Buddhism and Thelema
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I think it's a mistake, though, to read him as "there is no self." Rather, in the physical and psychological realms, nothing that one encounters is self, nothing is unchanging, nothing is persistently satisfying. (Another way to say this is that, within Assiah and Yetzirah, there is no self, no impermeability, no persisting sufficiency.)
There is no unchanging self - that's an important distinction. Thelema says the same thing: Hadit is always going.
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@Azidonis said
"I continue to maintain that consciousness itself has not significantly changed, for the mechanism itself has not significantly changed (the body). What has changed are the many ways in which we perceive the universe.
Gravity exists whether or not Einstein developed his theory. But since he did, we are able to explore many new avenues in relation to his theory, and in relation to gravity. It does not mean that gravity itself has somehow changed.
...
How it thinks? It functions in the same way as it has functioned for thousands of years. The brain itself has not changed that drastically."
I'm sorry, this reads to me as an ostrich with its head in the sand. The gravity analogy is not apt to questions of consciousness and mind function. Neural pathways actually, functionally change, both in individual cases and as a function of societal evolution. Language, as a programmer, is just as influential as cell-level communication and language has changed pretty drastically over the past several thousand years.
We are not just our hardware. The software that we run is equally important. In this century alone we have seen a quantum shift of language from a mostly linear progression to a fractured and diffuse net. The dissemination of motion pictures, interactive communication technologies, and, lets not forget, general literacy has had a profound effect on language, communication, and thus the programming we are running.
Whether or not our brains have changed (the jury hasn't even been selected on that one, much less come to the generalized conclusion you're willing to put in their mouths) our minds work differently than minds of even a hundred years ago.
@Azidonis said
"My only point in this thread these past couple days has been to say that Thelema is not the only path, the A:.A:. is not the only way, and Crowley writing Liber AL is not responsible for the birth, life, and death of say, Ramana Maharshi, D.T. Suzuki, or Nagarjuna, as examples."
I have yet to see anyone (except, as Frater Horus pointed out, you) argue this point. Liber Legis heralds a new Aeon, it doesn't create it. That Aeon, if you want to distill out all of the mythos and symbolism, could be stated simply as the first time in history when more humans are food secure and literate than not. This allows each and every one of us a greater freedom to upgrade our software at a species-wide scale, not just the wealthy elite.
This system-wide upgrade, in all of its messy chaos, is the history of the 20th century. A primitive species who, on average, had never traveled more than 20 miles from the place of its birth, who had only heard of other lands through the tales of wandering minstrels, suddenly confronted with an entire planet of other primates who looked weird, spoke weird, and might just want to take my stuff. A God of War and Vengeance indeed.
The A.'.A.'. is a system designed to attain higher states utilizing the language and programming of the early years of the last century. Its certainly not the only way but, IMHO, it's a really good way. It was initially developed before Crowley had embraced Liber Legis and has no necessary dependence on it. At its core, Thelema is fundamentally an appreciation of the fact that, as we become a global culture and more people become self-aware, they will begin to realize their own independent worth and not require the paternal guiding hand of the previous Aeon.
@Azidonis said
"I don't disagree with that. But it's definitely not 8, or however many Crowley pointed out in Heart of the Master. So, in relation to Crowley's small mention, there have been many others."
I recommend going back and reading that particular text. Nowhere does he suggest that in the whole history of mankind, only these 8 made it. Merely that these particular 8 affected the system-wide development of mankind because of their subsequent application of their "enlightenment". (As a side note, I'm pretty sure he acknowledges also that some of them may not even have existed so any suggestion that he believed these to be the only "enlightened beings" of history stretches credulity pretty thin.)
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Takamba: Awesome post.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Kasper, you understand (don't you?) that Buddhism is an early Osias Aeon religion. There were ideas not yet discovered, others not articulated as distinctly as they are today, and whole faculties of consciousness not yet developed in 99% of all people. The best Buddhism (as voiced by Buddha) could hope to achieve is the stabilization of Yetziratic consciousness and liberation from it to Briah; in other words, what the G.D. would have called the threshold of the Abyss and A.'.A.'. marks as Dominus Liminis. It's damn fine D.L. work.
"Hmm.
Interesting position, Jim.I wonder, however, why does the Liber B put the pure Buddhist attainment of nirodha samapatti way above not only D.L. but Abyss as well.
18.
