"God" vs. HGA
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I'm curious who I'm really praying to...
On one hand, when I pray to God, I'm thinking of a Nuit-like concept. Praying to whatever force there might be out there, the Lord of the Universe type deal.
On the other hand, I recognize that any conception of God is limited by my mind, and still might implicitly be describing my HGA - even though I am aiming to signify something greater - because, to me, the HGA seems more personal than "God."
So I'm curious if it's really one-and-the-same thing or not.
With Thelemic terms, I guess I'm asking when you are addressing Adonai vs. Nuit, and if you can even really get to the true Nuit without knowing Adonai first.
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@Escarabaj said
"I'm curious who I'm really praying to...
On one hand, when I pray to God, I'm thinking of a Nuit-like concept. Praying to whatever force there might be out there, the Lord of the Universe type deal.
On the other hand, I recognize that any conception of God is limited by my mind, and still might implicitly be describing my HGA - even though I am aiming to signify something greater - because, to me, the HGA seems more personal than "God.""
IMVHO nobody can say what's the right or wrong way (for you or anybody else) to look at the thing, just because there's no right or wrong way to discern the thing intellectually.
Every image, every concept, is fine, until you know it's just a concept and you are not dogmatic about it, until you use the concept as a mean and not conceive it as the absolute (dogmatic, right in itself, read Bhakti Yoga by Vivekananda to understand what I mean here) truth or end.
I think that at beginning everyone need an image (or better, everybody uses it, consciouly or unconscioulsy), something to strive for, and this "image" is usually discerned with intellect (but it can also be an unconscious understanding, without possibility of putting it consciously into words, or without neither comprehending it consciously, in full) and so no image is wrong or right. Just take something that rings "true" for you and stick with it, only, again, not allowing it to become dogma (and starting to preach your view as the only right one), since every concept of God you can have is just your personal concept anyway, until there's no personal knowledge of it, and this personal knowledge in any case it's personal.
If the concept of looking at the "Lord of the Universe" who make you acquainted with a "Personal God" (HGA) seems good to you then go with it, and pray accordingly, constructing your invocations around this concept.
IMO, it's impossible to discern the thing intellectually anyway, and it's even more impossible for someone to do it for yourself, so why try beyond the simple mean to achieve the end? Stick with something that resonates with yourself and go with it. Elsewhere you go around in circles trying to understand something with intellect that cannot be understood with intellect alone, and you end up just debating about what you should pray to instead of praying.
To use words of Crowley, in The Temple of Solomon the King:
"...And it matters no whit to what we pray, whether it be to Buddha or to Christ, or the top-hat and gin-bottle of a West African ju-ju, so long as we pray with our whole heart; and eventually, as the Vision informs, belief, faith, prayer, worship and supplication vanish, the burning-glass of our Will has set on fire the white sheet of paper that had been our ideal; it crumples, turns brown, blackens, and bursts into flame. The gates of the mind swing apart, and the realm into which we rush is as different from the realm which we had contemplated as our ideal as the burning fire is to the cool white paper we had looked upon."So, why spend an incredible amount of time trying to intellectually discern the "ideal" to aspire to if anyway it will crumble down?
@Escarabaj said
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So I'm curious if it's really one-and-the-same thing or not. "It is? It is not? Does it really matter?
I (again, IMVHO) think it does not.
I understand fully the problem you have, because I was similar to you in this point (and many others of similar nature) of trying to understand what the HGA was and what I should pray to.
I have (or had) to ascertain everything intellectually before starting the "work". Then, one day, I simply began to lose more and more the grip with words and intellect (especially on this point). My so dear "intellectual knowledge" I took years to erect and that I meticolously put piece for piece in place, it started to crumble down, so to speak, and I fully understood the meaning of "every idea possess a contradiction", and I did found myself totally lost for three days. It took me years to erect the tower, it crumbled in two nights.
The problem here is: you can erect whatever image of this, it will never be "real" when you reach it (albeit either for a simple glimpse).
@Escarabaj said
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With Thelemic terms, I guess I'm asking when you are addressing Adonai vs. Nuit, and if you can even really get to the true Nuit without knowing Adonai first."The last sentence someone more experienced than me can answer better.
As for HGA vs. The Lord of the Universe your view is perfectly fine (as anybody else). It is, in fact, very similar to the original Abramelin one, where you pray on God to send you His Holy Angel.
