Arriving at the completion of their lifes work
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@Veronica said
"
So, can you be finished with it? Completed it, turned it in, got graded ect....like in school and then you get to play on the playground....sort of thing.....??????
"Hexagram #63
Chi Chi
After Completion"The transition for confusion to order is completed, and everything is in its proper place even in particulars. "
The commentary in the Wilhem/Baynes translation warns that this is just the stage before #12, Pi, or Standstill...
It's also curious that the last hexagram in the series, the one that comes after #63 is 'Before Completion.' The commentary seems to prefer this situation to the previous one—there is still work to be done, and that means we are potentially at our best, most engaged, most active, most awake.
Love and Will
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Digressing off the main topic briefly to discuss the stages...
@Edward Mason said
"That's a very compressed statement, or couple of statements. By "biological equivalent," you mean, I think, a point of tranquility in later life."
First, a correction - I misremembered and misstated. The 8=3/Binah biological equivalent is death itself. The last stage would be the Chesed stage, a sort of biological 7=4.
I termed it a "biological equivalent" of the grade because it's a natural development, rooted in a combination of biology (including predictable psychological stages of development) mixed with culture. That is, it isn't the 7=4 that can be reached by the methods of the Great Work, but an analogous stage (correspondence) built into the generic human life-path.
"[Or maybe you don't. As for the three prior stages, I'm assuming 5=6 is young adulthood (in a broad sense of general maturity as much as actual years), 6=5 is middle age/maturity and full potency, and 7=4 is ... well, the next bit."
Erikson's widely-adopted model of the eight stages of psychosocial development has a remarkable relationship to stages recognizable in the Great Work. The relationship is symbolic, not actual; but that's very fruitful. Being very brief in places, and with the caveat that what follows is what I want to say about these rather than exactly what Erikson said:
The first stage of adulthood - what Erikson suggested lasted until the mid-30s (and which at least lasts through the first Saturn Return) has an easy correspondence to Tiphereth. (Note how adulthood is the "Second Order" of the human life-path.) It shows "arrival at adulthood," the concentration and emergence of the ego-distinction for which the adolescent was preparing. The two primary developmental aspects can crudely be named "work and relationship" - independence vs. dependency, isolation vs. relationship. The parallels to the spiritual development corresponding to Tiphereth are pretty obvious, and this is also the baseline of effective adult maturity.
The second stage of adulthood - regarded by Erikson as from mid-30s and forward for a couple of decades (or longer) - he termed "generativity." The basic characteristic of this is that of contribution, wanting to leave something for the next generation. This tends also to be the stage of adulthood when people rise to leadership, "being in charge," etc. (though, depending on one's particular life-path, this can mean different things to different people). The developmental negatives to work through are ineffectiveness, fearing meaninglessness, and becoming isolated as the physical and practical "end of one's own line," without sense of posterity and heritage. The correspondence to the 6=5 grade and Geburah is close.
The third stage, then, is the last stage of a natural life-span. One can take this as "from retirement until the end of life," though what "retirement" means is highly flexible and varied. It basically starts when the natural cycle of creative contribution and seeding starts winding down. It is the stage of moving from "statesman" to "senior statesman," with a developmental characteristic of wisdom. Erikson called the developmental task "Integrity vs. Despair," and it mostly boils down to acceptance of one's life as a whole vs. rejection and negativity about it. Happiness, contentment, a sense of fulfillment, and especially an integrated acceptance of the whole marks success.
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JAE, 93,
So, I don't have to be dead in order to be at my last developmental stage. That's some comfort... I think.
Thanks for the clarification. I found the 6=5 material especially relevant.
93 93/93,
Edward -
@Jim Eshelman said
"In reality, I don't see an "end" to any of it - just plateaus."
@Edward Mason said
"So, I don't have to be dead in order to be at my last developmental stage. That's some comfort... I think."
I am more concerned with the relative wisdom of the point of view. I guess I just don't trust myself to be relaxed about my progress—to be relaxed in this respect might mean I stop progressing.
On the contrary, I want to be on, always, striving—there is a freedom when it becomes second nature and the habit of always working for more growth and development is the most relaxed attitude available.
I'm not saying I'm attached to accomplishment, just to the vision of self mastery that must be there when one is prepared to go on in this vein forever!
"...strive ever to more," right?