And this is the Opening of the Grade of Ipsissimus,
and by the Buddhists it is called the trance Nerodha-Samapatti.Liber B vel Magi, source:
hermetic.com/crowley/libers/lib1.html -
@Frater INRI said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Kasper, you understand (don't you?) that Buddhism is an early Osias Aeon religion. There were ideas not yet discovered, others not articulated as distinctly as they are today, and whole faculties of consciousness not yet developed in 99% of all people. The best Buddhism (as voiced by Buddha) could hope to achieve is the stabilization of Yetziratic consciousness and liberation from it to Briah; in other words, what the G.D. would have called the threshold of the Abyss and A.'.A.'. marks as Dominus Liminis. It's damn fine D.L. work."Hmm. Interesting position, Jim.
I wonder, however, why does the Liber B put the pure Buddhist attainment of nirodha samapatti way above not only D.L. but Abyss as well."
I'm taking this as an opinion question, since it's in the form of, "Hey, Mr. E., why does Mr. F. seem to think that Mr. G. meant thus-and-so?"
Here is my opinion:The journey inward is layered. We "resolve" certain things at one level, and they reliably loop back on the next round. In this case, it is the idea of self ('the illusion of self') that has deeper layers as we move inward. One gets that the "I am my body" is an illusion; and, next, that "I am my current behavior" is an illusion; and, next, that, "I am the person that people, over the last 10-20 years, have thought me to be" is a big fiction (as is, "I am this person that I have an idea that I am"). Eventually, based on what capacity one has, how deep one can go, etc., one gets to the "final" placed of having one's "last, deepest" (at the moment) idea about oneself exploded, realizing, "Wow, I'm not that at all, I was just 'wearing' that, mistaking myself for that," etc. Every idea about oneself goes kablooey, and there is a perception of extinction.
There are, of course, even deeper ideas about oneself that one hasn't yet mined. What seems to be a perception - perception! - of extinction at one point ("Wow, I'm really not that thing / idea / creation at all!!!") leaves room for (and is usually replaced by), "There is some deeper thing, more persistent, that I am," i.e., "There is a Self behind that self." Buddhism, of course, seems to deny that this is so, or at least to make way for the progressive discovery of the inexistence, changeability, and insufficiency of each layer that we discover; I'm not sure that some final opinion on whether there is a "final" self really matters to the present question, which addresses more the perception of extinction.
In short, nirodha-samapatti isn't a final attainment. (Finality of anything implies existence, permanence, and staying satisfied with the answer. Buddhism doesn't really support the idea of a thing's existence, its unchanging existence, or unchanging satisfaction with its existence.)
I think Liber I is simply hitting a different (higher, deeper) level. At one point in time, the species (like an individual) had one seemingly deepest level to go to "pop" the illusion of a particular kind of satisfactory unchanging persistence of self. In time, the species (like an individual) has found (or constructed) other ideas of selfhood behind that, deeper than that, more persistent than that; so, today, when we talk about the beginning of the perception of extinction, that has a different (deeper) meaning.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"In short, nirodha-samapatti isn't a final attainment."
But that wasn't the point. You had said that since Buddhism is "Old Aeon," "The best Buddhism (as voiced by Buddha) could hope to achieve is [...] [what] A.'.A.'. marks as Dominus Liminis."
Yet Liber B identifies one of the Buddhist trances as a state far above this level. It doesn't resolve the contradiction to point out that there are many layers to attainment and to our understanding of the self.
" I'm not sure that some final opinion on whether there is a "final" self really matters to the present question, which addresses more the perception of extinction."
Whether or not it matters to the present question, there actually is no final self. After all, what you call "you" is ultimately just a bunch of atoms buzzing around. The perception of thought -- even the thought we might call "extinction" -- is itself a thought. Thought/experience and its perception rise up together out of nothing: this is another application of the 0=2 formula.
The bottom line is that "you" aren't anything at all. Certainly, any trippy fantasies you might have about some "higher self" isn't anything -- we might even say that those fantasies are less than nothing.
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@Los said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"In short, nirodha-samapatti isn't a final attainment."But that wasn't the point. You had said that since Buddhism is "Old Aeon," "The best Buddhism (as voiced by Buddha) could hope to achieve is [...] [what] A.'.A.'. marks as Dominus Liminis."
Yet Liber B identifies one of the Buddhist trances as a state far above this level. It doesn't resolve the contradiction to point out that there are many layers to attainment and to our understanding of the self."
Yes. When the idea is "perception of extinction," the threshold changes as perception changes.
And yes, the above is exactly the point. I'm not quite sure "contradiction" you mean. Both perception and the idea of (and experience) of existence has changed over time. Buddhism as defined by Buddha - as people sitting around on the grass in 5th C. BCE India could have understood and practiced it - is different from what people can perceive etc. today.
