In our last entry, Sun enters Succedent of Pisces, we wrote about the wisdom of seeking “the path of least resistance,” and in the closing decan of what is often considered to be the weakest of the twelve astrological signs, with the vernal equinox just around the corner, it may appear appropriate to turn our attention to this idea more closely.

The concept of the “path of least resistance” will be familiar to Taoists, who term it wu-wei, most often translated as “non-action.” In the third chapter of the Tao Te Ching, we find:

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

This injunction can seem like a command to passivity and meekness, yet a closer examination reveals it not the be the case.

If we consider the natural world, we can get a better understanding of this concept. The planets, for instance, move inexorably in their appointed orbits, never ceasing, day after day, yet it would seem strange for us to call this “action.” Jupiter does not wake up each morning, and decide that it would be a good idea for it to continue in its orbit today. It moves in that way because it is its nature to move in that way, if we consider a significant part of its “nature” to be its current velocity.

As Newton told us in his first law of motion, “a physical body will remain at rest, or continue to move at a constant velocity unless a net force acts upon it.” We may rightly define “action” – in the “non-action” sense – as a disturbance of some kind, but clearly not simply a disturbance from a state of rest, since the “natural state,” in the absence of action, is to maintain a constant velocity, whether or not that velocity is zero. Yet equally we cannot sensibly equate “action” with the “net force” in Newton’s law, since a net force – the gravity of the Sun being the most significant component of that force – is constantly imposing on Jupiter’s orbit, causing it to follow a curved path rather than a straight one, but Jupiter still does not “act” in order to remain in its orbit.

Within the confines of Newton’s law, we quickly run out of options, since a body either remains in a constant velocity, or it is disturbed by a net force, and if “action” is neither of these things then “action” does not exist. If we look to a dictionary definition of action, then one of the many we will find is “an act that one consciously wills,” and this leads us to our answer. The only way in which we could sensibly describe Jupiter as “acting” is if it were to somehow spontaneously divert from the “net forces” which keep it in place. Of course, according to Newton there is no way in which this can happen, but the idea of it will be useful to us.

Let us return to the Thelemic “model of the self” which we have here developed. We have postulated the existence of a “self” which is separate from both the body and the mind, and in particular is separate from the thoughts and emotions of the mind. The actual physical reality of this “self” does not concern us; neither does the reality of the distinction between “body” and “mind,” since it is likely the two are inseparable, and that consciousness is merely a product of biology. For the purposes of descriptive convenience in the model (and all models are abstractions from reality), we assume the existence of a self which has both a body and a mind.

We assume that the “nature of the individual” can be equated with the “nature of the self,” such that when the body develops an ailment such as cancer, we can describe this affliction as being “unnatural to the self,” which demands life, whilst still recognising that cancer is itself a natural phenomenon. In the same way, we can describe the perfectly natural functioning of the mind as sometimes conflicting with the nature of the self.

The fundamental spiritual problem that this model describes is the tendency for the individual to identify himself with his mind, rather than his self. This “identity” can never be complete, since it must be the self and not the mind that is doing the identification. Yet, the mind is not the self, so this identification can only bring suffering. A man who identifies himself with a bird may experience constant sorrow at the fact that he has no wings, since his self-image differs from his actual self, and he identifies with an ideal he can never achieve. Similarly, a man who identifies himself with his mind will experience sorrow because his mind will present him with its own ideal, but this will never align with the actual nature of his real self. The individual who identifies himself with his mind, and then embarks on a course of “self-development,” can be likened to a man who covers himself in glue and bathes in a tub of feathers in the hope that he will someday become a bird. If what is being “developed” is an image rather than the real self, then the development of that image will cause it to diverge further and further from the real self, and suffering will increase in proportion to this divergence.

“Action,” then, comprises the movement of an individual in a manner contrary to what his real self – his true nature – would otherwise choose. It is a motion, started by the mind, in opposition to his true nature, rather than in harmony with it. “Non-action” is therefore not a form of mild passivity, but rather the silencing or subordination of the mind so that the self can move freely in harmony with its own nature. “Non-action” is not a lack of motion; it is an absence of opposition to nature. In more Thelemic terms, it is a lack of restriction.

The essence of Thelemic development is to move the individual’s identification away from his mind and onto his self, so that when he “acts” he does so in accordance with his true nature, and not in opposition to it; such “action” then ceases to be action in the sense that we employed above. A river, unopposed, will follow gravity, seeking the easiest downwards route that it can. If it is restricted – for instance, by a dam – then it will still try to follow this course, but it will meet opposition. That is, if the river is put to some purpose other than to flow downwards, it will encounter opposition.

It is meaningless to suppose that a river could somehow “decide” that is has a purpose – to generate electricity, perhaps – and to thereby bring itself into opposition, but it is not meaningless to suppose that man can do this, and indeed we observe it frequently. In The Book of the Law, we are told that:

pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect (AL I, 44)

If we assume that the self – as previously described – has a nature, in the same way that the river does, then it is superfluous to talk in terms of “purpose”; as Crowley says in his new comment to AL II, 31, “it is ridiculous to ask a dog why it barks.” Talk of “purpose” only becomes meaningful when we assume that purpose to be something other than nature, and hence something towards which the individual can be diverted. As the river is restricted from its simple downward path by being applied to some other purpose such as the generation of electricity, so is the man restricted from fulfilling his own nature if his mind convinces him that he has some other kind of purpose beyond his natural inclinations. We have been careful to use the word “restricted” here, for what we are describing is exactly the type of restriction that AL I, 41 describes: “The word of Sin is Restriction.” We are told in AL I, 42 that “thou hast no right but to do thy will,” but if allow the mind to induce us to follow any sense of “purpose” then we will by definition being acting away from that will, the single thing that The Book of the Law tells us not to do, and the nature of that transgression is “restriction,” since the will – the true nature – can no longer be followed.

Thus, the idea of the “path of least restriction” with which we began this entry can be reformulated Thelemically as the “path of no restriction.” Only by abating every tendency of the mind to act in its own interests, something that can only be accomplished by identifying completely with the self instead of with that mind, can we remove the restrictions that would otherwise cause the individual to act in a manner contrary to his nature, the restrictions that would cause him to act in the wu-wei sense instead of merely to be, or to become.

Therefore in the last few days before the equinox, when light will triumph over darkness, consider well the promptings of the mind to “improve” and to “develop,” since such notions are false and will mislead. Instead, seek the path of least resistance, the path of no restriction, and spend these few days quieting the mind and paying attention to the self. Just as the river is pulled downwards by gravity at every single stage of its journey, so is the opportunity to act in accordance with will present at every moment of life, if one can only be free of self-imposed restriction. One need not “build oneself up” to discovering the will, but can instead merely quieten the mind and find that it was there all along, if one only looked in the right direction. At every moment the will is there waiting to be followed, if one can only drag one’s attention away from the sirens of the mind, from the preoccupations with purpose, morality and righteousness, and instead to turn it simply to what one is, and whither one inclines to go.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.