The Great Work - How do you define and live it?
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@Takamba said
"Funny thing Froclown is that I know no one personally whom fits that description. Everyone I know involved in the Great Work completely agrees with your call to practicality. Not that I don't know fluffy wannabe butterflys out there, but none of them call it The Great Work.
What those of us whom I know know is that in order to change the world (similar as you describe it) we must also (and first) change ourselves. Not exactly in the fluffy white lighter mentality that you demonize in your life, but in the wisdom that without a certain level of empathy and understanding and basic relationship skills, this "fight for what is right" will only make you sound and look like a "gadfly" jackass - someone no one is going to listen too.
So... as has been told you many different ways in many different topics and with as many examples as I can imagine, you need to balance the micro with the macro a little more. Yes, you specifically, need to open yourself more than you've shown yourself to have at this point.
Yours in lucks
- Takamba"
I agree, you should be preaching to the Wiccans, everyone (almost) that I know, who is doing the great work realises that the problems facing the world are extremely complex and will not be helped by wishing they would go away.
Personally I don't hold the slightest regard or interest for so called "results magic", which usually has no results worth mentioning; and I find it a tad annoying that I should be lumped in with the crystal waving feel good crowd.I am above all a pragmatist.
If you wish into your right hand and shit into your left hand, which one is going to fill up fastest?
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@Froclown said
"That means Promoting Thelema to the people, establishing it in small communities to test it out and improve it's application, to design company logistics that conform to Thelema. To put the values out in the media and to actively work against the messages of Democracy and Equality, and all that promote victimhood, slave morals, entitlement, etc. To promote Aristocracy.
Not to pray over a sigil, and imagine a blue light warming the hearts of the world, then looking at pictures of kittens with a warm feeling of self congratulations of how much "Spiritual work" you have done to serve humanity."
Froclown, I largely agree with much of your post. If we don't bring something into the world of Assiah, it seems somehow incomplete. I'm sure there are lots of ways to fool ourselves into sitting on our thumbs.
However, there is one key place that you lose me:
When you take your personal ideals of what needs changing, and assume that those are the universal changes we need to make. I neither know nor care what your will is. It's like a musician in an orchestra who imagines that their instrument and notes are the only ones that should be played. In a properly functioning orchestra, sometimes there's harmony, sometimes there's dissonance. Sometimes notes compete, sometimes they blend or play in unison. Sometimes they have to observe rests.
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if we don't make those changes I listed, every last human being on earth will die.
There is no other world no souls, if we all die that's it, game over the end.
No one can do their own WILL until the WHOLE system is re-designed into a general thelemic order. it is only within the Community of Thelemites that the conditions are created where any individual can be fully engaged in their own Will.
All the parts of the Mandala can only serve their purpose in the structure of the Mandala as a whole.
"No two rings link, but all 5 do."
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@Froclown said
"if we don't make those changes I listed, every last human being on earth will die."
That's going to happen no matter what we do. It's just the order and timing of it that can change.
However, in terms of lists of items that exist materially, I would point out that the future is not one of them.
"No one can do their own WILL until the WHOLE system is re-designed into a general thelemic order. it is only within the Community of Thelemites that the conditions are created where any individual can be fully engaged in their own Will."
And here I think you've uncovered a point of INESTIMABLE value.
*Your brain has told you a lie that helps delay your personal Great Work. *
That the GW cannot be completed until an unrealistic goal is accomplished. Consider how the ruach benefits from this, since it can delay something that will, on a certain level, mean its own death.
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What' seems so clear to my mind and some others commenting on this thread as I understand them is this:
The hope of the Thelemic ascendency is the result of people discovering and prosecuting their true wills.
What it isn't is an abstract idea that x, y, and z has to happen, and that that will be more or less the same, as if people had discovered their true wills. You cannot substitute this prerequisite with an idealized vision of what it would mean if people were to do this—it's not the same thing.
That doesn't stop this notion of ours from being an ideal, but no one really knows what the fulfillment of this ideal will entail. I mean you don't even have to call this ideal Thelema! It is what it is no mater how it comes about.
And to the degree that people have to do this on their own, there is no public policy that can ever be mandated, unless it is someones true will to make it so! In which case they will not need to be talked into doing anything via an argument. Oh, and they will succeed!
