True Will and physical obstacles
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Jim,
How would you respond to those who say the choice of the individual is an illusion and that you are not actually in control of your life. And that trying to control and choose strengthens the ego. I'm not advocating this stance, I'm just curious as to how these two seemingly opposite points of view could be resolved. I remember you wrote that (I'm paraphrasing) doing your True Will and surrendering to God are the same idea, except that the symbols convey something different to the reader. Doing my True Will seems much more active, and well, exciting, and that is why I'm more drawn to that phrase than to surrender. But the difference I see is that you recommend that people see life as a continuous series of choices, and advocates of surrender simply say to drop resistance to what-is.
-Sean
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@Ever Onward said
"How would you respond to those who say the choice of the individual is an illusion and that you are not actually in control of your life."
The same way I'd respond to a child who wasn't yet able to understand some basic fact: A mixture of patience, compassion, and not worrying too much about their ignorance.
You're really asking something close to: How would I respond to someone who insists the Earth is flat and all of these round-earth pretentions are an illusion. Except, in the case you raise, it's easier to understand why people are ignorant. Most people confuse themselves with their personalities, and they aren't even in control of themselves most of the time - how can they feel they are in control of the part of reality they insist on not calling themselves? I understand. But, unless they're seeking to move past it (i.e., unless they're asking for healing), there's nothing I can do about it but be patient.
"And that trying to control and choose strengthens the ego."
Interesting point, because the answer comes from two opposite sides. First (almost a digression), we can't skip the step of strengthening the ego. It has to be strong, healthy, well-built before we can functionally move past it and still count on it to do its job for us. But the direct answer is: Actually, it does quite the opposite. This doesn't work if you come at it from there.
Which makes me think of a third thing: We may be tripping over semantics here. The "control" isn't handled from the ego side. That doesn't work. The only part of ego action there that works is ego surrender to the deeper level of oneself which is making the actual choice.
"I remember you wrote that (I'm paraphrasing) doing your True Will and surrendering to God are the same idea, except that the symbols convey something different to the reader. Doing my True Will seems much more active, and well, exciting, and that is why I'm more drawn to that phrase than to surrender. But the difference I see is that you recommend that people see life as a continuous series of choices, and advocates of surrender simply say to drop resistance to what-is."
There's value in rebalancing whichever extreme you find yourself in, as long asd they still seem like divergent extremes. But, that aside... "Drop resistance to what-is" is not incompatible with "choose."
In fact... ah, thanks for drawing this out, it's possibly the main point: You don't fight the present. You choose the future. You can't choose the future without entirely accepting the present. (And you can't get what's really true about the present without accepting it. And, when you actually "get" the present, you need to actively choose that also.)
Don't confuse choosing your path with resisting the present.
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Thanks for the response, Jim.
-Sean
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@Jim Eshelman said
"You can't choose the future without entirely accepting the present. (And you can't get what's really true about the present without accepting it. And, when you actually "get" the present, you need to actively choose that also.)"
Oh man have I been finding out how true this is. I've had a tendency through most of my post-pubescent life to intensely dislike my present situation, to tell myself that it's not good enough- Always wanting to be doing something else, be somewhere else, be someone else. But within the past couple months I have been finding that if look at my whole situation, no matter what it is- and totally forgive myself for any mistakes or flaws or whatever that have brought me here, and say to myself "right here is just fine. It is perfect. Now is sufficient," It feels like a whole new beginning. I find that when I can accept the whole past and the present, it's like it suddenly becomes solid, and I can stand on it and rest instead of tread water in panic. And from standing on it, I can jump off into the future.
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@Alrah said
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@Bryan said
"And from standing on it, I can jump off into the future."Are you sure?"
It's a feeling, really. Not a very water-tight logical statement. What I meant by the statement is that when I accept where I'm at, and forget the lingering yearnings to be somewhere else, I can more securely and calmly and powerfully choose where I want to go next.
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@Alrah said
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@Bryan said
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@Alrah said
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@Bryan said
"And from standing on it, I can jump off into the future."Are you sure?"
