“If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him”  is a rather extraordinary state of affairs, and I must confess that until very recently I did not understand what it meant. However , recent events have given me an insight.

Magicians often have a very powerful experience early on in their work, which they quite naturally find horrendous. Quite simply they find themselves either in magickal work or in a dream  having to kill a spirit, who may seem as a black magician. I often get an email the next day on what happened.

Spirits are an energy, and as we know from physics, energy is destroyed, so what is happening? It seems that what is really happening is that the magician is actually destroying an aspect of him or herself – a false persona, not only of the self but of the views of the world. With this magickal action, there is a tremendous liberation, and the magickal abilities immediately start to work on a new level. Killing this spirit kills many of the false ideals or views of spirituality that we accumulate during our lives. I must stress that in every case, the imperative to ‘kill the Buddha’ was not pre-meditated, at least for the Magickian, although Spirits may have led the magickian to do what is necessary.

The Doppelganger

In western magic, there is a phenomena known as the doppelgänger – a spiritual version of the aspirant that is never met – for to do so is very dangerous. It seems that the doppelgänger and the ‘Buddha’ are the same, and we have the mechanism for moving on to the next level of spirituality.

Alchemy

Killing the Buddha is a concept that appears regularly in alchemical work where the destructive process, the nigredo, is the precursor to spiritual growth and integration.

The deeper meaning of killing the buddha is that spiritual gurus are ultimately dis-empowering – you have to grow into your own power. There is also the message for aspiring gurus; be careful or your students will ultimately kill you.