The Parable of the Coach
The Origin
The parable of the Coach is told in certain Eastern Traditions; Gurdjieff recounts it in Ouspensky's In Search of the Miraculous. But it is much older than this: It appears in the Katha Upanishad, which dates from perhaps 1500 BCE, which describes it as follows.
Know the Self as lord of the chariot,
The body as the chariot itself,
The discriminating intellect as charioteer,
And the mind as reins.
The senses, say the wise, are the horses;
Selfish desires are the roads they travel.
When the Self is confused with the body,
Mind, and senses, they point out, he seems To enjoy pleasure and suffer sorrow. (3:3)
The Image
The image is of a coach or carriage being pulled by two horses. The coachman sits atop the coach and, in the ideal case, the Master sits inside. The coach itself represents the physical body. The horses represent our feelings, sensations, passions and desires. The coachman represents our intellectual and reasoning facilities, the ego mind. The Master inside the coach represents our full consciousness and will; this aspect of ourselves directs the entire integrated ensemble: the coachman holds the reins, keeping the emotions in check, and drives the coach in the direction indicated by the Master.
In the actual case, however, the Master is missing; more accurately, the coachman can’t hear the Master; our ordinary consciousness is not aware that a Master even exists. Worse, the coach is breaking down from misuse. The horses are dirty and ill-kempt. The coachman is asleep most of the time and keeps dropping the reins. The coach is frequently diverted by some casual passerby who wants to go somewhere. Either that or the coach is off the road, careening down a dangerous slope. It pushes the horses from behind and they can’t hold it back. At the mercy of the steep, uneven slope, the coachman is in danger of falling off the carriage to his death.
How did the coach get into this miserable state? Perhaps it was a global cataclysm that occurred many thousands of years ago that resulted in the seemingly-permanent loss of contact with the Master within. We may never know. Whatever the reason, we have to deal with things as they stand today, and for this—and for the key to righting the coach and reinstalling the Master—we have an amazing model, an explicit road map to the recovery of our own coaches. It is the Tarot cards, specifically those twenty-two cards that comprise the Major Arcana or Trumps.
The sections provide a summary of the Tarot cards presented in a unique, operational sequence. Twelve of the cards are associated with the signs of the Zodiac and these are also indicated. Considerations of the origin of the Tarot and this particular sequence, as well as the deeper meanings of each card, are postponed in favor of first giving an overall look at the Fool’s journey which they describe.
The cards are divided into several groups, which allows their practical, operational meanings to be unlocked. For we are not interested in divination, fortune telling, heretical religious beliefs or anything of the sort that other authors write about. We are only interested in making the coach fit and causing the Master to return inside it.
The Hell cards
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| The Blasted Tower | The Wheel of Fortune | The Hanging Man | The Devil |
The cause of and nature of our present situation are represented by four cards. The first is The Blasted Tower, which represents one idea on different levels. First, it depicts a physical cataclysm, which came from the sky and consisted in part of gigantic lightening bolts perhaps thousands of miles long. Second, the tower, as a symbol of the primordial, whole and integrated human being, depicts how the lower, physical part was separated from the higher, spiritual part. This idea is also represented by the Tower of Babel story, which we are to understand as follows: The original “language” was universal because it was what we today would call telepathic; everyone shared in a universal consciousness, which everyone “spoke.” After the cataclysm, everyone “spoke” their own, internal language; consciousness became locked in “individuals,” with few exceptions. The other three Hell cards—and indeed the necessity for the entire Fool’s journey—are a consequence of this one event.
Without a strong spiritual connection, we are without a center. Our lives are driven by outer events which swirl around us in unending cycles. This state is depicted by The Wheel of Fortune. Alternate names are The Wheel of Things, The Wheel of Mundane Life, because we are no longer connected to the still, enlightening center. Life takes us up, down and around on the circumference of the wheel; we never consciously reach the hub where the most important part of out Selves resides. The Fool’s journey may be said to return us to the center, from which we’ve been estranged for such a long time.
We are all trapped in the Wheel of Life, and the Hanging Man represents this condition. For us, everything is reversed. Our ideas and concepts are all upside down, as we experience only the outside life and not the internal one. Even our very perceptions are reversed; our eyes, like a camera lens, invert the external images before us. They are sent to the brain upside down. We look for the Creator outside, when really he/she is inside. It is no accident that The Hanging Man is in the exact same position as the figure in the World card. The Fool’s task is to “right” himself or herself, and so reunite with the spiritual center.
Who hung this figure? The Devil card personifies the ongoing results of our predicament. Other apt names are Inertia, and Illusion. We are chained to the inertia of our concepts and to the mass consciousness that is thick around and inside us. The Devil card, in fact, exactly describes the coach in disrepair and the coachman who is drugged or asleep. The external world we find ourselves entwined in creates a din, and we can barely hear our inner voices; the Devil figure should be shown yelling. But there is no need to personify this devil in fact. Note well that there is no centralized “devil” figure; he is decentralized and exists within each of us. We are chained to the tyranny of our minds, body and emotions, as most traditional Tarot decks show. But if you look closely, the neck chains are loose! They can be easily removed if one so desires—and if one knows that the outer world may in fact be transcended. Such a person is The Fool, the true wild card of the deck.