Love and Will
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To understand how to organise a community so than every member is able to perform their essential function without being bossed around and compelled to work against their interests. It is helpful to combine the principles of Skinner's walden two. with the science of permaculture farming and the relation of the cell to the body.
A single cell alone, can not perform it's function. The cell does not appear out of the void, it is shaped by the whole body to serve a particular function in the body as a whole, alone the cell has no function, at that point it's WILL is to insert itself into a place in an organism where it can fulfil it's function.
The same is true for a heart or a liver, it has no purpose alone, it has to be supported by the action of the other organs and it's function contributes to the other organs. When you take the heart out of the body, it dies. It can beats but without purpose, away from the lungs and nervous system and disconnected from the arteries, it can only wither up.
In fact it is the very activity of the other organs and the forces that act upon the organ as well as the forces it is capable of exerting that define it's function, it's True WILL.
Thus if we have a organs and no body, we need to have some one with the wisdom to discern the properties, the needs and abilities of each organ, so that we can discern how to arrange them into a whole body where each WILL supports the Will of the others. Thus figuring out how no fit oneself into a greater whole, is vital to every individual true Will.
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You're still sidestepping your original internal contradiction.
If NO PERSON can do their True Will until after such-and-such changes take place, then it cannot be anyone's True Will to enact such-and-such changes.
Your analogy is similarly flawed. Mono-cellular organisms predate complex multi-cellular organisms by millions of years.
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no I said no one can FULLY do their well or do it efficiently.
Let's say it's your WILL to say grow wheat so you will have meal for the cakes of light.
If you don't own any land, you can't grow wheat, so your will then is to buy land.
If your knife is dull, you can't harvest the wheat, so your will is to find a whet stone.
If some one is grasping your wind pipe, you can't breathe, so your will is to fight for freedom.So your Will is to bake bread to make people happy and healthy and take pride in doing good for others. You can better fulfil your will if you are part of a community than buys bread, where some one grows wheat, and some one raises chickens, and some one runs a dairy. You can then trade bread for flour and eggs and milk, and thus can bake bread, and the people in your community including those that raise your ingredients and repair your ovens, are happy and healthy and able to fulfil their own WILL, which are all aimed at the great work that is the establishment of a community of happy, healthy, fulfilled individuals all doing their own Will fully and without major frustrations.
If you are alone an island, you have to grow your own wheat, and raise your own cows and chickens. Also you have to build your own oven. Your day will get more and more busy, and in the end, you eat your bread alone and unfulfilled.
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"no I said no one can FULLY do their well or do it efficiently. "
erm:
"No one can do their own WILL until the WHOLE system is re-designed into a general thelemic order."
If you're going to change what you say, then there's not much point in me engaging you any more. 93
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Well it took me some time to get up to speed on this topic. I had originally wanted to comment on my definition, ect. But gosh golly gee we sure have gotten into a bunch of other stuff.
I am with Dar, in that I do not think the gw is to bring the kingdom of god to earth, or any other such thing. The kingdom is established, but I do believe that things with in the kingdom are constantly changing and this are fading away, and things are sharpening new tools so to speak, So I guess that for me, the gw is that process in which I test my limits, self restrict if I may, and then build up my self so that I can break free of those self limiting
Restrictipns, and become a little bit different then I was before.I hear allot of passion and great ideas, but ideas without action isn't even masturbation
It's just getting a hard on, and then you get blue balls, A tension that is blinding.BMFuller taught that to criticize a system is useless, you have to make the system obsolete. I for one would be very unsettled if instead of a USDA grade a serlion, I bought one with a different stamp of endorsement.
Even though I hate it at times, this system does work for the most part, and the parts that seem to fail, fail because........well my heart says fear, but my brain says ignorance.....I think that they are synonyms for the same idea.
I actively work in my community, I put myself out there. Even though I think a lot of what my community does is silly, and ineffectual, I still am out ther walking and talking and stirrin the pot.
Fro clown, you posted a link to some persons private blogg, well maybe not private, but with only four subscribers, so it's pretty low key. You thought that it would be nice to share with us here, how some one gets you and understands your pov. I will say that I think you weakened your stance by that. That fellow said a lot of smack, and while I love fruitcake and completely understand the symbology of that cake, I understood his slur as an attack, But from an attacker who does not have the courage to come here, login and say that to my face. He said many things about Mr. Eshelman. Yet will not say them here where Mr. Eshelman has the chance to rebut if he so desires.
