What is "The Trance of Sorrow"?
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Astrologer Jayj Jacobs in the 1970s. Consistent with Jayj's wishes, I've totally stolen it ever sense
(Because it's true! Funny, eh?)"
: )
Love is the law, love under will.
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It is that feeling you get upon first waking,
Staring up at the ceiling,
Laying in bed... wondering
"What is this all for?"
Until you awake,
To the memory of that Golden Dawn
And get your Self out of bed -
"If it's not funny, then it isn't true." Dr. Timothy Leary, 1965. Good thread.
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@seekinghga said
"Is this supposed to be related to the feeling of loss that one feels when the things that were once valuable to him must lose their worth? Such as when making hallow the consciousness? I have read the essay on sorrow by Crowley. I am looking for contemporary points of view."
Continuing my thread-bouncing response to you...
This was actually a really good question, and a really good style. You started by stating where you were coming from, what thoughts you had, giving an inference of where the question was coming from so that people could actually engage meaingfully rather than taking a buckshot approach.
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I don't know if I have truly experienced it yet, but I have a bit to say on a feeling which I could characterize with this name.
Ever since I seriously picked up the Great Work, I have more and more often been overcome by a strong feeling of longing (towards my HGA, or the Supernals - I am not able to tell yet), which makes everything else besides the Work irrelevant for me.
It does feel like sorrow, and I in deep regret that I didn't start the Work sooner. I think that's what it is for me, and it's a great motivator to work as hard as I can. -
@Surg said
"I don't know if I have truly experienced it yet, but I have a bit to say on a feeling which I could characterize with this name.
Ever since I seriously picked up the Great Work, I have more and more often been overcome by a strong feeling of longing (towards my HGA, or the Supernals - I am not able to tell yet), which makes everything else besides the Work irrelevant for me.
It does feel like sorrow, and I in deep regret that I didn't start the Work sooner. I think that's what it is for me, and it's a great motivator to work as hard as I can."Same happened to me.
On another note, how does one meditate in the First Noble Truth to enter in the Trance of Sorrow? I can't recall which Liber is exactly, but in one of them they suggest you to imagine yourself dead. I took the suggestion and modified it slightly, so in my meditations my dear loved ones died, I died in front of them, separations from different kinds of pleasures, etc. My question is if this is a right approach. I think it's more a contemplation than meditation, but it's made me aware of lot of things.
I always banish before and after, of course.
So, did I do good? -
Liber HHH section AAA.
I haven't done it personally but I think your emendations probably changed the nature of the practice. I get the sense Liber HHH is actually about experiencing the death of your physical body rather than the emotions associated with death generally.
However, your emendations do seem like a good path towards experiencing the Trance of Sorrow.
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I believe this are false impulses of ones will, how you imagine yourself and your place. That is why it is called TRUE will.
Mine recents are that other people are only strong as much as you are weak., this would be more of mental type. And one of emotional type would be, that women needs money and security only when love can happen, or even that people like go to swim only with half of their body in the water
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My personal take is that it is the realization that everything is destined to turn into ShT and that this is the entire process of the Universe.
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Yesterday (October 6, 2015 12:26pm EST) I wrote: "The view of attainment or enlightenment of the 'I' is also vastly amiss!"
From my Record for today (October 7, 2015):
This (my entry from above) is, I believe, the perception of one of the deeper layers of the Trance of Sorrow.All this work, all of these shifts in perspective are tools. They will not bring this "I", they will not bring Jeremy, to any permanence. All, from the standpoint of this Ego, is transient. Existence is sorrow. The HGA is not an extension of this self. The Impersonal Light or Consciousness is not an extension of this self. The Great Work even is not an extension of this self. These things are for you, Jeremy, to realize that the understanding of "existence is pure joy" is not, nor can not, EVER be dependent or connected to this self. This self can find peace in these things, sure, but this self is ever-ephemeral. This self, this Ego, only exists so long as the brain which formed it. Perspectives can and must change, but so long as they are in relation to this self, or any "self", they are transient.
@seekinghga said
"Not even when the lovliest of flowers bloom
Will you breathe forever."I understand now what I meant. The fruits of my work are not for "me." No longer do I think this nor know this nor see this; it has been felt within the heart of my heart, which is also transient: Everything is Sorrow. So it is. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
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@seekinghga said
"Yesterday (October 6, 2015 12:26pm EST) I wrote: "The view of attainment or enlightenment of the 'I' is also vastly amiss!"
