"Poverty is a state of consciousness"
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Yes, I ponder both sides of this quite a lot myself. Please check your PMs.
Namaste.
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@Frater LA said
"You have your stars. I have mine. Our perspectives can both be completely "righteous" even if our perspectives are diametrically opposed."
Guess what?! I have a Pisces Moon too! What a coincidence.
But mine is trine to Saturn so over the years the cycles of Life have taught me to rein it in, and be judicious in its expression. I too was once an oh so compassionate young buck, registered democrat, proudly wallowing in fantasies about the way the world "should" be. But as the hands of time moved, Chronos-logical events moved me to the Center with a more sensible grasp of reality. ( I even donated hard cash to Amnesty International, People for the American Way, Am. Civil Liberties Union... !! 
)Now, if you want to neurotically attach some kind of underhanded insult to that, be my guest. Far be it from me to infringe on you free will to do so. But I will draw the line at excessive whining and abusive language directed straight at me because my expression of my feelings on the matter happens to bother you. Call me a coward if you like but all that usually does is broadcast more detail of one's insecurity complex and tyrannical, oppressive nature.
As for the "True Initiate" comments I made I can only say that in other circles that I travel in those would not be in any way offensive. If there is some sort of hallowed line that I crossed, If that was somehow sacrilegious by local Thelemic standards someone with the authority to speak on this matter, please educate me on this. Otherwise I'll just conclude that your are totally out to lunch.
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It is a very common disturbance on this forum that people come in claiming high grades of initiation and making pronouncements.
I try to discourage it, as it is usually much more of the character of which I have been accusing you and serves to give others very misogynistic and genocidal ideas about Thelema. I know it did me at first.
Make no mistake, I am still of the perspective that over-sensitivity/insensitivity are characterizations completely relative to the situation. Absolutely unshakeable on that. Either perspective, mercy or severity, held for some sense of inherent value alone, are flawed. Neither are the middle path.
Brother, I may be oversensitive, but... how to say this... You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and in the realm of the survival of nations and species, the functions of Unity are the balance to the Law of the Strong.
Be as strong and correct as you like, but if two weaker can combine to usurp your power, then your method is no longer correct as far as survival goes - the Unity that has bound the weaker individuals has conquered you. THIS is the point of advocating social justice. Unity also sometimes coddles and weakens. This is the point of advocating individual rights.
True, neither is correct all the time, and I try to keep these two in balance in my meditations. I have the leanings of my stars, of course, and I try to learn the lessons of Reality. If you have something to add to that, I'm interested.
Let the brother and sister stars judge.
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Excuse me. This is grown-folks business.
lol... Go think for yourself, we're enjoying ourselves here.
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@Frater LA said
"Excuse me. This is grown-folks business.
lol... Go think for yourself, we're enjoying ourselves here."Eggszacka-ackilly neighbor.
I mean, its not like this is the only channel on the internet, or even this forum. Heruraha offers a veritable smorgasbord of topics... or you could start your own if this one doesn't suit you.
Besides, there is deep Thelemic wisdom oozing from the very pores of threads like this and while it will annoy the gentiles the True Initiates
will follow closely. -
@Frater Aster Lux said
"Blah Blah Blah!
Why is it so important to argue (or "debate", if you rather) what you believe, if that's what you believe? ...and just what the hell is a "belief" anyway?
Any one ever read the comment that is published in Liber Al? Forgive me if this goes too far for all you literalists out there when I give my opinion, but I thought this is exactly the kind of discussion that should have been discouraged by such a statement.
I know we aren't discussing the book per se, but don't you think this is a little either sided for a thelemic discussion board?"
Actually, I consider it quite "both"-sided.
By the way, Frater, you have the right, of course, to challenge my oh-so-poignantly ironic hypocrisy and abuse.
Then you may judge for yourself whether I defend myself from reason and principle or merely from my own, highly questionable, subjective experience.
Of course, I may simply apologize. But to find out, you'll have to rejoin this futile discussion...
". . .while it will annoy the gentiles the True Initiates will follow closely."
Regardless, I wish you wouldn't go there. I did go absolutely bonkers once because of studying all of this stuff, and claims to authority of personal experience held absolutely no weight for me - not in the place where I was. That's why I like this place: "We place no reliance on virgin or pigeon; Our Method is Science, Our Aim is Religion"! Can't remember where that's from, but A.C. wrote that.
"Virgin and pigeon" are understood by me to represent the whimsical pronouncements of supposed authorities that cannot be backed up by (nor challenged by) science, reason, or principle. I think that's why I react so strongly against the whole "True Initiate" line. I had the same reaction when I saw it in "Training and Work," by the way, and I don't think I'm the only one who has at least a few criticisms of her for being a touch puritanical. Though - I have the utmost respect for what she's taught me, and there is great and deep wisdom in that book.
Personally, I think we understand each other.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Love is the Law. Love under Will. -
@Frater Aster Lux said
"You won't know when I'm thinking for myself, because I won't be pushing my opinion.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."
Yes, Frater.
And I am glad for the opportunity to apologize to you. I abused you after I asked for the very judgment you gave. Please forgive me. Zeal for my Mother's house consumed me, and I was far too in the spirit to recognize the third point of the Triangle.
I recognize you now.
Shalom and Namaste.
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@Frater LA said
"Personally, I think we understand each other."
Yes, Frater LA, a little... way better than most here. I have said what I think, and you have shared your thoughts.
We disagree but we have reached an understanding.
