Atmadarshana

• “But the combination of the elements will usually be a definite single act of catastrophic energy. This act, too, does not take place in time or space as we know them. I think that for the first time of experiencing a Dhyana it is necessarily single. Certain mystical methods may teach us to retain the image; but the criterion of true Dhyana is the singleness, so totally opposed as it is to the vague and varying phantoms of the “astral plane.” The new consciousness resulting from the combination is, too, always a simple one. Even where it is infinitely complex, as in Atmadarshana or the Vision of the Universal {65} Peacock, its oneness is the truer of these two contradictory truths. So for the matter of time and space. All time is filled; all space is filled; the phenomenon is infinite and eternal. This is true even though its singleness makes the duration of the phenomenon but one minimum cogitabile. In short, it is experienced in some other kind of time, some other kind of space.” –The Psychology of Hashish (Equinox I:2)
• “Atmadarshana, for instance, is only to be described feebly (yet I fear unintelligibly, even so) by speaking of a consciousness of the entire Universe as One, and as All, in Its necessary relation to Itself in and out of Time and Space.” –The Psychology of Hashish (Equinox I:2)
• “Of this vision what can one say, save that the Universe, as previously known through Atmadarshana, is annihilated? Yet the negation of this phrase is only apparent; the sense is that all that negative Atmadarshana is destroyed; it is only an illusion that goes. Yet there is indeed Nothing in its place — and the only way to express the matter is to spell that Nothing with a capital N.” –The Psychology of Hashish (Equinox I:2)
  
• “Unto the sunset, moonrise, Agni… then Vishvarupa Darshana, and one’s own Personal God [Adonai. The Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel]; then Atma-Darshana [Atma-Darshana, the universal vision of Pan, or the vision of the Universal Peacock. It has many forms.] and Shiva-Darshana [Vision of Shiva, which destroys the Atma-Darshana. The God Shiva opens his eye, and Equilibrium is re-established].”” -Temple of Solomon the King (Equinox I:4)
  
• “It would seem at first sight that it is of no importance whatever to choose an object of meditation. For example, the Samadhi called Atmadarshana might arise from simple concentration of the thought on an imagined triangle, or on the heart.” –Liber 175: Liber Astarte
  
• “And with the reappearance of the Holy Guardian Angel he may be granted the highest attainments, and be truly fitted for the full experience of the destruction of the Universe. And by the Universe We mean not that petty Universe which the mind of man can conceive, but that which is revealed to his soul in the Samadhi of Atmadarshana.” –Liber 474: Liber Os vel Abysmi
  
• “An even more advanced instruction, but still connected with the question of the Ego and the non-Ego. The phenomenon described is perhaps Ātmadarshana, which is still a delusion, in one sense still a delusion of personality; for although the Ego is destroyed in the Universe, and the Universe in it, there is a distinct though exceedingly subtle tendency to sum up its experience as Ego.”-The Voice of Silence
• “By “SAT, the true,” is meant a thing previous to the “REAL” referred to above. SAT itself is an illusion. Some schools of philosophy have a higher ASAT, Not-Being, which is beyond SAT, and consequently is to Shivadarshana as SAT is to Atmadarshana. Nirvana is beyond both these.” –The Voice of Silence
• ““Twilight” here may again refer to Ātmadarshana.” –The Voice of Silence
  
• “The Vision of the Universal Peacock–Atmadarshana. The confusion of the Mind, and the Perception of its self-contradiction… Atmadarshana arising is destroyed by the Opening of the Eye of Shiva; the annihilation of the Universe. The adept is destroyed, and there arises the Master of the Temple.” –Liber 242: AHA!
  
