The Maze to Nowhere

Qualifier: I don't actually remember writing this. It does resonate, and sounds like me, but I may have gotten it from somewhere else

All esoteric wisdom traditions are built on puzzles. They aren’t necessarily designed to be opaque (although some are), but like an optical illusion, when you see it, you can’t unsee it. The most advanced dynamics within a given tradition are the puzzles where one puzzle has many layers, so that a given solution only leads you to see a new aspect of the puzzle within the container you just solved. Once you solve the internal puzzle, you realize it unlocked yet another puzzle, but also expanded the scope of your original solution by an order of magnitude. This is why so many seekers within esoteric study slide toward obsession, and madness. You get the feeling that at the center there is a puzzle whose solution will make EVERYTHING clear. Perhaps some have even found this. For me, the growing hunger this inspires feels like a path into darkness rather than illumination, so I try to be content within the outer layers of such puzzles

The thing about the whole puzzle dynamic is that before one solves a puzzle, we’ll come at it from every conceivable direction. Battering on the puzzle with all the tools in one’s mind even though the key lies just outside our reach. For those who have discovered the key, this struggle is hard to watch for two reasons. First, they fully recall how frustrating, and relentless that struggle is, and second, because even though the key is obvious to them now, they know that there’s nothing they can do to give you that key. The puzzle itself usually shows the key quite clearly within itself, and there’s little one can do to make it more clear to someone who has yet to see it