18 December (Hadit) Liber CCXX, 2:19-21
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(v. 85) 19. Is a God to live in a dog? No! but the highest are of us. They shall rejoice, our chosen: who sorroweth is not of us.
(v. 86) 20. Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us.
(v. 87) 21. We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world. Think not, o king, upon that lie: That Thou Must Die: verily thou shalt not die, but live. Now let it be understood: If the body of the King dissolve, he shall remain in pure ecstasy for ever. Nuit! Hadit! Ra-Hoor-Khuit! The Sun, Strength & Sight, Light; these are for the servants of the Star & the Snake. -
@CCXX said
"(v. 85) 19. Is a God to live in a dog? No! but the highest are of us. They shall rejoice, our chosen: who sorroweth is not of us."
The key point - especially for our present purposes of using these verses as a template for mindful devotion - is that the temple must be rightly built before the God will indwell it. We must, first, make of ourselves right vehicles for the Bride's Reception.
Therefore, "the highest" above means those who have forged of their own raw matter the most fit temples. These three verses then accurately portray the nature of that Reception.
The Qabalistic reversal of "God" into "dog" is the very kind of reversal of image implied by the metaphors of shadows and reflections to which allusion has been made in recent verses. The reality called "God" - in fact, any autonomous reality - is not able to abide in a pale, shadowy reflection of itself.
"(v. 86) 20. Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us."
"Beauty and strength" - the Holy Guardian Angel unites the attributes of Tiphereth and Geburah, 5=6 and 6=5. (And, in case it was missed, v. 86 is one of the Tiphereth verses.)
IIRC, "force and fire" are part of the analysis of Abrahadabra.
@CCXX said
"(v. 87) 21. We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world. Think not, o king, upon that lie: That Thou Must Die: verily thou shalt not die, but live. Now let it be understood: If the body of the King dissolve, he shall remain in pure ecstasy for ever. Nuit! Hadit! Ra-Hoor-Khuit! The Sun, Strength & Sight, Light; these are for the servants of the Star & the Snake."
The term "unfit" is now introduced. "Fitness" implies both an appropriateness to a given task, and a healthy readiness and preparedness based on strength.
There is also advice not to obsess about the fallen; to realize that their ability to feel pain is as proportionately small as their ability to feel joy. This part is really advice to the yogi: If you spend your energies fretting about the outcast, you can't meditate!
"Compassion is the vice of kings." Yet, is it not the highest virtue of the Mysteries East and West alike, whose repository is Chesed? But Chesed is still below the Abyss. The "kings" are the Adepts (it is a technical usage throughout the Book); and we are here told that the Adepts of Thelema are so constituted that they are characteristically inclined to be compassionate - and, if they are thus found to be short-sighted...? It is a vice, but surely the best of them; and all in the service of Hadit, of Life (cf. verse 52).
None of us - certainly not a king - is counseled by this Book to be anything but what we genuinely are. We must live according to the characteristics which compose us, whether otherwise called virtue, vice, or what-not.
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I have a note I copied from gmugmble from a couple of years back: He mentioned that a Japanese Buddhist text called the Mu-mon Kan (The Gateless Gate) includes the line:
"Does a dog have the Buddha nature? No!"
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Reading chapter II spread out like this is allowing me to approach Hadit in an entirely new and interesting way for me(it's my first run through with daily meditations here).
Before, I always felt slightly attacked and accordingly stained my perception of Him with the assumption that there was ego present, getting my own in the way. There's no Ego in the pure creative forces of Life, and HAD is pure. But reading it piece by piece slows it down, allows me to chew it. I find when I'm reading Liber AL straight thru, I fall into quite the trance and melt through it.
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"Think not, o king, upon that lie: That Thou Must Die: verily thou shalt not die, but live."
Ah, this is the most insidious verse in the whole book, for this is just what the serpent said to Eve in the Garden of Delight (Genesis 3:4). Whenever I read this passage, I feel as though I myself were translated to the beginning of history and offered that fateful choice. Shall I accept the fruit from the subtle serpent and its consequences? Like the Mother of us all, I feel I cannot do otherwise. Therefore, let my worship today be to accept it with whole heart, make wine thereof, and be drunken thereon!
"What was dead is now alive .... The very air is not only full of vibrations but of beings. My life everywhere is making itself known to you. All is fitting into place because I am the Center of it all. ... What a joyous time it is! Gone are the old restrictions. In comes what has been repressed. ... The truth of My being in you, of My being you, is setting your free ...." Dorothy Maclean, Wisdoms