"The bottom line is that "you" aren't anything at all."
That would be a Buddhist perspective, yes; and (maybe framed differently at most), I wouldn't disagree. (It's a linguistic thing.) It just wasn't the question of the moment.
"Certainly, any trippy fantasies you might have about some "higher self" isn't anything -- we might even say that those fantasies are less than nothing."
I'm not going to bother shooting at a moving target.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"I'm taking this as an opinion question, since it's in the form of, "Hey, Mr. E., why does Mr. F. seem to think that Mr. G. meant thus-and-so?"
Here is my opinion:"OK
I was not aiming at that kind of exchange, though.
Anyway...@Jim Eshelman said
"The journey inward is layered. We "resolve" certain things at one level, and they reliably loop back on the next round. In this case, it is the idea of self ('the illusion of self') that has deeper layers as we move inward. One gets that the "I am my body" is an illusion; and, next, that "I am my current behavior" is an illusion; and, next, that, "I am the person that people, over the last 10-20 years, have thought me to be" is a big fiction (as is, "I am this person that I have an idea that I am"). Eventually, based on what capacity one has, how deep one can go, etc., one gets to the "final" placed of having one's "last, deepest" (at the moment) idea about oneself exploded, realizing, "Wow, I'm not that at all, I was just 'wearing' that, mistaking myself for that," etc. Every idea about oneself goes kablooey, and there is a perception of extinction.
There are, of course, even deeper ideas about oneself that one hasn't yet mined. What seems to be a perception - perception! - of extinction at one point ("Wow, I'm really not that thing / idea / creation at all!!!") leaves room for (and is usually replaced by), "There is some deeper thing, more persistent, that I am," i.e., "There is a Self behind that self." Buddhism, of course, seems to deny that this is so, or at least to make way for the progressive discovery of the inexistence, changeability, and insufficiency of each layer that we discover; I'm not sure that some final opinion on whether there is a "final" self really matters to the present question, which addresses more the perception of extinction."
It is a bit more to niroda samapathi that that, in my estimation.
As far as one bases him/herself or even HGA on "something" (LVX, consciousness, ego, Self, Truth, Hadit, Nuit etc...), well thats ok.
Niroda samapatti ought to change all that.It takes empirical knowledge, it seems.
@Jim Eshelman said
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In short, nirodha-samapatti isn't a final attainment. (Finality of anything implies existence, permanence, and staying satisfied with the answer. Buddhism doesn't really support the idea of a thing's existence, its unchanging existence, or unchanging satisfaction with its existence.) "Agreed.
It is clearly stated in the scriptures that this is only "... the temporary suspension of all consciousness and mental activity..."
www.palikanon.com/english/wtb/n_r/nirodha_samaapatti.htm@Jim Eshelman said
"I think Liber I is simply hitting a different (higher, deeper) level. At one point in time, the species (like an individual) had one seemingly deepest level to go to "pop" the illusion of a particular kind of satisfactory unchanging persistence of self. In time, the species (like an individual) has found (or constructed) other ideas of selfhood behind that, deeper than that, more persistent than that; so, today, when we talk about the beginning of the perception of extinction, that has a different (deeper) meaning."
OK.
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@Los said
"But that wasn't the point. You had said that since Buddhism is "Old Aeon," "The best Buddhism (as voiced by Buddha) could hope to achieve is [...] [what] A.'.A.'. marks as Dominus Liminis."
Yet Liber B identifies one of the Buddhist trances as a state far above this level. It doesn't resolve the contradiction to point out that there are many layers to attainment and to our understanding of the self."
Yes.
@Los said
"Whether or not it matters to the present question, there actually is no final self. After all, what you call "you" is ultimately just a bunch of atoms buzzing around. The perception of thought -- even the thought we might call "extinction" -- is itself a thought. Thought/experience and its perception rise up together out of nothing: this is another application of the 0=2 formula.
The bottom line is that "you" aren't anything at all. Certainly, any trippy fantasies you might have about some "higher self" isn't anything -- we might even say that those fantasies are less than nothing."
This resonates well with me.
It is pure illusion, to me, to believe there is some final Truth out there, some objective center or someone really guiding this whole thing we call Great work.
K&C of HGA may cut away the relative bullshit (personality related etc...) and attainment like niroda samapatti might cut off **everything **else.
Freedom.Or not.
LOL
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@Jim Eshelman said
" I'm not quite sure "contradiction" you mean. Both perception and the idea of (and experience) of existence has changed over time. Buddhism as defined by Buddha - as people sitting around on the grass in 5th C. BCE India could have understood and practiced it - is different from what people can perceive etc. today."
