Difficulty reconciling "love" with Thelemic Love
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@Jim Eshelman said
"It does mean, though, that you recognize that there is an inherent unity - that you recognize some degree of the idea that there is no inherent separation between the two of you."
head explodes
As usual, thank you for giving the simplest but most potent explanation possible.
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Love is Love. The only that changes is the context in which it chooses to express itself.
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I too am having trouble with the concept of Love in Thelema particularly when used in Love is the Law, Love under Will. I believe Donald Kraig says that Love is our guide, as we Do what we wilt but that really just leaves me confused. I am almost certain from reading Crowley that he doesn't simply mean it in a "Christian" love sense, for example, love you neighbor as yourself. Crowley constantly says that there is no good or evil per say and that morality is essentially useless, so this disallows us from using love in a moral sense. Perhaps it has a more ancient meaning. Note that in Biblical Hebrew and other ancient languages, the word for love really does not have the same meaning as it does for us. A vassal "loved" his king for example, it was more a form of obedience.
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Laertes, I think you're making it too complicated.
Here is a simple technique for ripening a specific question that can be addressed: Unless you are so utterly confused that you can't get a handle on any particular point at all, confusion usually boils down to two (or more) assertions we are (consciously or unconsciously) presuming to be true, and which seem contradictory (or incompatible) to us. These seemingly conflcting items usually veil an unspoken assumption. Confronting that assumption usually resolves that confusion.
In simple terms: What two or three ideas or facts seem to be at odds with each other, such that you are confused about what is so?
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Jim,
Looking back on this I couldn't agree more, it's just hard for me to separate "Love" from all its preexisting connotations We've all grown up hearing that word all over the place and in different contexts, so when I read "Love is the law, love under will", it's a little hard to perceive what the writers trying to convey. -
93
recently i was talking with a buddy and somehow we got on the subject of the newscasts on tv. i said i HATED watching the news. he replied that hate is just a form of love. this got me thinking. i hate watching the news because they are always talking about the negative aspects of sociopolitics. wars. disease. injustice. famine, etc all the hardships that humanity faces. so i said is it possieble that i "hate" watching the news out of my love for humanity? i think there is a definite connection. for instance i hate murder... because i love life. i hate rape because i love the right of choosing ones partners... that is to say i love freedom. i hate censorship because i love free speech and on and on ad nauseum. it seems everything i feel negatively about has a corresponding positive feeling spurring the "hate" on.
i dont even know where im going with this other than the notion that in my current state of being i cannot know the one without the other and im groping along, as it were, to unite the two.
93 93/93
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Here is my 2 cents:
Love= Willful Union of oposites.
All aspects of love express themsleves through Union. It just appears that they don't.
This is a law of the universe....like gravity:)
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@FraterYod said
"Here is my 2 cents:
Love= Willful Union of oposites.
All aspects of love express themsleves through Union. It just appears that they don't.
This is a law of the universe....like gravity:)"
Thank you for the thoughts - I do agree, but I still have trouble understanding what I would be uniting with when I consider, say, love between siblings. I love my little sister, but I fail to see how there is any union going on there (aside from Jim's thoughts about love reflecting the inherent unity of all things.)
Jim's post does make sense (as does yours), but the concept is not something I feel I truly understand.
93, 93/93.
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Sharing a laugh, a moment, a musical chord, a bed are all essentially the same, in that two people are uniting aspects of themselves to create something singular and bigger than their individual efforts.
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@Ash said
"Thank you for the thoughts - I do agree, but I still have trouble understanding what I would be uniting with when I consider, say, love between siblings. I love my little sister, but I fail to see how there is any union going on there (aside from Jim's thoughts about love reflecting the inherent unity of all things.)"
Meditation is a way to get ur answers. I would focus on the "machinery of the universe". If u can capture this vision i am sure u will understand:)
I don't want to steer u in the wrong direction so if I am wrong I hope someone will point it out.