Praying for the Lord of the Universe to give you His Holy Angel, praying your Silent Self to arise, praying for a Praeterhuman Adept to listen you and start a fraternal bond with yourself, praying Khrisna/Ishvara/Vishnu etc., praying to an objective individual vs. a subjective one, all will bring to the same end if you don't mistake the image for what's beyond it. Every image being false, it is, at the same time perfectly true in itself.
Naturally this is my point of view. If Jim (or somebody experienced) says that I'm telling you idiocies then you would do better to listen to them and nevermind what I said.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
"With Thelemic terms, I guess I'm asking when you are addressing Adonai vs. Nuit, and if you can even really get to the true Nuit without knowing Adonai first."
Liber NV allows you to experience and UNDERSTAND nuit. Nuit can only be known through deep meditation.
"On one hand, when I pray to God, I'm thinking of a Nuit-like concept. Praying to whatever force there might be out there, the Lord of the Universe type deal.
"Also Nuit is not a being, place or thing. So you cannot pray to Nuit .Having experienced or not experienced your K&C of your HGA is irrelevant. There is Nothing to pray to when you try to pray to Nuit.
27.Then the priest answered & said unto the Queen of Space, kissing her lovely brows, and the dew of her light bathing his whole body in a sweet-smelling perfume of sweat: O Nuit, continuous one of Heaven, let it be ever thus; that men speak not of Thee as One but as None; and let them speak not of thee at all, since thou art continuous!
-Liber AL; CH i
Basically of the three deities associated with each chapter of Liber AL, only one can be worshiped. The other 2 CANNOT be worshiped even if you think that you are worshiping them.
22.The other images group around me to support me: let all be worshipped, for they shall cluster to exalt me. I am the visible object of worship; the others are secret; for the Beast & his Bride are they: and for the winners of the Ordeal x. What is this? Thou shalt know.
-Liber AL; CH iiiRaHoorKhuit IS the visible object of worship.
62.To Me do ye reverence! to me come ye through tribulation of ordeal, which is bliss.
-Liber AL; CH iiiThere is nothing wrong with worship as long as it doesn't turn into obsession.
Love is the law, love under will.
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The K&CotHGA isn't as abstract as some may think. It is merely an intuitive shift in perspective.
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Is K&CHGA the same as the Atman?
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In my view we have GOD, all form.
Next we have the Lord, Hero of Love.
Also we have the Angel. Watching over each person is a being which mediates communication between Man and his Lord and becomes noticeable as a conversation discoursing through one's mind, the result of achieving the attainment of true honesty with oneself.The very first sign proving one's attainment is a sudden referral to the self in third person happening within the internal dialogue. This is communion with GOD. In your mind you will be talking to yourself in your usual normal voice, then begin to notice thoughts or ideas presented about yourself by something in your head which sees you as separate, and furthermore that voice is speaking to someone else, your Lord. Next the Lord also speaks with God too, usually those messages go unheard unless the Angel reveals it.
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Priory Soul, 93,
The term 'Holy Guardian Angel" has a technical meaning that would include aspects of what you term "God" and "the Lord." It is deliberately not defined in close, precise terms, but the differentiated hierarchy you describe here is not the understanding held by Thelemites, even if the mind might organize its experiences along those lines at an early stage.
I'm not clear what you mean about referring to oneself in the third person. That sounds like an internal split, again using the hierarchical terminology you employed. But this would be an unhealthy development, psychologically speaking, and is not what is intended by the phrase "Knowledge and Conversation."
93 93/93,
Edward
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@horustheantichris said
"Is K&CHGA the same as the Atman?"
Here's an analogy I learned from a Tibetan holy man, whose refrigerator I once fixed:
The Ego is like a balloon, and Brahman is the Air, and the Atman is the Air within the balloon. Once the balloon is popped, the Air that was within the balloon is recognized as One with the Air that was outside of the balloon; as it had always been. The balloon was the only thing which spoke differently.
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@Edward Mason said
"the differentiated hierarchy you describe here is not the understanding held by Thelemites
"hi Edward!
In your experience what exactly is the understanding held by Thelemites?
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In the glossary of Visions & Voices, I defined "Holy Guardian Angel" as follows: "n. Variously defined and resistant to universal definition, broadly regarded as one’s most intimate and personal experience of the Godhead."
Possibly of service to this thread... quotes from Chapter 8 of The Mystical & Magical System of the A.'.A.'.. I think the bottom line of all of this is that the system goes out of its way never to define the term or overly characterize it.