And while I point out oversensitivity I must say that I MUCH prefer that condition as opposed to others here, when it is mixed with your honesty and sincerity as well as the courage to confront the reality of a differing opinion that is well presented and to actually reply to what was actually said.
Thank you, for the honest exchange of thoughts and ideas.
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This little light of mine,
I'm gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I'm gonna let it shine,
let it shine,
let it shine,
let it shine...Won't let my adversary [hwoowh] it out,
I'm gonna let it shine.
Won't let my adversary [hwoowh] it out,
I'm gonna let it shine,
let it shine,
let it shine,
let it shine...That is the will of my mother for me.
And my wife's not turned on if I'm not living that way.
My brothers won't respect me if I don't,
And parasites and cancers deserve their meals if I can't.
And my father... there's simply no describing my father,
Except to say that my heart knows the depth of his goodness.And so, Labyrinthus, I can't disrespect a man who shows me he knows that too. But by the name of Reality Itself, I will stand my ground for my own star's light and vector in the great sea of consciousness. We may be directly opposed to one another in time, but that is only one dimension, and a lower one. In the higher, we travel the same direction. Indeed, is there another?
So, I have done all this precisely so that I may understand you very well. You are, of course, completely free to have your own star's perspective, and while I defend the rights of other stars to understand for themselves what constitutes a True Initiate and to decide whether they have to be concerned about being as you describe one, you defend your right to speak from your own deep conviction that you know and choose to let your own truth challenge them. The same ideas carry over into other realms as well, I'm sure - the politics of poverty being one of them, being the origin of this discussion.
And that's absolutely fine. I concede your right, though I know you have absolutely no concern about that. I have no concern whatsoever if you concede my own. We are in agreement... lol...!
But you may find things less combative here if you understand that Thelema, and Temple and College of Thelema specifically (I have no legitimate right to speak for them, but I do read...), trains its students in a very ruthless and precise skepticism. We hold one another accountable to it constantly (speaking as a seeker only), and that's how we learn from one another while being free. Here, though you are well in the rights of your personal experience, your impulse to freely speak from your experience will be challenged night and day by those whose very stars have drawn them to a path of instruction that teaches them what we would both have them learn - through the method of skepticism.
Only, until you realize that you are constantly being stung, not by ignorance, but by holy skepticism, I'm afraid your words will cause you to be a bit of a scapegoat here. It takes a person a while to remember that someone can be enlightened through other methods, with other priorities. And there are vast levels of enlightenment, so who's to say? We are being trained to challenge the authority of Reality Himself should he appear before us, for that perception may be a deceit. Should we treat you any differently?
As a rather direct star told another yesterday when he wanted a Mulligan during a game of disc golf,
"If I let you do it, I gotta let my retarded brother do it too, and we'll be here all day..."
And, yes, I think we understand one another quite well. And I have also enjoyed meeting you and experiencing your honesty. It's been good to compare stars a little and be made to put my finger to my mouth occasionally at the Mystery. I have definitely enjoyed that.
Thank you as well.
*If I have spoken out of turn for Thelema or Temple of Thelema, please correct me. We're at the limits of my own knowledge.
If I am correct, you are very welcome here, Labyrinthus, but that holy skepticism may sting a little. I apologize. If you wish to partake of the strength of that kind of Unity, that is the price. This is the 93 current as I understand it. It's myth is the myth of the grail and the table in my own heart star's language. I like the direction they seem to flow. I'm pretty sure I'm already sucked in, and it is perfectly liberating and enlightened, and seeks truth with its whole heart, as I have tried to exemplify in my sometimes Saturninely demanding, oversensitive and melodramatic Sun in Libra, Moon in Pisces way. In my book, if you can respect that, you can respect Thelema. And here, I will put my finger to my lips, for I know nothing else but the madness of 333.
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"If then you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot apprehend God; for like is known by like. Leap clear of all that is corporeal, and make yourself grow to a like expanse with that greatness which is beyond all measure; rise up above all time, and become eternal; then you will apprehend God. Think that for you nothing is impossible; deem that you too are immortal, and that you are able to grasp all things in your thought, to know every craft and every science; find yourself at home in the haunts of every living creature; make yourself higher than all heights, and lower than all depths; bring together in yourself all opposites of quality: heat and cold, dryness and fluidity; think that you are everywhere at once: on land, at sea, in heaven; think that you are not yet begotten, that you are in the womb, that you are young, that you are old, that you have died, that you are in the world beyond the grave; grasp in your thought all this at once, all times and places, all substances and qualities and magnitudes together; then you can apprehend God. But if you shut up your soul in your body, and abase yourself, and say, "I know nothing, I can do nothing, I am afraid of earth and sea, I cannot mount to heaven; I do not know what I was, nor what I shall be;" then, what have you to do with God? . . . For it is the height of evil not to know God; but to be capable of knowing God, and to wish and hope to know Him, is the road which leads straight to the Good . . . ." "
Hermes-Trismegistos, Corpus Hermeticum, xlii, John Everard translated from Ficino's Latin, in the British Library Collection, London: 1650. As read in Goddard, David. The Tower of Alchemy: An Advanced Guide to the Great Work. York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, Inc., p. 75-76.
All that to say... These are some metaphors that help me not to endlessly chase the wind. I seem to have all the strengths and weaknesses of being born and raised in that particular briar patch. If you have something better to tame the wind, what can I say? I'm just a student and a seeker.
Namaste.