Love and Will
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Robert, 93,
Given that I'm well into Erikson's seventh stage, I have a passable idea how the arc of my life will probably play out from here. I don't think "relaxation" is in the cards. And even the final stage would require a certain degree of psychic energy. We can't assess our lives without having the inner spark, the vitality, to step back from the mind. I know any number of people who just let it slide after 65 (or even earlier), and hanging out with them was - is - extremely boring.
I also know a few people who are 15 or 20 years past that, and who are "Still too curious to see what comes next" to just sit back and take a long nap. That quote, BTW, is from the legally blind mother of a friend of mine, who has to be 82 or 83 at least.
True detachment requires an investment of mental energy. JAe referred to it as a stage of Wisdom, and Chokmah is not the place for a siesta.
93 93/93,
Edward -
@Veronica said
"It was said in Another thread here by a PriorySoul
This life work, was/ is the Great Work that human beings are attempting to discern and utilize for their attainment and self actualization."
Attainment and self actualization ultimately comes down to understanding Life & Death, our lives and our deaths.
Understanding of the spirit world, preparing for the afterlife, as the Egyptians did is what the Great Work is all about.
It takes quite a long time for me to describe all the things that take place along the way, toward the completion.
But I do explain it to those who are interested. Few are. -
@Baoding said
"
However, I don't think you ever finish, per se. "
The normal average common person doesn't finish the Great Work.
Those who set foot upon the path of ascension do so with that aim in mind, that's the reason we have OTO and other various invisible colleges.Most people take the work lightly, it's a fun lifestyle, makes them feel part of a special network or community, but few take the actual work seriously.
Occult study is the study of Death, that is respecting Life & God and Love. But such words as this rarely ever make sense to those yet to cross the Abyss, fresh students and neophytes.
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I'll add one more note on this.
Each person has a potential within them to realize their True Will. This True Will comes to take the form as one's Art or Craft or Career in life, their life's mission, what they were born to give to the world, their mark on history, the fulfillment of that potential natural to each individual person.
Any person who comes to understand their True Will, and to follow their heart in their way in the work, eventually arrives at the end thereof. And those who don't, because of some accident or mistake leading them to death before they achieve this, it's a failure. It is what the Christians call "wages of sin is death".
But God protects the adept on his way, the Magus walks with God, he faces death and comes to understand it because he is immortal, one with God, one with Love, Thelema.
It should be known death is an illusion, and shuffling off the old used up vehicle through dying is just natural.My HGA gave to me a job to do by handing over to me certain wisdom yet unheard by the world, which was a gift but also a curse because I had to make it known to at least one other person in order to share the joy of the message inside me. A gift doesn't carry such meaning when you are completely alone in your joy, especially when the message is vital to the world.
It took me over 10 years teaching hundreds of people before finally 1 or 2 finally proved they had received the wisdom. Completing my True Will, my life's mission, and pleasing Adonai and mine Angel.Of course, I still enjoy sharing the message, and I'm still alive because I have work to do here on earth, but not much, I can leave at any time knowing I led a full life, and that is comforting.
If you wonder how I know these things it is because I have touched with death and pried into the spirit world a thousand times, that is where the real insight into magic power comes from.
Crossing the abyss, attainment of K&C is just a glimpse of what happens to you when you die. It is touching with death.
And this is what Judaism has the problem with, calling it the work of the devil, because it is not in the nature of man to know such things. That is left to shaman and prophets and wizards. -
@Priory Soul said
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The normal average common person"Normal...average...common person? "Every man and every woman is a star." Sheesh, I'm glad that I didn't complete the Great Work and think thus.
To quote John Lennon:
"I am He as you are He as you are me and We are All Together." -
@seekinghga said
"
@Priory Soul said
"The normal average common person"Normal...average...common person? "Every man and every woman is a star." Sheesh, I'm glad that I didn't complete the Great Work and think thus."
But I have to agree with P.S.: Those who undertake this remain a distinct minority, a small percentave of the overall population.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@seekinghga said
"
@Priory Soul said
"The normal average common person"Normal...average...common person? "Every man and every woman is a star." Sheesh, I'm glad that I didn't complete the Great Work and think thus."
But I have to agree with P.S.: Those who undertake this remain a distinct minority, a small percentave of the overall population."
Is it too late to retract my statement? Hmm?
Jim, you are good. Thanks.
Namaste
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@seekinghga said
"
@Priory Soul said
"The normal average common person"Normal...average...common person? "Every man and every woman is a star." Sheesh, I'm glad that I didn't complete the Great Work and think thus.