"What is this Holy Guardian Angel, whose knowledge and conversation the Adept seeks? Is it a separate being, a great Agent of God, celestial lover and companion, sent forth to guide, lead, and protect the Adept? Or is it best categorized as an exalted aspect of the Adept’s higher consciousness? Or does this question even matter?
From his earliest commitment to teach humanity, Crowley pointedly elected not to attempt to resolve the raging conflict between the numerous phrases historically employed to describe the goals of magical, mystical, or religious attainment. The Great Work is utterly individual, utterly personal, particular, specific, and unique to each who undertakes it. Whether the object of aspiration is personified as the True Self, the Augoeides, the Genius, Ishvara, the Logos, the Christos, Atman, Adonai, the Holy Guardian Angel, or any of 56 other possibilities; whether the goal is called adeptship, attainment, initiation, mastership, cosmic consciousness, samadhi, union with God, spiritual development, mahatmaship, moksha, liberation, or whatever; it is nonetheless true that, deep within each seeker is the Key to THAT which is sought, and which, though perhaps ultimately identical for each that has attained, is also utterly unique for each that aspires. Each name, each label, implies a rational or metaphysical theory that, being rational, cannot be true. By choosing the title of “the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel” which had been employed by Abra-Melin, Crowley admittedly elected a term that he felt had the least metaphysical baggage, and yet was so simple that even a child could relate to it. "
There follows the familiar quote from Crowley's private letter, summarized in Equinox No. 1, and integrated many different names and ideas, the text continues:
"As the foregoing, hopefully, has made clear, even this basic elected term of the A.'.A.'. – the Holy Guardian Angel – must not be taken by the aspirant to imply any specific dogmatic or sectarian theory. "
And then:
"This question of the exact nature of the Holy Guardian Angel, although only resolvable by the experience of each Adept, is, nonetheless, a reasonable and expected question from any aspirant to this attainment. We will limit ourselves, here, to Crowley’s answers. Crowley provided different answers at different times, depending on what it seemed necessary for the particular student to hear."
Diverse, and contrasting if not opposite, answers from AC are then quoted. The chapter eventually concludes:
"It is certainly possible that, by providing this range of commentary, we have done nothing more than confuse the sincere aspirant. Admittedly – given our view that the experience of what we call the Holy Guardian Angel is “utterly individual, utterly personal, particular, specific, and unique to each” – the only wholly consistent approach would be to say nothing about it at all. We have elected to balance this consideration against our responsibility to teach, by pointedly inviting every student to ignore any of the interpretations we have offered here unless they “strike home” as personally relevant.
Furthermore, this discussion is primarily aimed at those who are on the earlier stages of the Path. The Adeptus Minor surely already will have drawn (conscious or unconscious) conclusions about what it is that is sought, conclusions so inherent to her own nature that they may be entirely unconscious.
The real substance of this present chapter is that the Adeptus Minor has one task, the one task at which she has been aiming from her first entry onto the Path; and that now, prepared, she is pledged to undertake it.
Let, then, the Adeptus Minor undertake the Great Work and attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of her Holy Guardian Angel. "
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Priory Soul, 93,
"In your experience what exactly is the understanding held by Thelemites?"
I think you've just had a pretty full response from JAE. The main point I'd add is that having an ordered arrangement of the cosmos for yourself may be a temporary necessity to get a handle on things in the early stages. However, it should not be seen as having any lasting value.
Beyond that, I'd suggest reading through chapter One of the Book of the Law, and doing so more than once, to gain a better intuitive and/or emotional sense of Nuit, a concept that transcends any regular notions we have of "God."
93 93/93,
Edward -
Edward, are you concluding your examination saying to hear a voice which is not of the self inside the thought patterns of one's own mind is "insanity" or unhealthy?
The referral of the self in third person means, having internal dialogue with words calling the self by name or him or her, or thou.
I am familiar with book of the law chapter one, I memorized it over 20 years ago.
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Priory Soul, 93,
When you refer to the self with a lower-case s, I assume you mean the mundane ego.
I wouldn't and won't generalize about whether someone with K&C hears words or engages in an inner dialogue. Same goes for identifying the HGA with a capital-s Self.
93 93/93,
Edward -
Thanks Jim and SeekingHGA for your replies I found them very helpful.
Seeking HGA, your analogy is a very good one.
Jim, my question, which I guess your answer sort of answers is: is the HGA the Atman - i.e. the silent self that sits in the centre of the wheel of the four aspects of the mind observing and coordinating them? This is a concept that I can comprehend and wondering if this is the same as the HGA.