That person IMO is not doing what Mr. Eshelman is........he is not putting himself out there, He is not making himself available, And that is what the GW is, It is making ones one pov, ones own radiance available for the rest.
It was also mentioned how the Beatles suck, and wish they were the Stones.
That is actually a very deep statement,
I personally believe that modern music has two audiences, bands that play for Goddesses and bands that play for Gods. When I worked in the dance hall, even though 90 percent of the people in the clubs were men, older men.......all the music that was played was girlie girl stuff. And boy oh boy, those blokes had some of the biggest smiles on their faces, cause the girls were happy, and dancing and being nice to them.If momma is happy, then everyone is happy is a saying I have heard. And I think it's right. I don't think that for one minute John, or Paul or ringo, or George wanted to be anything other then what they were. They made girls happy. The stones on the other hand, well I bet they had a few moments where they wondered if.......
Probably not, I am just frothing off here.
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Again some one replies to the great work with Narcissistic explanations about improving oneself and experiencing life better for oneself, etc.
"self improvement is masturbation" (Fight club)
The great work is not about YOU or ME, it is about the world and society as a whole things bigger than you and me. A human is a tiny insignificant bit of nothing, it's life, death and happiness are nothing, all that matters is what it can produce beyond itself in the whole. The word is to build itself up so that it can be useful as a stepping stone for that which is greater. Not self for vanity sake, or pleasure for it's own sake.
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@Froclown said
"Again some one replies to the great work with Narcissistic explanations about improving oneself and experiencing life better for oneself, etc."
Not Narcissistic. More of "physician, heal thyself." Start with getting your own shit together, and go on from there.
""self improvement is masturbation" (Fight club) "
The first rule of Fight Club is to shut the fuck up about Fight Club.
"The great work is not about YOU or ME, it is about the world and society as a whole things bigger than you and me. A human is a tiny insignificant bit of nothing, it's life, death and happiness are nothing, all that matters is what it can produce beyond itself in the whole. The word is to build itself up so that it can be useful as a stepping stone for that which is greater. Not self for vanity sake, or pleasure for it's own sake."
Or, the Great Work is solely and only about oneself; except that, as one actually grows in it, one's definition of "self" changes until that embraces the whole.
The Great Work is not about society at all - that's too transient a thing. It's about "the world" only indirectly. It certainly isn't about politics and social structures and economic systems, except in the peripheral sense that this spills over from the primary focus on the evolution of individuals. Transformed people transform society.
One of the grossest problems in society today is the vision that a human life is a tiny insignificant bit of nothing -p it comes and goes, etc. Besides being a lie, that point of view encourages political, economic, and personal decisions that don't see past the immediate generation. One of the splendid by-products of recognizing our continual rebirth, our uninterrupted living across the ages, is that even the most selfish parts of us are then motivated to make the world better. While it would be nice to think that most people would learn to think past themselves, to look out for future generations, the truth is that most people don't and won't do that. Problems get passed off to later generations (and, therefore, really not solved - just ask the Mayans, the Romans, and the Khmer, for example - except that, of course, you can't ask them because these great, centuries-spanning civilizations all got wiped out by this very behavior).
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@Veronica said
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It was also mentioned how the Beatles suck, and wish they were the Stones.That is actually a very deep statement,
I personally believe that modern music has two audiences, bands that play for Goddesses and bands that play for Gods. When I worked in the dance hall, even though 90 percent of the people in the clubs were men, older men.......all the music that was played was girlie girl stuff. And boy oh boy, those blokes had some of the biggest smiles on their faces, cause the girls were happy, and dancing and being nice to them.If momma is happy, then everyone is happy is a saying I have heard. And I think it's right. I don't think that for one minute John, or Paul or ringo, or George wanted to be anything other then what they were. They made girls happy. The stones on the other hand, well I bet they had a few moments where they wondered if.......
Probably not, I am just frothing off here."
Veronica, I think I can guess where you were going with this because it is obvious. I don't want it to be obvious because the obvious is such a difficult mask to get beyond. So, a little more of my opinionated thought on the matter:
I recently heard something, I think it was on one of the KCRW music programs. The sentiment went something like this: there are only two types of music—the blues, and something else. The Beatles are something else. As such, they have never really been real to me, even when I was eight years old and the song played, ad nauseam on the AM station was I wanna hold your hand, I hated them. Many years later I realized what bothered me so much about them, they were dilettantes. And there it was, the idea of not really being real, not being the deal, of being more celebrity than music.