To quote John Lennon:
"I am He as you are He as you are me and We are All Together.""Again you are assuming I am implying one person is better than another. I'm not. Just stating the facts.
Sometimes you have to read between the lines.
Your idea that I am driven to egotism is only there because your mind works that way, so you think everyone's does. Mine doesn't.And no, I'm not sorry for being less eloquent than you demand. I could've used a different choice of words like "the non-adept" "the non-magician", but I just figured most people would catch my drift.
Earlier in my life I would thank you, and use your reaction to try and learn to be more eloquent with my words in the future, but see, I'm not trying to teach anybody anything, I'm just having fun. You should try and have fun too, rather than insulting my intelligence, if you don't understand the words I write, just reply asking what exactly I meant, then I'd be glad to express more clearly for you. -
@Priory Soul said
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@seekinghga said
"
@Priory Soul said
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Earlier in my life I would thank you, and use your reaction to try and learn to be more eloquent with my words in the future, but see, I'm not trying to teach anybody anything,"
"
"Not trying to teach, huh? Then what is the purpose of this post to me? If it's not instruction? Am I supposed to study it? Fun fun fun, she'll have fun until her daddy takes her T-bird away.
Edit:
No... No. You are right. One of the most pernicious things regarding people is the application of one's mindset onto another. You are most right about my cynical attitude in pertaining to one's intent. I shall need to work on that. I apologize to you PriorySoul. Namaste. -
In regards to:
"Normal...average...common person? "Every man and every woman is a star." Sheesh, I'm glad that I didn't complete the Great Work and think thus."
Consider...
"10. Let my servants be few & secret: they shall rule the many & the known."
...and the implications such.
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@Priory Soul said
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@Baoding said
"However, I don't think you ever finish, per se. "The normal average common person doesn't finish the Great Work."
From the earlier quote from One Star In Sight, "The Ipsissimus is pre-eminently the Master of all modes of existence; that is, his being is entirely free from internal or external necessity. His work is to destroy all tendencies to construct or to cancel such necessities." Emphasis added.
I believe that the nature of this world is such that one either works (i.e. continues applying effort/actively retaining focus of some kind), or one does not...and in the latter case atrophy then has some effect.
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I am very glad I asked for clarification on this, because I now have a much deeper grasp of these terms, True will, Great work, K& C and HGA.
I thank you all for your insights and sharing....
I have to sit with this for a few, and cam physically tell that this information has shifted something....
I think though that I like the idea that this Great Work is layers, and that you can stop, or go, but at anytime, you are different because of it.
I recall after a specific shift took place in me as a teen, I was physically different. And all my girlfriends noticed that I wasn't the same any more, and that they couldn't stand to be around me, because I wasnt Veronica any more.
Humph.
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seekinghga,
I care about people like you, I am just trying to love you, obeying the magnetism of your attention.boading,
my angel had showed me a vision of the future, revealing I would write a book and build a church and do many amazing things I had trouble believing at the time, each eventually came true, and I have documented these prophecies and miracles, in the service of mankind. I've simply nothing left to prove.Veronica, I appreciate your sentiments.
Very much so.I am still keen on raising the baby.
Very keen. -
@Priory Soul said
"my angel had showed me a vision of the future, revealing I would write a book and build a church and do many amazing things I had trouble believing at the time, each eventually came true, and I have documented these prophecies and miracles, in the service of mankind. I've simply nothing left to prove."
@Priory Soul said
"Completing my True Will, my life's mission, and pleasing Adonai and mine Angel."
Maybe you missed these words of Crowley's:
"...for the True Will has no goal; its nature being To Go."
A tree will be known by its fruits. Many are those who purport a harvest of golden apples; these, however, cannot be eaten and provide no sustainence for men.
"My HGA gave to me a job to do by handing over to me certain wisdom yet unheard by the world, "
Unheard-of wisdom? Funny, because all I've seen thus far is mere regurgitation of dogma and rhetoric.
Observe:
"There seems to be much misunderstanding about True Will ... The fact of a person being a gentleman is as much an ineluctable factor as any possible spiritual experience; in fact, it is possible, even probable, that a man may be misled by the enthusiasm of an illumination, and if he should find apparent conflict between his spiritual duty and his duty to honour, it is almost sure evidence that a trap is being laid for him and he should unhesitatingly stick to the course which ordinary decency indicates ... I wish to say definitely, once and for all, that people who do not understand and accept this position have utterly failed to grasp the fundamental principles of the Law of Thelema. "