• “Of course, the reason why one does not do these things is that in the trance Atmadarshana, on the threshold of masterpiece, one loses one’s Ego for ever. Thenceforth the man exists only as a vehicle for an Impersonal Master; he lives his own life, and does his own duty, but the Master in him doesn’t care what happens to him.” –The Revival of Magick
  
• “The “vision” (to use still the name become totally inadequate) appears to have had three main points in its Atmadarshana stage —(1). The Universal Peacock. (2). The Universe as Ego. “I who am all and made it all, abide its separate lord,” i.e. the universe becomes a single and simple being, without quantity, quality or conditions. In this the “I” is immanent, yet the “I” made it, and the “I” is entirely apart from it. (This is the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, or something very like it.) (3). This Trinity is transcended by an impersonal Unity. This is then annihilated by the Opening of the Eye of Shiva. It is absolutely futile to discuss this; it has been tried and failed again and again. Even those with experience of the earlier part of the “vision” in its fullness must find it totally impossible to imagine anything so subversive of the whole base, not only of the ego, but of the absolute behind the ego.” –Confessions, chapter 59
• “In some eleven hundred lines [in AHA!] I have described all the principal trances, from the three types of Dhyana (Sun, Moon, Agni) and the four elements (for instance, the Disc “like a black boundless diamond whirring with millions of wings”), to the spiritual beings that inhabit the invisible universe, and the Samadhic Trances, Atmadarshana and Shivadarshana.” –Confessions, chapter 65
  
• “Some authors consider Atmadarshana, the Universe as a single phenomenon without conditions, to be the first real Samadhi.” If we accept this, we must relegate many less exalted states to the class of Dhyana.” -Liber ABA: Magick, part 1
• “The Samadhi “par excellence,” however, is Atmadarshana, which for some, and those not the least instructed, is the first real Samadhi; for even the visions of “God” and of the “Self” are tainted by form. In Atmadarshana the All is manifested as the One: it is the Universe freed from its conditions. Not only are all forms and ideas destroyed, but also those conceptions which are implicit in our ideas of those ideas. footnote: This is so complete that not only “Black is White,” but “The Whiteness of Black is the essential of its Blackness.” “Naught = One = Infinity”; but this is only true “because” of this threefold arrangement, a trinity or “triangle of contradictories.” Each part of the Universe has become the whole, and phenomena and noumena are no longer opposed. But it is quite impossible to describe this state of mind. One can only specify some of the characteristics, and that in language which forms no image in mind. It is impossible for anyone who experiences it to bring back any adequate memory, nor can we conceive a state transcending this. There is, however, a very much higher state called Shivadarshana, of which it is only necessary to say that it is the destruction of the previous state, its annihilation; and to understand this blotting-out, one must not imagine “Nothingness” (the only name for it) as negative, but as positive. But the mind refuses to find a simile for Atmadarshana. It seems merely ineffective to say that the rushing together of all the host of heaven would similarly blot out the sunlight. But if we do say so, and wish to form a further image of Shivadarshana, we must imagine ourselves as suddenly recognizing that this universal blaze is darkness; not a light extremely dim compared with some other light, but darkness itself. It is not the change from the minute to the vast, or even from the finite to the infinite. It is the recognition that the positive is merely the negative. The ultimate truth is perceived not only as false, but as the logical contradictory of truth. It is quite useless to elaborate this theme, which has baffled all other minds hitherto. We have tried to say as little as possible rather than as much as possible.” -Liber ABA: Magick, part 1
  
• “Unless your Universe is perfect—and perfection includes the idea of balance—how can you come even to Atmadarshana? Hindus may maintain that Atmadarshana, or at any rate Shivadarshana, is the equivalent of crossing the Abyss. Beware of any such conclusions! The Trances are simply isolated experiences, sharply cut off from normal thought-life. To cross the Abyss is a permanent and fundamental revolution in the whole of one’s being.” –Magick Without Tears
• “M. Beyond Vishvarupadarshana, the vision of the Form of Vishnu, beyond that yet loftier vision which corresponds in Hindu classification to our “Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel”, is that called Atmadarshana, the vision (or apprehension, a much better word) of the Universe as a single phenomenon, outside all limitations, whether of time, space, causality, or what not… But even beyond Atmadarshana comes the experience called Sivadarshana [possibly almost identical with the Buddhist Neroda-Samapatti], in which this Atman (or Brahman), this limit-destroying Universe, is itself abolished and annihilated.” –Magick Without Tears, chapter 5