cf. The Yoga of Power. (ibid, note, bottom 192)
The Ariya, says Evola, are still gathered on Vulture’s Peak—listening ever intently to the Buddhadharma. In this dharma-ending age, Evola’s voice is like a prophet of old calling those who, with that resolute resolve, are willing to share-in the Self-same Spirit of that august assembly.