Aleister Crowley, Jack Kerouac, the Buddha, mystery, and Hazrat Inyat Kahn

Aleister Crowley was called “the laziest man in three continents.” (Book of Thoth,xii), and Jack Kerouac proudly announced: “I am the Buddha known as the Quitter.” (Dharma Bums, p180)^{^[2]}

Lispector describes this occurrence in the growth of one of her characters, she writes: "He had learned the technique of how to be vulnerable and alert with the face of an idiot." (Apple, p152)

Hazrat Inyat Kahn explores more fully this potential of 'effortlessness', relating:

"The heart of man, if once expanded, becomes larger than all the heavens. The deep thinkers of all ages have therefore held that the only principle of awakening to life is the principle of emptying the self. In other words, making oneself clearer and more complete accommodation in order to accommodate all experiences more clearly and more fully. The tragedy of life, all its sorrows and pains, belong mostly to the surface of the life of the world. If one were fully awake to life, if one could respond to life, if one could perceive life, one would not need to look for wonders, one would not need to communicate with spirits; for every atom in this world is a wonder when one sees with open eyes."(The Mysticism, etc.p87)

He is alluding to the fact that we ourselves vanish inwardly as unmystery unwinds before us, exposing itself as mystery everywhere; we dissolve into the Mystery, and only the Mystery remains. And for this to happen, nothing needs to happen.

"...the stupendous fact that we stand in the midst of reality will always be something far more wonderful than anything we do", states Erich Gutkind (quoted in Henry Miller's insightful essays, The Absolute Collective, which eloquently describes the perils of profane participation).

Life itself is the marvelous; the mundane is the wonderful, and the sacred is the profane, if only we would slow down, stop for a second, and take reverent notice. And yet, how difficult indeed it is to ‘not do’.

[2] This is reminiscent of a joke about the Buddha demanding of a disciple: “Don’t just do something, stand there.” As well an anonymous, anarchist saying, runs: “All that is necessary for the triumph over evil is for enough good men to do nothing.”