Avent

"Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools." -Napoleon Bonaparte

Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily. —Napoleon Bonaparte

G.I. Gurdjieff on Magnetism, Healing, and the Astral According to Gurdjieff, man carries two substances: 1. the active elements of the physical body and 2. the active elements of astral matter. When the two blend, they create a third, mixed substance. This is 3. magnetism. It forms in certain parts of the body and creates an atmosphere around you (the way a planet is wrapped in its own atmosphere). Planets constantly gain and lose substance because of the planets around them, and as above, so below: the same is true of PEOPLE. Man is surrounded by other men, and through them he can either gain or lose this substance. When two sympathetic atmospheres meet, a connection forms and something flows between them. The total amount stays the same, but the quality changes, so what you walk away with depends on who you’ve been around. Like electricity, magnetism has positive and negative poles. In man these may be his wishes and non-wishes. Astral matter always opposes physical matter. With control, one side can be strengthened and directed like a current. That’s how ancient priests healed. They had a lot of this substance and could pass it on. The sick and weak simply had too little. Halos and auras were real. According to Gurdjieff, Franz Anton Mesmer only rediscovered what the ancients already knew. But you can’t give what you don’t have. Like attention, magnetism is acquired only through conscious labor and intentional suffering, by doing small things voluntarily, against habit. Gurdjieff called this struggle with oneself. A key part of his Work is fighting your likes and dislikes, which strengthens the will. His instruction was simple: “Make some small aim your God.” What does this mean? It sounds controversial, but the point is that whatever you focus on throughout your day is YOUR RELIGION. If you aren’t focused toward spirit during a big % of your day, then your bills, your job and your worst habits are what you worship... that is your god. Pick one small thing you’ll do on purpose every day, like waking at a set time or sitting still for five minutes. Treat it as sacred and never skip it. Each time you choose effort over comfort, you build will and attention. That effort is what creates what we call “magnetism.” Gurdjieff himself was highly magnetic, highly concentrated, charismatic and full of power. That strength comes from effort. In most people the will is asleep, and only through conscious effort does it awaken. In this way, man becomes master not only of himself, but of everything else. Beyond ordinary effort, Gurdjieff taught super-efforts: pushing past the point where you feel you have nothing left. That’s where most people go wrong. They truly believe they’ve hit their breaking point, but they haven’t. The real limit is wayyyy further than they think, but they are afraid to keep going. That is where real transformation begins. Real magnetism. What is the will to power without first a will to will?

Carl Jung was right when he said there is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

The only one who can activate your will, is you. Even reading this won’t activate it. That is a tough reality to swallow.

The greatest philosopher of our time

People are lying machines.

Now that people are realizing Goku is actually introverted and really reserved, it’s clear how many skimmed over the spiritual side of Dragon Ball, and over Goku himself as a genuine master of life. Yes, he’s not the smartest dude ever, but his behaviour is buddhic asf. Dragon Ball seen through Daoism, Buddhism, spirituality and the concept of the inner flame. As we know, Goku surpassed every teacher he trained under, which is why his later Gi just carries the first character of his own name, because he’s his own master now. So it makes sense that he’s so calm and balanced, and has real self-knowledge. There are no desires he’s chasing, especially by the end of Z, where he’s clearly satisfied with his life. Even though GT is non-canon, you can see how relaxed Goku is there too, which is fittingly represented by him literally becoming a kid again lol. I want to point out some things about Dragon Ball that many may not have noticed, and draw some connections that could have inspired it. First we have Goku’s training with Mr. Popo under Kami. In the anime at least, Popo trains Goku in meditation / emptiness, in a state of mind where he doesn’t think and simply moves. Within the story, that’s the earliest foreshadowing of Ultra Instinct, even if it obviously wasn’t an idea yet at the time. Now we all know nothing is more powerful than watching Goku turn Super Saiyan for the first time, after the pain of Krillin’s death. That rage boiled into a huge Ki increase, which resulted in the transformation. But I want to offer the Daoist and Buddhist view of this, and the spiritual lens in general. Whether Toriyama took inspiration from these traditions directly or indirectly, the overlap is there. Even if he only drew from other stories that drew on them, those stories trace back to real sources that go back to ancient times. The roots are there from the very start. Goku himself is based on Sun Wukong, the Monkey King from Journey to the West, a classic that blends Buddhism and Daoism. In Japanese, Son Goku is even written with the same characters as Sun Wukong, and Wukong is a Buddhist name meaning “awakened to emptiness.” The word Ki is the Japanese form of Qi, the Daoist life energy. Later on, Dragon Ball Super even gives us a connection to the idea of Kundalini energy. It expands on how the transformation works when Vegeta, coaching Cabba, says it starts with a "tingling in your back." That's very close to the idea of the chakras running along the spine, with Kundalini coiled at its base. The Saiyans channel their Ki straight to that point, which creates the physical tingle at will. Daoism has its own version of this. In Daoist inner alchemy, energy is gathered in the lower dantian, just below the navel, and circulated up the spine in what’s called the “Microcosmic Orbit.” Tibetan Buddhism has one too, called tummo, or inner fire, where heat is lit below the navel and rises up the body’s central channel. You can see how these traditions overlap. The Buddhist inspirations go deeper too. People have noted that the bow Goku does is the ritual bow, a sign of reverence and gratitude. This makes sense given all the Buddhist undertones in Dragon Ball. Goku gets to keep his body after death because of his purity and good heart, which is reminiscent of the Adamantine Body in esoteric Buddhism, the indestructible vajra body that isn’t bound by ordinary death. I’m not too sure if Toriyama was aware of this or came to it through pure creativity, but it’s an interesting parallel. There’s also actual reincarnation in Dragon Ball. King Yemma, who judges the souls of the dead, is Enma, the Buddhist judge of the underworld, and Kid Buu is reincarnated as Uub. Yemma’s check-in station is also a lot like the in-between place found in certain Western esotericism, where souls first arrive after death before going on to either heaven or hell. I also want to mention that in early Dragon Ball, Goku goes through a real initiation with the Ultra Divine Water. In the ancient mystery traditions, initiation was seen as a kind of death. The Greek writer Plutarch even said dying and being initiated are almost the same thing. The water nearly kills him, but he comes back with powers strong enough to defeat King Piccolo. That feels like the natural course for a character based on Sun Wukong, who gained his own immortality by eating the heavenly peaches and Laozi’s elixir pills, and even came out of Laozi’s furnace stronger than before. This comes straight from Daoist alchemy, where people brewed dangerous elixirs chasing immortality, and where inner alchemy treats the body itself as the furnace you’re refined in. Through Ultra Instinct, Goku finally reaches a form that was meant for him since the conception of his character, which fits his name meaning “awakened to emptiness.” That emptiness is very close to “wu wei” in Daoism, effortless action, and to no-mind in Zen. There are plenty more connections you can make with Goku, like his moral evolution, which people have already made great YouTube videos on. There’s a lot to go over, but I wanted to point out the spiritual side, and how Goku, who’s actually reserved, carries the right mindset towards life, which is to always keep evolving. My inspiration since I was 5 years old.