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@horustheantichris said
"Jim, my question, which I guess your answer sort of answers is: is the HGA the Atman - i.e. the silent self that sits in the centre of the wheel of the four aspects of the mind observing and coordinating them? This is a concept that I can comprehend and wondering if this is the same as the HGA."
This is one of those questions that has adepts shut their mouths and look the other way
... because either a Yes or No answer would be wrong. That is, either answer could seriously mislead you.But let me recklessly try...
You may have noticed that my definition of "HGA" in Visions & Voices began with the sentence, "Variously defined and resistant to universal definition, broadly regarded as one’s most intimate and personal experience of the Godhead." I assure you that every word of this was carefully picked.
In the private letter from Crowley that I previously mentioned as having been published in Equinox No. 1, Crowley wrote of the Angel, "The Qabalah calls him Jechidah;" and I consider Yechidah to be exactly the same as Atman.
"Oh, so the answer is yes?" you ask. No, it isn't. "Why?" you plead? Because, while the Angel is that which you discover at the end of your pursuing Atman, there may be nothing true about the Angel which is true about your idea of Atman.
Then, again, even if nothing of it is true of the Angel, it may be necessary for you to act as if your mental fact-file is all relevant for your particular journey. Or, then again, it may not.
(See why adepts turn the other way?)
Your question doesn't center on whether Atman is a suitable alternative name for the HGA - it centers on whether a particular collection of facts and conceptions and goodness-knows-what about Atman (as presently existing in your mental picture) is all true. I assure you it is not - it absolutely, unequivocally is not - because the Angel doesn't fit inside thoughts and conceptions about such things. Then again, it may be useful for you to act as if this is so (i.e., these ideas may have the key you need), so "No" is an incorrect answer.
(Adepts get neck problems from this sort of question
)Let me give you a kinda sorta koan about the whole thing. (The facts have been changed to disturb the innocent.)
Assume (for koan's sake) that there is only one Kether - that we are all (every living one of us) connected at the same center and there is no difference - that the only difference among any of us is how we go forth from that center (much as if we were considering the specific path each of us took in stepping away from the North Pole: which longitude would we be on? or the line connecting any of us to the center of a sphere or even a hypersphere from whatever point we had on its surface; but, after using these polar and spherical arguments, go back to the original postulation above: Assume that the only difference among any of us is how we go forth from the one Kether.)
You have to get and consent to the postulate before there's any use going on with the koan.
I can now define the HGA perfectly for you: It's everything between you and Kether. Oh, and the momentum pulling you in that direction. Oh, and maybe (just maybe) the end of your journey as well as the journey itself. (Or not.)
(Struggle with this until you get it.)
Do you see? Do you see why there isn't a single answer? Why (in particular) it looks like everybody's answer is different? Why (also in particular) we so often avoid questions that could confuse the journey with the end?
It's easy for me, in the above, to say, "the Angel is found in the Path of Gimel." (That's actually the thought from which the koan arose decades ago.) But that pronouncement leaves out as much as it says; or, rather, says as much between the words as in the words.
It's why (and now I return to the beginning of the post) my definition in Visions & Voices spoke of "one’s most intimate and personal experience of the Godhead." Not the Godhead, but one's experience of it. The Godhead could be identical for each of us - as if there were only a single Kether that we all shared - but one's experience of it will invariably be distinctive from any other being's experience of it.
Then again, the journey becomes the destination at the end. The separation between one's experience of a thing and the thing itself diminishes at an accelerating rate as one approaches the thing and, at last, becomes one with it.
It doesn't matter whether you call it God or Atman or Yechidah or Higher Self or Fred. You are equally right and just about the same amount of wrong in any of those cases.
All of which leads to a lot more paragraphs and exceptions and contradictions and variations... which actually are silly to write about... which really lead us back to the perfectly good advice that got most of us in this mess in the first place:
Take the journey yourself.
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Thank you Jim. I have read this and reread it many times since you posted it yesterday and I think (maybe) I understand. I really appreciate you taking your time with me.
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@horustheantichris said
" is the HGA the Atman - i.e. the silent self that sits in the centre of the wheel of the four aspects of the mind observing and coordinating them? "
The experience of having knowledge of the HGA means being actively mindful of all the components of the mind, it means having awareness of the power of being honest with the self, the heart returns to innocence, the thoughts become very clear and simple, the sensation is like awaking from sleep realizing you've had blinders on your whole life spent in a fog.