It's a feeling, really. Not a very water-tight logical statement. What I meant by the statement is that when I accept where I'm at, and forget the lingering yearnings to be somewhere else, I can more securely and calmly and powerfully choose where I want to go next."
Last year, everytime I had an idea of where I wanted to go next, I'd just stop and look at this 'want'. What wanted? And everytime a 'want' arose I saw that it would cause some sense of dissatisfaction within me. That's why I kept stopping. It was enough to 'be'. It was more than enough.
That's only why I asked.
"Oh yeah. I find that looking at where the want is coming from is very important. That's a vital part of looking at my present situation as a whole. I too find that a lot of my wants come from a very dissatisfied part of me. Want to be better, more accomplished. Want to change my shitty self-destructive habits. Want to find the love and companionship of someone who will make me feel more whole. And so on. It's sometimes hard to imagine that my dissatisfaction actually COMES FROM the fact that deep down, I secretly tell myself that I'm not good enough or accomplished enough. That I ought to regret my self-destructive habits. That I am not whole, not complete, or worthy of love and companionship at this very moment. Finding that just Being is sufficient really only comes to me when I can acknowledge where my dissatisfaction is coming from, and when I can forgive myself for creating such pain.
Because Being can be seen as process, a lot of people call it "Becoming". Becoming feels more appropriate to me because when I feel sufficient, it is a feeling that includes an acceptance of the passage of time, and an acceptance that my body, my heart, etc, truly does, at a very deep level, want to express itself in this world. I think that level of "want" might be more appropriately called Thelema. What my Becoming truly wants is what inspires Love, not what is inspired by dissatisfaction.
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From Liber Aleph:
"Know, son, that the true Principle of Self-Control is Liberty. For we are born into a World which is in Bondage to Ideals; to them we are perforce fitted, even as the Enemies to the Bed of Procrustes. Each of us, as he grows, learns Repression of himself and his true Will. "It is a lie, this folly against self.": these Words are written in The Book of the Law. So therefore these Passions in ourselves which we understand to be Hindrances are not part of our True Will, but diseased Appetites, manifest in us through false early Training. Thus the Tabus of savage Tribes in such matter as Love constrain that True Love which is born in us; and by this Constraint come ills of Body and Mind. Either the Force of Repression carries it, and creates Neuroses and Insanities; or the Revolt against that Force, breaking forth with Violence, involves Excesses and Extravagances. All these Things are Disorders, and against Nature."
And
"Verily, it is the art of life to develop each organ of body and mind, or, as I may say, each weapon of the will to its perfection, neither distorting any use, nor suffering the will of one part to tyrannize over that of another."
Every passage of this book is pertinent to the understanding of one's Will, and how one may come to that understanding. Study it.
Also, I've found that astrological analysis is very helpful in the comprehension of obstacles, their source and antithesis. You may find, like many others, that your only obstacle is yourself!
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Ho hum
If he wants to turn this thread into a commercial for his writings, I guess that's his right.
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@Alrah said
"Lol.
www.erwinhessle.com/blog/?p=376
He can act a little... proprietorial at times...
"
What an arse! That's perhaps the most childish thing I've yet to read, as far as Thelemic criticism goes. -
Thelemite/thelomite; child-like/childish... it's all the same, right?
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I meant criticism of Thelema, not criticism by a Thelemite. (Damn adjectives.)
sucks thumb
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@Alrah said
"As far as I know reincarnation is not part of the corpus of Thelemic doctrine, and as you know Crowley was extremely dubious about it. It was something he 'played with' when he had the mind, but not something he invested any energy in defending."
A glance at Liber Aleph, (which he considered his most mature exposition of Thelemic doctrine), reveals that he felt pretty strongly about it.
I'd quote it, but I don't feel like investing the energy.
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@Alrah said
"Good. I don't feel like trawling through stuff to get the relevant quotes to dispute you either."
I'm glad we disagree so agreeably.
