Liberation
In the week preceding my decision to tackle this essay, upon interpreting one of the daily tarot readings using which I confirm my direction and evaluate my progress, I discovered the extended description of the Liberty card from the William Blake Tarot of the Creative Imagination, including the following excerpt :
« For Blake, Judgment, or human liberation, occurs whenever error is eliminated, and this can happen at any time, individually or societally. »
[source : Facade ]
In many tarot decks, the equivalent of the Liberty card is the Judgment card, typically depicting trumpet-blowing angels waking up the dead from out of their graves. The imagery in Blake's version is very similar, but it prominently features a butterfly rising up to embrace the entire universe, after having completed its metamorphosis.
While the mystic ideal of unification with the divine represented in the artwork has its appeal, the question remains nonetheless pragmatic in its essence, as far as I am concerned anyhow. In short, the enigmatic part of the endeavour consists in identifying error. Once this is done, ridding oneself of it gets, if not necessarily easy, at least achievable. And thus, finally tasting the sweet nectar of liberation gradually becomes less of a farfetched aspiration, and more of a distinct possibility, until it eventually turns into an unavoidable fate.
Phrased in more prosaic terms, the above simply means that as long as what provokes undesirable occurrences is unknown, those unwanted hindrances are bound to happen again. And once one begins to eliminate those causes, the process grows increasingly self-refining, as mistakes and their effects become more and more evident, up to the point when it is quite clear that only such and such a deed could have brought on such and such an outcome.
Like Blake, I believe that liberation can be attained at any time, by anyone. I trust that heaven and hell are coextensive, and that both realms can thus be experienced in one and the same location, and in fact regardless of the location, as a function of one's state of mind.
Motivation
In publishing this essay, I don't aim to convert nor to convince, but I attempt to share knowledge I have acquired along my journey. I readily acknowledge that realities are defined subjectively, and as such that our respective worlds are essentially unique, and thus that the contents suggested therein might not accommodate everyone, nor apply to all. Nevertheless, I hope the document will be of aid to some of those who will consider it.
I obviously assume that most living beings, if not all, would prefer to enjoy an existence wherein they can revel in the activities of their choosing, free of the pains that come with the disagreeable setbacks that life sometimes proposes. Responding to the requirements of one's path is demanding enough as it is without having to address additional annoyances that get in the way of personal development.
Growing up is hard work already, who wants otherwise friendly and dependable people who incomprehensibly start to behave in an antagonistic or detrimental manner ? Who likes devices that stop operating without warning just when they're most needed ? Who strives for public expositions of their limitations ? Who relishes doorways that disappear before one can make it pass their threshold, especially after having toiled forever and a day to witness them materialize from out of the clear blue sky ?
Still, what if all those insufferable deterrents and myriad other similar irritations were actually the results of one's own faults, and as such as many clues inviting one to reform and to regain the itinerary they have selected for themselves ?
It is with attention to those concerns that I feel impelled to prepare the present text, confident that my perspective on the question will benefit at least some of the readers.
Mission
In the following sections, I will undertake to provide a concise yet rigorous explanation of my reflections on this matter of liberation from error. Also, in order to supply references to help the interested seeker recognize possible causes of mistakes in their own processes, I will offer a succinct overview of what is conventionally regarded as wrongdoing in Buddhist and Christian culture, along with alternative tracks of inquiry discovered empirically.
But first, please allow me to reveal parts of my trajectory so as to clarify the standpoint from which my observations have been carried out.