From my Record for today (October 7, 2015):
This (my entry from above) is, I believe, the perception of one of the deeper layers of the Trance of Sorrow.All this work, all of these shifts in perspective are tools. They will not bring this "I", they will not bring Jeremy, to any permanence. All, from the standpoint of this Ego, is transient. Existence is sorrow. The HGA is not an extension of this self. The Impersonal Light or Consciousness is not an extension of this self. The Great Work even is not an extension of this self. These things are for you, Jeremy, to realize that the understanding of "existence is pure joy" is not, nor can not, EVER be dependent or connected to this self. This self can find peace in these things, sure, but this self is ever-ephemeral. This self, this Ego, only exists so long as the brain which formed it. Perspectives can and must change, but so long as they are in relation to this self, or any "self", they are transient.
@seekinghga said
"Not even when the lovliest of flowers bloom
Will you breathe forever."I understand now what I meant. The fruits of my work are not for "me." No longer do I think this nor know this nor see this; it has been felt within the heart of my heart, which is also transient: Everything is Sorrow. So it is. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
Wow, beautiful stuff, man!
**Success is your proof; courage is your armour; go on, go on, in my strength; & ye shall turn not back for any!
** AL III:46 -
@Jim Eshelman said
"Of course, one then remembers (at once or eventually) the key of humor: "It ain't funny if it ain't real - and it ain't real if it ain't funny.""
Thank you again for this quote, Jim. I should get it framed.
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/removed - lots of negative story.
Thy feet in mire, thine head in murk,
O man, how piteous thy plight,
The doubts that daunt, the ills that irk,
Thou hast nor wit nor will to fight—
How hope in heart, or worth in work?
No star in sight!Thy gods proved puppets of the priest.
“Truth? All’s relation!” science sighed.
In bondage with thy brother beast,
Love tortured thee, as Love’s hope died
And Lover’s faith rotted. Life no least
Dim star descried.Thy cringing carrion cowered and crawled
To find itself a chance-cast clod
Whose Pain was purposeless; appalled
That aimless accident thus trod
Its agony, that void skies sprawled
On the vain sod!
I have of late, (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition; that this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'er hanging firmament, this majestical roof, fretted with golden fire: why, it appeareth no other thing to me, than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel! in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!** And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither **'
I think these two sum up my Trance of Sorrow - and Shakespeare's - and Crowley's. I think it's self explanitory.
And yes, my resolve to become a master was at the deepest point possible of this trance and still be alive.
Damn harsh shove to get on the path - but if you've ignored every other guiding tug I guess it's warranted. -
The Trance of Sorrow may aptly be defined as the spontaneous, unsought realization of the universal applicability of the First Noble Truth of the Buddha. The meaning of the term "universal" expands as one grows (or diminishes) via initiation.
"If the body of the King dissolve, he shall remain in pure ecstasy for ever."
"Farther and farther we float; yet we are still. It is the chain of systems that is falling away from us. First falls the silly world; the world of the old grey land. Falls it unthinkably far, with its sorrowful bearded face presiding over it; it fades to silence and woe. We to silence and bliss, and the face is the laughing face of Eros."
Just take that restictor plate called Ego off of the intake of the mind.
"For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect."
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"and the Thought of Adonai was a Word and a Deed"
It's an action or a function of the way that the mind works, it is not a belief.
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My intuition tells me that for one undergoing the Curse of the Magus the thought of self-destruction would represent the very height of optimism. It is the "thought" which is the pinnacle of their optimism, and let it be known that that thought is not borne from any standpoint of self-pity, for the Magus is one who has already attained to the grade of the Master of the Temple.
In attaining the grade of Master of the Temple, the Adept is drawn inexorably towards the HGA with such impact that the qliphoth/Ego that was (or seemed to be) the Adept falls away to the world of phenomena, devoid of life of its own, only to be inhabited by circumstance by the real Adept, the HGA, who in truth dwelleth forever in the Openess of Our Lady Babalon, The Great, The Great... The Babe of the Abyss is the dissonance between the shell (more accurately, the old habits or patterns of the renounced/detattched cognitive faculties; see here) and the Adept. I digress. But indeed, where is there then for self-pity to build a nest in the tree without leaves nor branches nor trunk nor roots?
"He that lives long & desires death much is ever the King among the Kings."
The death longed after is revelry in the Night of Pan. However, dissolution is not the formula of the Magus, hence the cursed aspect of that grade. The Magus must re-assimilate with concept of self, and with transience, and with sorrow; their formula involves the Coagula, reconstitution, which inevitably must follow any utterly successful spiritual completion of Solve, the process of dissolving. Further, their formula involves becoming always a mouthpiece for Transmission.
The task of the Magus can be summed up thus. The Magus is as upon a stage giving a presentation, and they only want people to focus on that presentation. And yet the whole time they are painfully aware that their own presence will serve as nothing but a distraction to the presentation. Therefore: "How shall He destroy Himself?"