3 September (Spirit) Liber LXV, 5:51
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I feel like this is a classic verse, and one often-quoted. (I also feel like I should be making more of an attempt to really get something out of these verses rather than just keeping up with what's being posted... even if that means stating the blatantly obvious.) The general sense is that this process takes time, and a lot of it. There will be a lot of failure, struggle, and pain en route to attaining the K&C (or any plateau attainment for that matter). I also feel like this verse is specifically referring to the K&C - as the "foundations of the pyramid" are one's personal vehicle, which must be built correctly to support the Crown, "yet unquarried in the distant land."
The proper attitude is perdurabo. The pyramid isn't built overnight - it takes a lifetime of arduous work and perseverance, through the pain and (that horrible word) failure.
This verse has a somewhat special impact for me now, as I am struggling with my own shortcomings, weaknesses, and failures. I need to remember that this isn't the Christianity I was raised with - I should not dwell on my f***-ups or fear their consequences, but continue on the Path and not be blown too far to one side or the other.
93, 93/93.
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I know what you mean, I think I must get disheartened by my own failures and shortcomings more than anything else, and the fact that serious spiritual work involves an awful lot of self analysis, which when done with the thorough and ruthless efficiency of my native Virgo/Saturn conjunction, is often quite painful and even embarrassing.
The thing is as always, to just get on with it, not being pulled too far off center by the various emotional upheavals and bouts of madness that can characterize the work, at least at the early stage that I am currently at.
And although the path ahead seems impossibly steep at times, the thing is as always, to press on, and on, and on.
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51. Let not the failure and the pain turn aside the worshippers. The foundations of the pyramid were hewn in the living rock ere sunset; did the king weep at dawn that the crown of the pyramid was yet unquarried in the distant land?
Is this really little more than a pep talk?
We are closing in on the end of the whole book, the later part of the chapter devoted to Spirit. If failure and the pain are inevitable, maybe we are being asked to look more closely into the word. Maybe the message is to act without lust of result. Of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, tomorrow never comes... So we should not concern ourselves with tomorrow, or we might miss...
Failure and the pain have become sacraments.
No?
Love and Will
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@Dar said
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@RobertAllen said
"Failure and the pain have become sacraments.No?"
I thought it was Old Aeon to flog and fast and strap yourself to the mast (like Turner)?"
Maybe it's New Aeon to regard all things, seemingly good and bad as sacraments. The old aeon idea is that self-torture was necessary to escape bad Karma, and to destroy that part of the self that was corrupt—but if nothing is really corrupt, and this includes failure and the pain...
I think it changes our whole relationship with spirit. Of course, I want to succeed and have pleasurable experiences, but for all of my desire in that direction I still fail, and there is pain. So maybe I just don't understand the deeper significance of the** failure and the pain**.
Love and Will