Thelema and Compassion

Hermitas

Hmh. With that understanding, even "ruthless compassion" would be a vice.

Weird.

Makes sense.

Jim Eshelman

@Sardonyx said

"Hmh. With that understanding, even "ruthless compassion" would be a vice."

Oh, absolutely.

None of this makes sense as a Thelemic ethic until you add in 2:52, where Hadit says, "veil not your vices in virtuous words: these vices are my service; ye do well, & I will reward you here and hereafter."

I think there has been some attempt here to veil the vice of compassion in "virtuous words" - words that people think are "more Thelemic," etc. What serves Hadit are our unapologetic vices.

Takamba

Oh, Lord, it's hard to be humble
When you're Hadit in every way
I can't wait to look in the mirror
'Cause I get better lookin' each day

To know me is to love me
I must be a hell of a man
Oh, Lord, it's hard to be humble
But I'm doin' the best that I can

Hermitas

Ha!

...hard to be helpful...

Heru

@Jim Eshelman said

"I think it's a "vice" not because it's one kind of compassion or another etc., but for a more exacting reason: Compassion is one of those spaces where one "makes a difference between" one thing or another. Anything like that is flawed eventually."

I'm trying to reconcile this view, including your comment about Adepts and Masters, with the following quote by Chogyam Trungpa:

@Chogyam Trungpa said

"When we talk about compassion, we talk in terms of being kind. But compassion is not so much being kind; it is being creative to wake a person up."

There may be no connection, but I was still intrigued by the idea that attempting to "wake a person up" could possibly be in some way flawed.

Speculation alert! Could this mean that an Adept's attempts at trying to awaken another person are, in a certain sense, futile. While the Master sees the futility in the exercise, knowing that you can't wake someone up unless they want to be woken up in the first place?

Hermitas

I wonder a lot about the motivation of masters to continue the work of enlightening humanity. If it's all perfect as it is, then why work to enlighten? Whether kind or ruthless, it seems like compassion.

Call it "creativity," it still has a goal to create change, doesn't it? Or what?

If I look past Binah to Chokmah, it just seems to say, well, call it evil if you want, some things exist that are just naturally aggressive/projective like that, regardless of result. They just... do. They enlighten.

"Creative" in that sense? Maybe?

Jim Eshelman

@Her said

"
@Chogyam Trungpa said
"When we talk about compassion, we talk in terms of being kind. But compassion is not so much being kind; it is being creative to wake a person up."

There may be no connection, but I was still intrigued by the idea that attempting to "wake a person up" could possibly be in some way flawed. "

Though I don't think it's a "big sin," it does rest on a judgment that there is something wrong with the person being asleep.

"Speculation alert! Could this mean that an Adept's attempts at trying to awaken another person are, in a certain sense, futile. While the Master sees the futility in the exercise, knowing that you can't wake someone up unless they want to be woken up in the first place?"

This is a main reason that both initiation and healing are only offered in response to someone actively seeking it, requesting it. - PS, it doesn't take a Master to see the last point, any Neophyte should be well equipped on this matter.

Hermes

@Sardonyx said

"I wonder a lot about the motivation of masters to continue the work of enlightening humanity. If it's all perfect as it is, then why work to enlighten? Whether kind or ruthless, it seems like compassion.

Call it "creativity," it still has a goal to create change, doesn't it? Or what?
"

I dont think Masters have "goals", and certainly not to "create" or "change" anything.

Compassion at this level probably just consist of doing ones will according to ones nature.

The thing though, probably, is the precision of alignement is so great that even 0.0000001% compation have like billions times more effect than the Neophyte's 100% one. And this on an automatic level.

Just speculations

And of course everything is perfect. Effects are just a side effect. Just like the fish swims and the bird flies, and we say they do so seeing them doing so. Though, do they really do so? Ask them and see the answer. I guess there are masters at "doing" so.

Jim Eshelman

@Hermes said

"I dont think Masters have "goals", and certainly not to "create" or "change" anything.

