Our path lies ahead of us. The past is our baggage, the body is our helper, and our desires are our motivation along the way. Take the Fool card and look closely at it. It tells us everything about the journey.
The Fool is directed towards the future. He moves forward, and his gaze is fixed on the future too—but not simply straight ahead. It points diagonally towards the upper-right corner of the card. This is more than a vision of the final destination: it is the existential goal that draws us onwards, the higher purpose, a kind of guiding star. That is why the Fool does not look at his feet. He does not need to. Those who stare at their feet and concentrate on particulars are the ones who dwell on suffering. We create evil for ourselves by staring at our problems and convincing ourselves: what a terrible road, there is no path, it is impossible to walk here, we’ll break our legs! Will we ever reach the goal? Instead of striving towards our cherished dream, we sit around discussing the obstacles in our way.
Look at the dreadful path shown on the card: uneven hummocks covered in dried grass, perhaps even thorns. Have you ever walked across a ploughed field? It is very hard until a path has been trodden down. Apparently, it is not so easy for the Fool either.
Behind the Fool is a bag containing his accumulated experience. It is on the left, in the past, behind his back—a further reminder of the past.
And if we compare the Fool with the twenty-first trump of the Tarot de Marseille, The World, we can see that he is armed with the powers of the Eagle and the Angel: meaning and experience. That is why he walks rather than standing lost in thought. His legs tell us that he is moving.
Very often we fall into depressive states and refuse to go on. The bumps along the road become insurmountable mountains to us. All because we have no goals. Millions are made when you have a great purpose, not merely a desire for bags of wealth and abundance. The goal is to accomplish something important, important not only to you but to other people. That is the balance of the world. We act not for ourselves alone, but for the world. The goal extends beyond our tiny egocentric universe and reaches out into the wider world. Its motivation may be financial, but the goal itself is not. Greetings to all the online gurus and sellers of happiness.
In the Fool’s hand is a staff, his support: this is his Will, represented by the Lion in the triumph of The World. Desires are not merely our passing wants. Desires of real quality become Will. Not a momentary urge to buy an advertised product or post an angry comment beneath a video, but desires that genuinely matter to you.
And behind him is something between a cat and a lynx, although some people see a dog. This is the body reminding him of itself. It says: where are you going? I’m perfectly happy here! But the Fool keeps striving onwards, drawn by the Great Goal!
The Fool wears a colourful motley coat. It provokes irritation, envy and incomprehension in those around him. How dare he crawl out of our cosy little swamp! Get him! Put a jester’s coat on him! Isn’t that exactly what those around you say when you strive for a great goal? Of course they do, because they cannot see your goal. They are looking down at their feet, and all they see is the swamp and its bumps. Don’t you dare dream or think! Do something useful! Get drunk and become a drug addict if you like, but don’t dream. Don’t even think of reading the Bible and reflecting upon it—that is heresy! Better to beat your children and your wife, because that is so traditional.
Tradition. It is what prevents us from looking beyond established boundaries. In Kabbalah, tradition belongs to the plane of Tiphareth—not the highest level, if we do not go into the details. This does not mean that tradition is bad. But Tradition must not become an end in itself. It is something that should help, never hinder!
People often become so immersed in a tradition that following it turns into a goal in itself. Since childhood, I have never understood why I should confine myself within a tradition. I simply loved mathematics, and in mathematics a restriction is a closed structure—say, a matrix. And because it is a closed system, you can manipulate it: the set within that matrix cannot “escape” from you. But once you accept that your matrix is part of some greater set, you no longer manipulate it; you rely upon it instead.
When Tradition Becomes a Cage
An obvious example is all kinds of sectarianism. You are forbidden to think differently. You are told that you must follow tradition without question. All those initiatory organisations and lovers of passing down secret secrets according to tradition belong in the same category. Do you think of yourselves as guardians of hidden knowledge? You resemble Apple, slowing down technology for the sake of enrichment.
Someone labelled a Fool apparently thinks like a fool, so let him wear the fool’s cap! Your thoughts, expressed outside the confines of tradition, are nonsense. And that is perfectly normal. Our path leads beyond the traditional understanding of esotericism, magic and religion. Naturally, I draw upon tradition, but I use tradition as a tool, not as an object of worship.
Within a tradition, the highest goal is always one thing: some god, some supreme entity, and so on. I suggest that you stop looking to traditions and instead find your own inner feeling, your own purpose. In fact, you do not need to make some enormous leap to partake in a numinous experience. Even a substantial project at home will do: repairs, redesigning a garden, anything at all. And to keep things interesting, you might even start a blog about it. Today’s technology makes it possible to find support in an audience on social media.
And now a small exercise. Not a ritual, but a chance to think about your life. Take a sheet of paper and divide it into four sections. At the top left, write what you are doing now that does not satisfy you. At the top right, write what you would like to do that would satisfy you. At the bottom left, write down the benefits you get from doing what you dislike. At the bottom right, write down the benefits you would get from your imagined goals or the positive activities you already have.
What does this accomplish? It is simply an opportunity to lay out your life and see what you are doing and how important it really is. You will also see your ideas about what might make you happy, and how realistic or attainable they are. You really should write it down: a thought experiment alone will not give you the whole picture.
You do not need to do anything with the sheet afterwards. You can throw it away once you have understood. It is a simple technique for shifting the focus of attention. When we consider things in our heads, we tend to see each item separately and sometimes become fixated on particular images. The sheet allows you to see the whole picture. Nothing more. It will not change your life, but it will certainly help you.
That is our path: thorny, and it will be difficult. But it certainly will not be boring.