Uh huh. It's like I said earlier on this thread: as long as you start from the assumption that there's no contradiction -- and as long as you get to make sh!t up, like this bald declaration that we today perceive differently than the first Buddhists -- then voila! No contradiction.
It's like talking to Christians who start with the assumption that there can be no contradictions in the Bible. If that's the first assumption, then there's always a way to spin evidence to match the assumption (especially if we get to just make sh!t up).
The problem is, that's not a pathway to truth of any kind. It's just a way to reinforce the assumption without critically examining it.
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@Frater INRI said
"Freedom.
Or not.
LOL
"The idea that there is no self is, of course, just one way of looking at things. From another way of looking at things, of course there is a self.
Each way of looking at things is possible at once, and that's another application of the 0=2 formula.
Realizing this -- that is, not just intellectually, but coming to see it for yourself and understand it -- is the ultimate freedom, but it can simultaneously be viewed as the "strictest possible bond" to the illusion-show that's constantly emerging out of the zero.
@Aleister Crowley said
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Thus, he [the Devil, the O at the end of IAO] is Man made God, exalted, eager; he has come consciously to his full stature, and so is ready to set out on his journey to redeem the world. But he may not appear in this true form; the Vision of Pan would drive men mad with fear. He must conceal Himself in his original guise.He therefore becomes apparently the man that he was at the beginning; he lives the life of a man; indeed, he is wholly man. But his initiation has made him master of the Event by giving him the understanding that whatever happens to him is the execution of his true will."
A study of Pan (i.e. "All") -- particularly in the context of the Star Ruby ritual -- is most illuminating on these matters.
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@Los said
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The idea that there is no self is, of course, just one way of looking at things. From another way of looking at things, of course there is a self.
"Indeed.
@Los said
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Each way of looking at things is possible at once, and that's another application of the 0=2 formula.Realizing this -- that is, not just intellectually, but coming to see it for yourself and understand it -- is the ultimate freedom, but it can simultaneously be viewed as the "strictest possible bond" to the illusion-show that's constantly emerging out of the zero.
"Yes.
@Aleister Crowley said
"
Thus, he [the Devil, the O at the end of IAO] is Man made God, exalted, eager; he has come consciously to his full stature, and so is ready to set out on his journey to redeem the world. But he may not appear in this true form; the Vision of Pan would drive men mad with fear. He must conceal Himself in his original guise.He therefore becomes apparently the man that he was at the beginning; he lives the life of a man; indeed, he is wholly man. But his initiation has made him master of the Event by giving him the understanding that whatever happens to him is the execution of his true will."
@Los said
"
A study of Pan (i.e. "All") -- particularly in the context of the Star Ruby ritual -- is most illuminating on these matters."Yes.
Also the Star Sapphire is excellent.*Omnia in Duos: Duo in Unum: Unus in Nihil: Haec **nec **Quatuor **nec **Omnia **nec **Duo **nec **Unus **nec *Nihil Sunt.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"
There are, of course, even deeper ideas about oneself that one hasn't yet mined. What seems to be a perception - perception! - of extinction at one point ("Wow, I'm really not that thing / idea / creation at all!!!") leaves room for (and is usually replaced by), "There is some deeper thing, more persistent, that I am," i.e., "There is a Self behind that self." Buddhism, of course, seems to deny that this is so, or at least to make way for the progressive discovery of the inexistence, changeability, and insufficiency of each layer that we discover; I'm not sure that some final opinion on whether there is a "final" self really matters to the present question, which addresses more the perception of extinction.In short, nirodha-samapatti isn't a final attainment. (Finality of anything implies existence, permanence, and staying satisfied with the answer. Buddhism doesn't really support the idea of a thing's existence, its unchanging existence, or unchanging satisfaction with its existence.)
I think Liber I is simply hitting a different (higher, deeper) level. At one point in time, the species (like an individual) had one seemingly deepest level to go to "pop" the illusion of a particular kind of satisfactory unchanging persistence of self. In time, the species (like an individual) has found (or constructed) other ideas of selfhood behind that, deeper than that, more persistent than that; so, today, when we talk about the beginning of the perception of extinction, that has a different (deeper) meaning."
I would venture to say that what you have described is not nirodha-samapatti (ie. the Initiating Trance of Ipsissimus).
I would also say that 'attainment' of nirodha-samapatti is not expressly possible within the bounds of any specific system. Its very definition, 'attainment of extinction' necessarily implies that the "chain of systems" has previously fallen away.
Of course, individual mileage may vary. The Beauty of Chaos...