Compassion at this level probably just consist of doing ones will according to ones nature. "

Doing one's will according to one's nature is hardy inconsistent with having goals and living to create or change something

"The thing though, probably, is the precision of alignement is so great that even 0.0000001% compation have like billions times more effect than the Neophyte's 100% one. And this on an automatic level. "

Insightful.

Hermes

Thanks for your comments...

I think i confused the nature of the higher grades in a similar way Patrick did when asking "if a Master reincarnates" in the so named topic.

Reading your answer there i find it relates with this one, at least in my understanding.

gerry456

sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.
"the victims should be treated with compassion" is the dictionary definition of compassion.

As I said in another thread "I don't understand (re AL) how "the consoler" is hated when in fact, consolers have a heart, they have feelings i.e they feel. On the other hand, the miserable don't feel ("for they feel not") and we are therefore told to let them die in their misery".

Therefore the contextual definition of compassion, in AL, must be divorced from this ability tofeel one's way out of misery. In fact it is even opposed to it. Crowley proclaimed in his writings that "to pity a man is to insult him" so yes there he is negating sentimentalism.

Hermitas

My views have been evolving a little.

In context, they "feel not" because they are "dead."

From Hadit's perspective, they don't have the essential passion to exist. That's the only feeling he's concerned with in my view.

Luce

Okay, simplistic question here:

You walk down the road and see a woman being raped. You have the ability to help her. Do you help her? Do you have a moral obligation to help her? Does it depend? If it depends, is it only in obscure cases that you wouldn't help her? Is helping her showing compassion?

gerry456

@Luce said

"Okay, simplistic question here:

You walk down the road and see a woman being raped. You have the ability to help her. Do you help her? Do you have a moral obligation to help her? Does it depend? If it depends, is it only in obscure cases that you wouldn't help her? Is helping her showing compassion?"

Yes of course I help her. If not physically then I alert the cops. Is this compassion? I don't know but its certainly sympathy i.e. I'm feeling her pain like it says in Al.

Hermitas

You act from your Self. You don't stop and wonder if a book approves.

Then you get home and figure out that's what the book was saying.

My two.

gerry456

Exactly.

Gnosomai Emauton

@Luce said

"Is helping her showing compassion?"

No... it's showing alignment with my own Will. Just as not helping her in one of those obscure cases which contradict my Will would be doing the same.

Takamba

@Gnosomai Emauton said

"
@Luce said
"Is helping her showing compassion?"

No... it's showing alignment with my own Will. Just as not helping her in one of those obscure cases which contradict my Will would be doing the same."

Amen!

erm, I mean, Hazzah!

erm, I mean, So mote it be!

erm... uhm.... 93!

gerry456

The concept of having"no feelings" is repeated twice in Al and not that far apart;

Hear me, ye people of sighing!
The sorrows of pain and regret
Are left to the dead and the dying,
The folk that not know me as yet.

These are dead, these fellows; they feel not. We are not for the poor and sad: the lords of the earth are our kinsfolk.
Is a God to live in a dog? No! but the highest are of us. They shall rejoice, our chosen: who sorroweth is not of us.
Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us.
We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not.

Takamba

@gerry456 said

"The concept of having"no feelings" is repeated twice in Al and not that far apart;

Hear me, ye people of sighing!
The sorrows of pain and regret
Are left to the dead and the dying,
The folk that not know me as yet.

These are dead, these fellows; they feel not. We are not for the poor and sad: the lords of the earth are our kinsfolk.
Is a God to live in a dog? No! but the highest are of us. They shall rejoice, our chosen: who sorroweth is not of us.
Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us.
We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not."

Here I think is the root of your confusion (yes, I'm putting the ownership of it on you):

You are construing "pain" and "regret" and "sorrows" as "feelings" equal to the joys of languid laughter. Pain and regret, in the context of Liber AL at least, are the chains of the slave gods; it is with these shames that they shackle their sheep. But in Thelema there is no wrong, per se, because learning is a process of leaping and laughing, laughing even when we skin our knees and learn.

Does that help?

**