The Transformation of the Fool
Most people don’t know that we may take inner actions, regardless of the contingencies of outer life. The dull roar of external life mesmerizes us and we give up; the bright, inner messages we were still able to hear during childhood are shut off and ignored: the world seems to demand it. Yet a few are not satisfied. They are reminded in some way; their memory is triggered that there are other modes of being; other realms of existence. These ones seek to embark on paths to reunion. They are determined to put the Tower back together again within themselves. They forsake the whirling outer rim of the wheel and seek the still, timeless center. Figuratively, they right themselves and learn how to correctly harness body, mind and emotions and put them in service of their own transcendent selves. The devil’s din is replaced with a silent, inner calm of communion with the consciousness and energy of the entire universe.
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| The Fool | The Magician | The World |
These ones are the Fools, in our scheme. They dare to seem foolish before their peers; they dare to be different and follow an inner path. Their ultimate goal is reunion with the Androgyne depicted in The World card, Shiva and Shakti, God and Goddess, but united as one whole being. Fool no longer, he or she has become The Magician, a fully realized being over whom the outer world has no power. The Magician may choose to return to the outer world for a time—in the same, albeit now transformed body—in order to be of service to other Fools upon the path. But the being of the Magician has been utterly transformed from that of the Fool who started out. The spiritual connection is now experienced strongly and full-time. The entire being has been strengthened during the journey to be able to hold much higher levels of energy within it. The ego mind still exists, but now is in service to the universal mind. How could it be otherwise, for they are one.
The magician represents a state of being described by the alchemical formula solve et coalgua, which means to convert the Body into Spirit and then convert the Spirit into Body. The solve corresponds to an ascent; this process is symbolized by the cards that depict the Fool's journey (described in more detail below). The coagula corresponds to the descent back into the physical body. The physical body is spiritualized as a result of a successful ascent; a new, non-physical body is crystallized. Then this "Diamond" body returns during the descent to perfect the physical body. Thus is The Fool utterly transformed into The Magician.
The Transcendental cards
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Awakening |
The Lovers | The Chariot | Transference |
To counteract the four Hell cards, there are four cards which represent action, functions and objects that exist only on inner, transcendental levels. The first card is Awakening, called Judgement in most decks. That title has many incorrect connotations and is not used here. The card depicts an angelic being blowing a horn to wake any of the sleeping masses who chose to heed it. He is represented by Gabriel or, more anciently, by krishna in hindu art, who is depicted with a flute. He plays an enrapturing song that recalls all human souls to their true homes. If only we could hear Him! At certain moments, we all can hear this "music," but only briefly and indistinctly. It's the Fool's goal to hear it non-stop.
The next transcendental card is The Lovers, a subtle card that is also widely misunderstood. Like the other cards in this group, it carries different meanings in the different stages of the journey. It's central meaning, though, is a marriage between the Fool and the Goddess, or between the spiritual aspirant (the sadhaka, one who performs spiritual practices) and Shakti in Tantric yoga. It is a real marriage, although not a physical one. It is what the French Troubadours sang about in the Middle Ages. It is the subject of the famous Scots poem The Ballad of Thomas Rhymer, where Thomas departs the outer world with the Faerie Queen, is transformed, and returns to the outer world for a time. Shakti in this instance means power, the power that now inheres in the Fool, who has previously been prepared to hold and handle it. Out of their union a new body is incubated, which is described next.
The Chariot represents the exteriorized, subtle body of the Fool that, as the journey progresses, will hold the consciousness that formerly was only identified as being within the physical body. This is the beginning of the actual separation or fission the Fool must complete before reunion can occur. The Chariot is depicted without wheels, indicating that it is not a physical vehicle. The horses (or sphinxes in some decks) are at rest, which represent the mind and emotions under control. This vehicle has many names in different traditions: merkabah and golem are two. This chariot is the exact same thing as the coach in the parable we described above. By the end of the journey, the Master will be installed inside, the Coachman will be in full control and will bid the horses to take the coach/chariot wherever the Master desires. There is a deep mystery here, because for a time this "chariot" is non-physical; it is a subtle body the Fool builds and enlivens step by step. Only later by a rebirthing process is it made physical, whereupon it becomes the body of the transformed Fool, the Magician.
This body is enlivened by a conscious act, symbolized by the trump Transference, misleadingly called Temperance in most decks. The liquid being poured between two vessels is the consciousness of the Fool. The two vessels represent the physical body and the merkabah. The full mystery of the entire journey occurs in this card: the transference is non-physical- it is metaphysical, if you will--yet it is profoundly real.
The Stages of the journey
The next page describes the journey stages.