Letters From Saturn - quotation
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@Legis said
"This was very interesting to me as it provides more context for Crowley's saying that the HGA is not the "Higher Self." When Crowley and Germer use the term "Higher Self," they are specifically referring to it in the context of it meaning something that is inherent to a person's "individuality." By contrast, I almost always use the term "Higher Self" to express something that specifically *transcends *the individuality. "
Glad it was useful.
Yes, this is a traditional term with a specific meaning, and they are using it that way: It means a (very rarefied) aspect of "me that I am as a particular, individual being." I think Roberto Assagioli captured the correct idea when he clarified that this is commonly diagrammed as a single point above the rest but, in fact, is inherent in every aspect of the psyche. It is transpersonal to the extent that it is above the personality (and what one normally might call oneself), but not above or outside of what one distinctly and uniquely IS.
"The same is true when he says, ". . . which are merely part of one's own being." When I think in terms of the "parts of my own being," I'm almost always thinking in terms of "being" that transcends, but includes, my individuality."
The word "own" might distinguish this best. Or the word "your." Your being would be being that is unique to you in particular (particle-like), specifically in contrast to others.
"This explains a lot for me in terms of the confusion of words about all of this. It's a different mindset, a different use of the words than I am accustomed to using."
It seems, perhaps (if I may be so bold as to suggest?), that you are missing the grounding, the material individuality sense. Reality is vastly past that, but one doesn't have a complete picture unless one also incorporates the level of "who am I as a person?" that typical people on the street have, i.e., just a singular dude tromping around in one body.
To say it all a different way: In some senses, the outer expression of a person is a fiction. But it's a fiction we need to include in our discussion of reality. The Great Work isn't accomplished on one plane only, or in the absence of any plane. It is accomplished in (what we may metaphorically call) the vibration of a single word simultaneously in all four Worlds, each with its own voice.
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Well, that really solves it for me.
In a nutshell, I can change the way I talk about it for communication sake, but then... then one HAS to talk about the HGA as if it is a distinct individual, which... solves some problems while creating others.
'Cause when one uses the term "individual" to describe "4th dimensional" beingness, one is using a "3rd dimensional" term to describe a "4th dimensional" reality. As it speaks phenomenologically, it captures and emphasizes the primary experience of "otherness" (and that's useful), but it simultaneously creates an ultimately false sense of separateness and (at least temporarily) sacrifices the attempt to communicate the concept of transdimensional identity and the interplay within the various levels of such an identity (imo).
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I'll try to say it this way.
In my view, the "3rd dimensional" individual experiences the "4th dimensional" individual as separate from itself.
The "4th dimensional" individual does not experience the "3rd dimensional" individual as separate from itself.
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@Legis said
"'Cause when one uses the term "individual" to describe "4th dimensional" beingness, one is using a "3rd dimensional" term to describe a "4th dimensional" reality. As it speaks phenomenologically, it captures and emphasizes the primary experience of "otherness" (and that's useful), but it simultaneously creates an ultimately false sense of separateness and (at least temporarily) sacrifices the attempt to communicate the concept of transdimensional identity and the interplay within the various levels of such an identity (imo)."
Yes. Exactly.
And, for communicating to other people, one needs to communicate in ways that are more or less concretely meaningful to the way their minds and ego-structures are wired.
The 3rd vs. 4th D issues reach many places. I speak of various incarnations being simultaneous which, of course, is literally not true, except that it's the best word 3D language provides for a 4D actuality.
I've long settled on the explanation that: (1) whether the HGA is a separate being or not is moot because it doesn't become immediately relevant until Briatic consciousness is awakened and, at that point, "separate" has nearly lost its meaning; (2) the HGA certainly isn't anything that anyone really calls "themselves," so it's important to use language that doesn't equate it with the person; and (3) regardless of the actuality, the almost universally reported experience is of intimate union with another - the necessity of what either is or is perceived as "someone else."
There can't be a "coming together intimately" without a perception of separateness. And there is a perception of separateness, "division hither homeward."
It doesn't matter what it is. At least, not as much as it matters how it seems and what works.
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@Legis said
"Well, that really solves it for me.
In a nutshell, I can change the way I talk about it for communication sake, but then... then one HAS to talk about the HGA as if it is a distinct individual, which... solves some problems while creating others.
'Cause when one uses the term "individual" to describe "4th dimensional" beingness, one is using a "3rd dimensional" term to describe a "4th dimensional" reality. As it speaks phenomenologically, it captures and emphasizes the primary experience of "otherness" (and that's useful), but it simultaneously creates an ultimately false sense of separateness and (at least temporarily) sacrifices the attempt to communicate the concept of transdimensional identity and the interplay within the various levels of such an identity (imo)."
I can't but agree with you myself. Then again, I do believe that a belief in that otherness as exhibited by the idea of separate existence might be a necessary ingredient for parts of the journey.
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@Legis said
"In my view, the "3rd dimensional" individual experiences the "4th dimensional" individual as separate from itself.
The "4th dimensional" individual does not experience the "3rd dimensional" individual as separate from itself."
You might want to relate this to something I wrote elsewhere earlier today:
The wonder of life is found not so much in relating the Holy Guardian Angel to ourselves (i.e., trying to discern what part of ourselves it might be), but in relating ourselves to the Angel: discovering which aspect of its inexpressible diversity our wispish, adaptive, expressive identity is enacting. -- The Angel is the Light, and what we habitually call ourselves exists to be that Light in Extension. In each incarnation, we are a particular self-expression of the Angel. And, like all artistic creations, we are subject to continual refinement.
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Does it take(normaly) more than KCHGA to know HGA in all his aspects and not only the one that is to be extended in the current incarnation?
I guess it could help if one knows already in KCHGA how that particular extension fits in relation with the previous (and next?) ones.
Maybe this tends to be gradually revealed from A. Minor to A.Exemptus?
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To know the HGA fully in all aspects takes the whole of one's life, and even many lives, The key, though, is that the relationship is established in he first place,
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@Jim Eshelman said
"the vibration of a single word simultaneously in all four Worlds, each with its own voice."
Reading this a meditation comes to my mind intuitively. It is from void to observe the tendencies of vibrations(which precede words)on all four worlds at the same time, as they appear, and to discriminate gradually, to make the "song" sound more and more "right", "just like that"...until only that word remains
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For from the silence of the wand
Unto the speaking of the sword,
And back again to the beyond -
This is the toil, and the reward.
This is the path of Hua, ho!
This is the path of IAO.