I'm not a musician, but I still ask myself all the time, am I a dilettante? I don't think so, but the possibility is always there, of slipping into the easy path of least resistance. To credit the Beatles with anything is to lose sight of the fact that they were in fact little more than victims of forces much greater than themselves. Victim, of course, is the wrong word because they made out pretty good for themselves. And what can I say, the songs are attractive, saccharin sweet, easy. And people like that—the broad mass of what constitutes people like this kind of thing because it ultimately allows them to abandon their ideals and settle into being middle class.
I thoroughly expect this post to be deleted because it has nothing to do with anything related to this topic, and only remotely anything to do with the sanctioned themes of the forum, except in so far as I am pointedly ignoring one other poster on the thread.
Love and Will
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Down the road a ways from my home is a compound of sort. Eastman Kodak built it in the seventies as a retreat training center. It has a theatre d, a lab, sleeping rooms, recreation, and a host of other things. It was abandoned in the mid ninties and sits unused.
In my personal practice as a holistic healthcare practioner, I developed a program to help bring people to awareness so to speak, my program will work through any illness malady, or unbalanced huamn and help that person regain health and happiness. It teaches people seven core ideas, principles to work with so that they can live and have joy.
But because of the current restrictions placed on my liberty I am unable to practice and take procession of this compound and set up this program to help people get the most out of life.
I realize, that if my neighbor is sick then I too run the risk of illness. I realize that if my head is in the clouds, or up my butt then I am not doing my true will, and will run into problems.
When I realized that when I carried my daughter in my womb, that I was also carring my potential grandkids with me as well, in her eggs I understood the importance of ME, and how taking care of me, takes care of all that come.
I know that you Froclown have no children, nor are close to those who do, for you would never be able to say honestly that humans are nothing if you have lived with children and raised them.
I often think of space, and all the planets and stars ect. as my body, and how each planet is a part of me, and how that part is so very important, and loved by me. If I loose one part of me, I am poorer for it. And while us earthlings are destined to die, we don't have to end.
If I don't try to be my best, to put myself out there and engage with others then I might as well just be surgically removed like a cancer cell on the body of Nuit.
The picture you shared is from what I can tell, just a masculine superposition of the flower of life. The DNA/ran spirals that seemingly dictate existence, and order this kingdom.
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The great work
How do define itMaking the best choices
How do I live it
I listen to Mozart when I work
And the Beatles when I playSeriously, it may be the other way around
I listen to disco when I wash dishes
Because it's ok if I miss some notesBut when I am serious.....
I want the complex, musicLike Wagner, Bach, zeppelin, and My other rock gods.
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"In a properly functioning orchestra, sometimes there's harmony, sometimes there's dissonance. Sometimes notes compete, sometimes they blend or play in unison. Sometimes they have to observe rests."
beautiful! symmetry in diversity! chaos and order! unite thine opposite!
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@AvshalomBinyamin said
"If you're going to change what you say, then there's not much point in me engaging you any more. 93"
Hey let's cut him some slack; his essential vision has merit.
"if we don't make those changes I listed, every last human being on earth will die."
Points for confidence, but...
"That means Promoting Thelema to the people, establishing it in small communities to test it out and improve it's application, to design company logistics that conform to Thelema. To put the values out in the media and to actively work against the messages of Democracy and Equality, and all that promote victimhood, slave morals, entitlement, etc. To promote Aristocracy."
...how do you intend to go about this when even these early, embryonic manifestations of Thelemic society are so disjointed and divisive? Perhaps in your enthusiasm (which I find refreshing, albeit humorless at times), you've failed to realize that a great many individuals and organizations are already working along the lines you suggest, and may even be far more advanced than you know. It is your pride, that favorite vice of the aristocrat, that keeps you from joining their ranks.
"The first rule of Fight Club is to shut the {****} up about Fight Club. "
Ah, yes--everyone seems to forget that one.
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@IASVN said
"Hey let's cut him some slack; his essential vision has merit."
That's actually where I disagree most, I think.
I would say that he has some good points, has drawn together ideas of which a few of them have merit... but that his essential vision, the core of his thrust, is what is deeply flawed.
He's perpetuating exactly the core errors of the profane, the points that most deeply undercut progress... or even health!
