Mysticism and Adepthood

"The aim of the Adept is union with the Absolute; this is the
summit of True Mysticism, and yet, for the Adept, this height of
attainment has a distinct interpretation. Rather than his own
identity dissolving within the Absolute State of Being, merging and
unifying like the droplet within the ocean, the Adept realises
himself as Absolute: a Perfected Unique Being, and thus as an
Active Principle of New Creation. Taking Himself to be the Hand
of Fate, the struggle of the Adept is that of Lucifer: a War against
That which resists or denies his Will to become the Sole and
Unique One, a Singularity of Unique Power, the Polestar of his
own Universe: QUTUB."
Chumbley, Andrew. QUTUB

Early along the path of spiritual knowledge, one is given the thought that ones' body, emotions, memories and even thoughts are not really themselves. For those who explore this remarkable yet simple notion, eventually one comes to understand that they are themselves a monad of pure consciousness, beyond the body, beyond even the mind. The contemplative realizes that he merely uses the body and mind; when he tells his finger to scratch his head it does so, when he directs his thoughts they obediently shift from a given set of thought to another, and when he experiences fear he can choose to not allow free reign. For all their wonders, the body and mind are distinct from his inner identity, his inner being. This understanding is called self-realization.

Yet self-realization is not the end of it. By further introspection—unless one gets stuck—one comes to understand that his own consciousness, his own spiritual existence, is not ultimate. Even in his own essential identity, he himself is not the be-all and end-all of everything. There are other living beings too, and they’re not just projections of himself. And there’s a material cosmos out there, hard and tangible and unlikely to be something he has merely imagined up. And even if he thinks that in reality such distinctions at last no longer exist, that in truth there is only absolute oneness, and that all else is but an illusion, a dream, he still has to ask himself, “Where does this illusion come from?”

In this way his thoughts bring him to realize that there is an Absolute Truth, a source of all energies, all realities, and he sees himself to be a part of that Absolute. By considering his own identity as a conscious individual—a conscious person—he realizes the individual personal nature of that Absolute. Finally, he recognizes himself not as a component, not as one possible expression of the Absolute but rather as the ultimate manifestation of the Absolute.