That Personality Which Limits And Oppresses His True Self

The Grade of Master of the Temple is described in Liber 418 and other sources, and clearly identifies that the essential attainment of the grade is “the perfect annihilation of that personality which limits and oppresses his true self”.

This phrase has been imperfectly understood since it was first written, and with further commentary within and without the Tradition by those without direct Understanding consequently has caused more confusion on the subject of the Master of the Temple than any other literature in the Western Magickal corpus. Read literally, the quote above would assert that in order for the Adept to attain and grade of Master of the Temple, they must psychically lobotomize their own personality. Such a creature might be imagined to be a marionette, mindlessly moving in response to universal laws it is no longer cognizant of. The personality is an object in consciousness, employing the faculties of memory and reason to interpret the perceived present or future through the lens of past experience. The personality is comprised of a host of individual components both conscious and unconscious which in aggregate is by association assumed to be “me”. In this context, annihilation does not connote destruction or defeat, but rather to render void by disidentification. The Master still has a personality, still experiences anger, sadness, fear and other emotions as objects in consciousness. However, by recognizing that they are merely objects in consciousness and consequently have no ultimate existence he disidentifies with them and consequently is no longer bound by them. With the removal of those limitations caused by identification with the personality, the true self can act. The personality remains, and can be employed as a useful tool, but is no longer recognized as the seat of identity.

The Magister Templi is pre-eminently the Master of Mysticism, that is, His Understanding is entirely free from internal contradiction or external obscurity; His word is to comprehend the existing Universe in accordance with His own Mind. He is the Master of the Law of Sorrow (Dukkha).

The use of the word mysticism has been criticized by those whom have interpreted it to mean direct subjective knowledge of the Christian or other expressions of God, or have mistakenly understood it to mean that it is possible to intuit the nature of ultimate reality. Rather, what is being discussed is the supra-rational understanding that the real center of experience is not the mind, but the Self, being the awareness in which everything happens. Self is the common factor of all experience, that central “I am”  without predicates that until now was enveloped by the mind, only occasionally breaking free in rare glimpses of intuition or insight. This spark of “I am”, being conscious of consciousness has no attributes and cannot be described. It is being only self, and being my self is all there is. It is nondual; everything that exists is my self, as there is nothing that is different from me. Without time and causation, what happens can only happen now, spontaneously. Being nondual is the state of love as compared to the desire for love, for All is in Self. The Self is the source of all reality, the sphere in which the world is manifested. The Law of Sorrow (Dukkha) can be translated many ways, but in this context primarily refers to the realization that all phenomena are objects in consciousness and therefore transitory and without true reality.