On the actual subject of obstacles: last night I got good and tippled with a Scorpio friend of mine (Scorpios make great drinking buddies
), and our meandering conversation led to a discussion of the basic causes which set all humanity in motion: our fundamental urge to evolve. We obviously approach life differently, every one of us--but what comprises that difference?Our conlusion:
Well, it has to do with evolutionary choice. Different organisms take different paths of progression (or regress). And here is just another excellent illustration of the Tree of Life, which maps this evolution: start, finish, and all paths in between. A handy tool, methinks.
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@Alrah said
"As far as I know reincarnation is not part of the corpus of Thelemic doctrine, and as you know Crowley was extremely dubious about it."
Well, no, I don't know that at all. And Crowley wrote quite affirmatively about it, cataloguing his own past lives in as much detail as possible. It was certainly central to his understanding of reality.
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Yes, but he starts the same letter with:
"Do I believe in it?
Yes.
Why?
(1) Because I remember a dozen or so of my previous lives on earth. (See Magick, Chapter VI.)
(2) Because no other theory satisfies my feeling for "justesse," for equilibrium, for Newton's Third Law of Motion.
(3) Because every religion asserts, or at least implies, it in some sense of other."
In Book 4:
"There is no more important task than the exploration of one's previous incarnations."
And in Liber ThIshARB:
"It is of such importance to the Exempt Adept that We cannot overrate it. Let him in no wise adventure the plunge into the Abyss until he have accomplished this to his most perfectest satisfaction. "
Obviously, Crowley was not one to accept something totally without proof, and didn't encourage credulity in his students (quite the opposite). And whether Crowley believed something or not shouldn't override our own perceptions. He was just honest about the foundation of his beliefs.
And warning about the dangers of something is not the same as saying "don't ever do this".
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And his most extensive writing on the subject is probably Chapter VII of Magick in Theory & Practice.
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@Alrah said
"Munindo did a good podcast on this matter (I'm a fan of the abbot).
Ego too is just so: aruno.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=109&Itemid=9"
Daaamn! That podcast just united almost every one of the huge trains of thought that have been populating my mind for the past 4 months! Thanks Alrah.
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@Alrah said
"Quite affirmatively? In Magick Without Tears, letter XLVII, after explaining Blavatsky orthodox theory of reincarnation (with some degree of irreverency I might add) he then states, "Most of this is the merest speculation, useless and possibly harmful; but I don't mind relaxing occasionally to that extent."
He concludes the letter writing ""Now, dear sister, I don't like this letter at all, and I am sorry that I had to write it. For most of these statements are insusceptible of proof.
"And yet I feel their truth much more strongly than I have ventured to express. How many times have I warned you against 'feelings?'"
In letter XLI he cannot be clearer when he writes of speculations of life after death as not only "idle and senseless because you cannot possibly verify their accuracy, but a deadly poison [...] I say 'deadly poison;' because when you analyse you see at once that this is a device for flattering yourself."
He also adds a disclaimer to Liber Aleph. "
I think he was more concerned with debunking "Toshosophical" ho-hum. Crowley hated the Theosophists. The Theosophists had an annoying habit (which has carried over to today's "New Age" circles) of accepting fancy as fact. His primary concern was to instil the method of scientific observation (objectivity) in his students, a method the Theosophists very conveniently disregarded to make room for their fantasic theories. Their doctrine was a variation on: "If it feels right, it must be right." Obviously this is incompatable with Scientific Illuminism, and it was this distinction that comprises his "dubious" stance on reincarnation.
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"Crowley hated the Theosophists"
Did he?
I was under the impression that while he didn't like the whole Krishnamurti thing that they tried to advertise (seeing it as competing business?), he did have some respect for Blavatsky (one of the founders). Also, didn't he attribute some importance to his being born in the year that the Theosophical Society was founded (1875); I fail to see how this would be that significant if he strictly looked down on the Theosophists.
I don't have enough documented examples of Crowley talking about the Theosophists to get a clear picture of his thoughts - if you have any examples, I would appreciate it.
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