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@Azidonis said
"I would also say that 'attainment' of nirodha-samapatti is not expressly possible within the bounds of any specific system. Its very definition, 'attainment of extinction' necessarily implies that the "chain of systems" has previously fallen away."
Well put.
Why else would AC put it right at the end of the Work.
Sent from Samsung S Duos using Tapatalk
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Too bad there's not a drug that would do the same thing to the brain. That way, everybody could have the same experience and be Ipsissimi.
Or... Is there more to it than that? If so, then it might matter what one has previously attained.
Maybe this discussion would be better served by considering all that one has achieved before such an extinguishing of it into the irrelevance of nothingness.
After all, we do come back down to then consider what this means for all we have come to know ourselves to be and to be able to do.
If that is little, then the achievement would seem little, the consequence little, and the message inconsequential.
The greater the attainment, the greater the attainment.
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@Aion said
"Too bad there's not a drug that would do the same thing to the brain. That way, everybody could have the same experience and be Ipsissimi."
Maybe propofol puts the body "out", but it does not perform the necessary inner tasks.
Regardless, no one person will ever have the same experience as another. See Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
@Aion said
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Or... Is there more to it than that? If so, then it might matter what one has previously attained."Yes, there is more to it than that... or should I say, less.
@Aion said
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Maybe this discussion would be better served by considering all that one has achieved before such an extinguishing of it into the irrelevance of nothingness."Well, depends on what we are talking about. If we are talking about the Abyss, it's one type of a thing. Magus is quite another. Ipsissimus is still another.
One way I first learned to look at them in tandem is by considering them as Modes of Expression. That view, however, is only a very partial view of the entire picture.
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@kasper81 said
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Ok Los you got me. You were right. I say this as I have just reviewed Crowley's "Notes for an Astral Atlas" which puts such self-induced (they are always self-induced) trippy, psychedelic visions in their rightful place.From Crowley's "Notes for an Astral Atlas"
*The Magician may go on for a long time being fooled and flattered by the Astrals that he has himself modified or manufactured. Their natural subservience to himself will please him, poor ape!
They will pretend to show him marvellous mysteries, pageants of beauty and wonder unspeakably splendid; he will incline to accept them as true, for the very reason that they are images of himself idealized by the imagination.
But his real progress will stop dead. These phantasms will prevent him from coming into contact with independent intelligences, from whom alone he can learn anything new.
He will become increasingly interested in himself, imagine himself to be attaining one initiation after another. His Ego will expand unchecked, till he seem to himself to have heaven at his feet. Yet all this will be nothing but his fool's face of Narcissus smirking up from the pool that will drown him*
I take it that these, "independent intelligences" spoken of are simply, other human beings who can point this fact out to him, who can (try to ) help him ascertain between the fancy pictures he has of himself and his real inclinations... for himself? Also theses independent intelligences are a symbol for one's own intelligence i.e. one's own True Will?"
Concerning quote from Crowley... there is "astrals"and "astrals" as it is actually implied by the quote itself !
Yetzirah is between Assiah and Briah, therefore it can interact with both in many ways, depending on the level of magician.
"Independant intelligences"are briatic beings in my opinion. Not "other human beings".
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93,
Kasper, I disagree with your interpretation, not necessarily a metaphysical standpoint, but from an English language standpoint........
If independent intelligence is yourself, why does crowley use the plural, "intelligences", surely there is only one of you. The extract concerns one magician interacting with multiple independent intelligences, rather than the manifestations of his subconscious.
93's
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@kasper81 said
"Maybe he was open minded enough to consider the fact that we are composed of different levels of varying intelligence? Afetr all this is a man who said he was Perdurabo and The Great Beast 666 and V.V.V.. and Alastor Wanderer of the Waste and "The word of the aeon" and a Russian Count and a Sumerian god and "the demon Crowley" etc etc"
It's simpler than that: Crowley recognized, and routinely worked with, a vast array of independent spiritual beings, all the way from elementals, up through human beings he never physically met, through angels and gods. His biography is utterly clear on this matter, at least so far as his own understanding of it. (I suppose he could have been wrong; but the issue of the moment is what he meant by it.)
In the quote above, he is saying that you have to get past your personal psychological creations and reflections to get to a point where he can communicate with other objective beings, "from whom alone he can learn anything new." In the present passage, he is not talking about encountering other human beings out in the world, on the street, etc.; he is talking about contacting other beings on the astral, some of which have no bodies and some of which might have bodies yet would never meet him in person. (This was in the days before the Internet, btw, Shockingly, Crowley didn't know how to use a web browser. On the other hand, he didn't have to pay monthly ISP fees.)