Thelema and Monism
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I see a lot of parallels between Thelema and Advaita.
Yet Advaita recommends simplistic meditation and self-inquiry to 'awaken' to abiding non-dual awareness and Thelema recommends all kinds of things.
Advaita recommends 'un-knowing' and 'un-being' while magick in general uses all kinds of models.
It seems reality is somehow beyond any experience or state of awareness so why all the learning and ritual?Is Thelema is more about development along several lines through all stages more like Ken Wilber's AQAL model?
Is the decision between all the skills and knowledge or a simplistic direct approach simply an aesthetic choice?
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@Middleman said
"I see a lot of parallels between Thelema and Advaita.
Yet Advaita recommends simplistic meditation and self-inquiry to 'awaken' to abiding non-dual awareness and Thelema recommends all kinds of things.
Advaita recommends 'un-knowing' and 'un-being' while magick in general uses all kinds of models.
It seems reality is somehow beyond any experience or state of awareness so why all the learning and ritual?Is Thelema is more about development along several lines through all stages more like Ken Wilber's AQAL model?
Is the decision between all the skills and knowledge or a simplistic direct approach simply an aesthetic choice?"
The difference, I guess, is None and Two... acceptance of duality as the possibility of love under will, rather than retreating from Two into the None.
IAO131
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@Middleman said
"I see a lot of parallels between Thelema and Advaita."
One crucial difference between Advaita philosophy and Thelema is Advaita's monism versus Thelema's (ontological) nihilism.
I.e. Advaita asserts that 'All is One', while Thelema that 'All is None' (2=0, etc, etc.)"Yet Advaita recommends simplistic meditation and self-inquiry to 'awaken' to abiding non-dual awareness and Thelema recommends all kinds of things.
Advaita recommends 'un-knowing' and 'un-being' while magick in general uses all kinds of models.
It seems reality is somehow beyond any experience or state of awareness so why all the learning and ritual?"
Magick and Yoga are seen to complement each other, and facilitate each others' development. Pure Yoga can be a path to Enlightenment, but 'exalting the soul' with the practice of Magick accelerates the process a thousand times over. A metaphor that might be useful: Yoga is equivalent to climbing a mountain on your hands and knees, crawling over each ledge, one at a time and reaching the summit by your own labours; Magick is equivalent to casting a rope that attaches to the summit of the mountain, and then pulling oneself up at a much faster (and less strenuous) rate. To be specific, Yoga is sitting still and trying to quiet the mind and achieve the Higher through sheer force of will, while Magick is forming a 'link' with the Higher (in the A.'.A.'. system, the Holy Guardian Angel) and allowing it to 'pull you up'.Something else that must be mentioned is that the processes of Magick and Yoga end in the same goal anyway. Infinite expansion (Magick) and infinite contraction (Yoga) ultimately both lead to Unity, which is then simple enough (cough) to reduce to Nothing.
"Is Thelema is more about development along several lines through all stages more like Ken Wilber's AQAL model?"
I am not aware of Ken Wilber's AQAL model, but I can assert that the system of the A.'.A.'. - incorporating both Magick and Mysticism - makes a point of working with the 6 Sephiroth off the Middle Pillar, meaning that far more effort is made to stabilise the energies aroused whilst moving up in levels of consciousness. Again, Magick complements Yoga, and Yoga complements Magick; however in Magick Without Tears Crowley does describe Magick as a more 'pleasant' path, and that it's easier to have one's demons external to, rather than within oneself."Is the decision between all the skills and knowledge or a simplistic direct approach simply an aesthetic choice?"
Of course, aesthetics are essential to evoke proper energies and emotions consonant with the work, but the choice of this particular approach was undoubtedly a scientific one. The Method of Science is the bedrock on which the A.'.A.'. system is built, after all. -
its not arbitrary nor semantic at all.
the difference between all in one
and 0=2is the difference between the highest hindu attainment which in the Samadhi with Brahma and the Zen Buddhist Satori.
Buddhist Samadhi in more or less the same as in Hindu. It is the total focus of the mind to one point, the transcending of all opposites to and the dissolution of SELF into the OTHER and all is ONE.
However in Zen, the master waits carefully until the student appears to be it a deep Samadhi, and then smack him upside the head hard with a cane. This as the effect of instantly breaking the focus and forcing dualistic self awareness.
(the same idea as the Koan, which is like a riddle or joke, that deep meditation on it reduces the mind to a point of oneness, and then all of a sudden the solution is found, and self pride appears to break the Samadhi, or some humor or absurd aspect in the koan does the same.
When this jolt or lightning strike of waking from the Samadhi occurs while at the same time the Samadhi is not truly broken, but the unified state and the normal state are trancended such that each co-exist. That is a true state of non-duality, a Satori state. It is not monistic like adaviatic Hindu, but non-dual in that the dual (self vs other) and the (SELF-OTHER) state are transcended. No word or thought can describe that state because every true statement about it must negate itself, hold its own opposite. Be Yin and Yang and once, TRUE and FALSE.
Thelema like Zen seeks non-dual consciousness, but this attainment is not seen as an ends in itself, but a means by which one is liberated by restrictions upon ones TRUE WILL. That attainment is to achieve more in the physical world.
It thelema 2 kinds of monism exist. Hadit all is self. In lower Nuit attainment all is other. In the highest attainment of NUIT were Hadit and Nuit are united, you have 0=2. Which is HERU-RA-HA in both the silent 0 and the active 2.
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Yes, I can do that.
1)Crowley's essay on ontology Berashith
- wikipedia on non-dualism lumps all forms together
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism
- the 5th Aethyr from the vision and the voice which contains this line
(It is shown me that this heart is the heart that rejoiceth, and the serpent is the serpent of Death22 for herein all the symbols are interchangeable, for each one containeth in itself23 its own opposite. And this is the great Mystery of the Supernals that are beyond the Abyss. For below the Abyss, contradiction is division; but above the Abyss, contradiction is Unity. And there could be nothing true except by virtue of the contradiction that is contained in itself. )
www.sacred-texts.com/oto/418/aetyr5.htm
- Godel's incompleteness theorem
For every ω-consistent recursive class κ of FORMULAS there are recursive CLASS SIGNS r, such that neither v Gen r nor Neg(v Gen r) belongs to Flg(κ) (where v is the FREE VARIABLE of r)
((in english, no set of axioms finite or infinite can be both complete (contain all true statements) and also consistent (not contradict itself). If incomplete it fails to include elements of truth, if complete it contradicts and nullifies itself.))
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorem
- advaita defined
www.viswiki.com/en/Advaita_Vedanta
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