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"Holy Guardian Angel: This is a term employed in Western magic and signifies the spark of God, which is the essence of every man and woman. Knowledge of the Holy Guardian Angel is synonymous with the cosmic consciousness."
- From: Mystica, An on-line encyclopedia of the occult

"The Angel is our self, beyond duality. However, the way to understand this twin aspect is through total being, including our various levels of mind, body and ego, our conscious, subconscious and extra-conscious levels of awareness. The knowing of one’s self in totality and honesty brings us face-to-face with the infinite potential within."
- Frater Omen

"Buddha nature is the basic consciousness of our inherent potential for compassion, wisdom and serenity. It can be rediscovered through meditation, a process of attaining self-awareness and self-realization."
- Ven. Chung Ok Lee

"The kind of body, speech and mind that we pray to obtain is the body, speech and mind of a Buddha. Physical positive actions that can benefit, action of speech that can benefit. And a mind with enough wisdom to truly do that which is beneficial. We wish our body, speech and mind to be inseparable from that of a Buddha. This is our goal. "
- L. Hadon

If there is any spiritual place where Eastern and Western mysticism meet, it may be in the concept of a personal experience of an actualized Self as spiritually transcendent ‘beingness.’ In the Western mystical tradition, this externalized concept is called the ‘Holy Guardian Angel’ (HGA). In Orthodox or Catholic dogma, the HGA is considered an angel of divine emanation specifically born with each person and whose duty it is to guide and help that person in his or her spiritual quest through life and in death. The HGA is also to accompany its charge to Heaven (one hopes.) In the Western mystical tradition, the HGA takes on a much deeper importance, in fact it has been said a number of times that no practical magickal work can ever be done until the aspirant has attained ‘Knowledge & Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.’ This was traditionally seen as an inner and outer magickal working involving the whole-hearted focus of the aspirant upon the divine essence of his or her Self by through ritual, meditation, visionary experiences and a complete focus on detaching from the world by ‘inflaming oneself through prayer.’

At first glance, this process of spiritual attainment of ‘oneness’ with the ‘Higher Self’ sounds more like an quest for what Eastern traditions refer to as ‘Atman.’ Or the True Soul. On the surface, this seems contrary to the spirit of the Buddhist quest for ‘Anata’ or the Void, but in fact we can see that they are the same means to the same ends.

Except for the most severely iconoclastic Buddhist sects, all Buddhists focus their prayers and visualizations on specific idealized images of the Buddha or on  a personified aspect of Buddha or a Boddhisattva. In other words, prayers, chants and meditations focus upon an exteriorized image of the Total Self or Being who is transcendent, the Buddha. While we can intellectually discuss the fact that we are ‘All Buddhas’, just as western mystics say ‘We are all bits of God’, the fastest way to this Union with the Infinite is to focus on an external image of the divine and then merge with it. In this process, Western mystical  rituals and many Buddhist rituals are identical; A godform or personified divine image is visualized and then the adept merges with it and becomes that deity, taking on the aspects of that deity. In Buddhism, one of the main attribute to becoming Buddha is to accomplish what THE Buddha did, attain enlightenment and release from attachment to ALL images and deities! So the Buddhist tradition tells us that this is a means to an end, that what one is after is freedom, illumination, enlightenment and release from o the illusionary world. In other words, in becoming a Buddha, one no longer has any need for the concept of ‘Buddha’ or of anything else for that matter. Supreme consciousness negates bondage and conceptualization, and thus Nirvana or a state of egoless existence as Void is attained: Enlightenment.

What is not so well known about the Western occult practice of union with the HGA is that this is the exact same result that is hoped for after the process of ‘knowledge and conversation’ is accomplished. Adepts who have followed this path describe the attainment of the HGA as ‘becoming one with god’ but then go on to admit that one of the secrets discovered through this process is that the HGA is perceived as a ‘mask of the ineffable divine’ or a ‘stepping-stone’ and not the goal in an of itself! In other words, the idealized HGA, like the idealized Buddha, is a handy or useful fiction, a ‘vehicle’ if you will, that carries us over the rough seas of spiritual evolution (Dharma) and facilitates our complete awareness of All as All, that is, as Void.

This sort of consciousness, of course, can only be discussed in terms of paradox, in both Western occult traditions and in Buddhism. In Qabala, this state of consciousness is of the ‘Supernals’ and beyond. After becoming one with the HGA (Tipereth) the adept continues upward on the Tree of Life to union with God (Kether.) It is what happens after this that unites the Eastern and Western paths of attainment. The goal in both Buddhism and the Western occult tradition is to get ‘off the Tree of Life of Life’ (‘Maya’ in Buddhism) completely. Thus either AIN (‘Void’ in Hebrew) or Anata (‘Void’ in Sanskrit) is obtained.
So, in both mystical traditions, where are dedicated mystics headed? It is the Void, AIN or ANATA.

The nexus or place where the Buddhist and Western gnosis come together for me personally is in the mantra OM MANI PADME HUM, defined by several Buddhist teachers, including the Dalai Lama, as containing the entire current of Buddhism.

Often loosely (and some say badly) translated as ‘The Jewel in the Center of the Lotus,’ it is actually far more complex and there is more to it than I can write about it here. Still, briefly, we can see it thus:

Here the Jewel is the Buddha-nature or HGA, the Lotus is the World or the Universe or the human Body or all three. The uniting of the Self & self = Illumination or Enlightenment.

It is worth noting that the images of Mandala, Lotus and Magickal Circle are identical in this context. The alchemical image of the Sun as a circle with a point in the center is therefore, in this light, identical with the jewel of realization shimmering in the Lotus of consciousness in Maya.

Hopefully this article raises more questions than it answers, and the subject of Om Mani Padme Hum could indeed be a book unto itself. Yet it is remarkable how many western mystics and magickians use this ‘most used mantra in the world.’ I will end this short essay with a few quotes on the ‘master Mani mantra’ to meditate upon in regards to the union of the concepts of Buddha & HGA as vehicles for the attainment of release from Samsara. Whatever your Path, may all beings attain enlightenment! Om mani padme hum.

"There is not a single aspect of the eighty-four thousand sections of the Buddha's teachings which is not contained in Avalokiteshvara's six syllable mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum", and as such the qualities of the "mani" are praised again and again in the Sutras and Tantras....."

-Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Heart Treasure of the Enlightened Ones

"Thus the six syllables, om mani padme hum, mean that in dependence  on the practice of a path which is an indivisible union of method and wisdom, you can transform your impure body, speech, and mind into the pure exalted body, speech, and mind of a Buddha. It is said that you should not seek for Buddhahood outside of yourself; the substances for the achievement of Buddhahood are within."

- H.H. The Dalai Lama, on Om mani padme hum