The experience of having conversation with the HGA is not a supernatural event, it only sounds that way because most human cultures forcibly deactivate the genetic switch in their offspring, ignoring it rather than nurturing it.
During the experience of Knowledge & Conversation it quickly becomes apparent that animals like dogs & cats live naturally open in the same way. Also you will be able to know the difference and see the difference between those people who have achieved attainment and those who haven't.The experience of the K&C may be said to come from the yogic state of silence, but during the actual event of attainment one becomes aware of a previously unnoticed faculty of the mind. And ultimately when this new faculty is put to use it opens the brain to potential omniscience.
The experience of the conversation is just exactly like the way your mind normally produces thought patterns with internal dialogue firing statements like, "why won't the page load, i wish it would, i don't like it when my computer is slow" "cool avatar. i'm feeling hungry. maybe cookies and milk, i will get up in a minute and get me some"
but the difference between regular thought and thinking during K&C is the awareness or mindfulness of coordination between other components comprising of the self yet previously not integrated. These components are physiological and not supernatural, the process of integration obeys scientific method but is considered spiritual because many people simply do not want or need an expanded view.
So now then, here is an example of what it sounds like during the experience of the conversation. Notice the ego discarnates from the True Self becoming an outside influence observing the conversation and interjecting.
Self: "wishing the page would load, wondering why it doesn't"
Ego: "he is being impatient" "john gets upset when things don't go his way"
HGA: "keep patient. remain calm."
Self: "i am calm and being patient, but something is wrong with the server or my computer."
EGO: "john feels negatively against uncertainty. not having control fills him with the doubt and fear. silly computer geek nerd not worthy to overhear our discourse."
HGA: "Lord, will there be a solution or come a true answer for john?"
Lord: "the server will be down for 5 minutes"
HGA: "it's not your computer, the server is down, try back in 5 minutes"
Self: "ok i'll try back in 5 minutes"Now then, as you can see, there is unusual dialogue taking place in the mind, the ego no longer speaks from the same position as the self. During K&C the ego has been stripped away, but still surfaces as an independent portion, a remnant memory of your opinions and self serving behavior patterns, discarnated because it is limits the freedom of the True Self and blinds us from the K&C.
Throughout this whole experience sometimes the person does not even notice any change at all from his normal thinking patterns, he will tell himself it's just active imagination or him being extra talkative to himself. Even the serious students of magick who have read about the K&C, sometimes it takes awhile before they realize they've arrived at the attainment. They were expecting something bigger or louder or more amazing?
And adding to this, typically after the conversation is over, as the brain returns to its regular state, those component faculties deactivate and most of the experience is forgotten.
It is not forgotten due to meaninglessness, it just utilizes a different form of memory.
The Knowledge gained from the experience of the K&C is stored by your Soul and in the Akasha, as part of the Universal Mind. Each time you entertain the K&C you will remember everything from previous sessions, and anything you don't intentionally try to permanently remember by writing down, slips away again.A typical misconception is that experience of the Knowledge & Conversation is something you can do one time and remember it always, like riding a bicycle or viewing a motion picture film. It doesn't work that way. It is a state of consciousness that demands certain requirements fulfilled, and it takes some practice getting used to.
Upon mastering a technique then the attainment to the K&C can be performed practically at will, and at this level of expertise the magician can begin asking questions of the Angel and acquiring information better than google, working his way toward omniscience and immortality.
And this is why we call it an Angel at work rather than a component part of the brain, it knows things we ourselves don't know, and it can explain new things in new ways never done before by anyone in our known histories.As a final note let me offer forewarning of the danger involved with this practice. It changes a person. It will make you feel like more of a person, whole and complete in many ways, fully realized and more keenly aware of the truth of things, but in our modern societies this equates to feeling like less of a person because the majority of people have no idea the human brain is capable of such prowess, and most people don't want to know. It is likely a sample of what I mean will show itself in this very thread, the kinds of things that happen to people given to this practice.
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Priory Soul thank you for your response. Your answer is very intelligible and very much what I suspected. I have had the experience you described a number of times since taking up practice, but only recently identified it as a separate function of my mind independent of the other four. It's penetrating insight and advice led me to believe this was the voice of my HGA.
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2 things:
1: As is oft-pointed-out, Knowledge and Conversation is not "facts and chat"
2: Verbal language is a part of Ruach -
@AvshalomBinyamin said
"2 things:
1: As is oft-pointed-out, Knowledge and Conversation is not "facts and chat"
"Yes this is consistent with my experience.