Love, Projections, and the HGA
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I was thinking the other day as I was deep in an emotional discussion with my girlfriend, and here's what I came up with.
I have difficulty truly understanding love. I thought I understood it when I was with my previous girlfriend (the most major relationship of my life thus far), but it was more projection than anything else (seeing as how I was a teenager during it). I know that now. I'm still in transition into understanding love that isn't projection-based. I feel very distant in many ways.
I was trying to grasp what was going on emotionally between my girlfriend and myself; I thought to myself, "isn't everything I experience in any given situation just projection?" Then I realized - well, no, there's always one part of a situation that isn't projected by me (taking the sum of things that aren't projections, that is, and making them "one part"); does that mean that, since every experience is a dance with the HGA (or so I've read), are all situations literally composed of experiences of the Angel mixed in with my own projections, and nothing else?
This would put each individual human being incredibly distant from every other human being on the lower planes.
But so it is, isn't it?
What are your thoughts? In particular, let me know if you think any of these ideas are flawed in any way - I might be performing these mental calculations on mental ground that's tilted in one direction or the other without realizing it.
93, 93/93.
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I'm not sure that it's a reasonable expectation to cure ourselves of all projection in normal levels of consciousness... nor is it necessarily negative to project, because the projection ultimately has the potential to help you deal with your mind's contents, and grow from the experience.
Also, instead of an either/or scenario, it might be more of a continuum, where our ability to love gradually becomes less hampered by petty projections.
I think a key to evolving is to become more aware of the effect of the projection on our emotions.
For example, you might have an anima dream, or a character in a movie or book that stirs your anima projection, and you start to feel disturbed emotion over a disconnect between your anima and your gf. If you're not aware, you might start a fight, and sabotage your relationship (in a subconscious attempt to move to a more closely-fitting projection).
If you're conscious of it, you can avoid sabotaging yourself. You can start to tell if you're holding on to traits a less-evolved anima projection, and you can begin to let go of it, and move on to a more evolved ideal.
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@Alrah said
"If we were standing on a beach, and I gave you a handful of golden sand - and we both agreed that the sand you held in your hand was your love - what would you do with it?"
To say that the first thing that would come to mind for me would be to give it back to the rest of the sand from whence it came would be lying at this point.
I'm still learning. -
@Alrah said
"If we were standing on a beach, and I gave you a handful of golden sand - and we both agreed that the sand you held in your hand was your love - what would you do with it?"
93,
Man, I know what I would do [Assuming I actually believed it was my 'love' and following the idea].
XD. It's not necessarily "Put it back," or "Hang on to it," rather, I would strive for ambivalence
[And I swear, I am not following you around to be contrary, I just like this board]Though, to address the post-
Well, my mileage is probably very different, but I would say any form of Love [Possibly even Thelemic Love, depending on a lot of variables] is something to be avoided. Well, avoided is a bad word... Circumvented? No. Bah. I'm not advocating ignoring it, but rather viewing any kind of love that 'excites' you when it shouldn't be seen as love in any sense, rather as a drug you're doing [Bearing in mind Chapter II of Liber L]. After all, at the end of the day, and a complicated enough chemistry set, one could conceivably want to love a boar.
Of course, my own experience isn't typical, I find that I don't feel the attachments to people [Though, I wouldn't say asexual] that I should, but rather to ideas and knowledge. Though, that is a simplification Shrug
To continue, though, I would say any situation you are in is probably the work of The Angel, for some reason. So, I would agree, even in those things that are silly [Whatever one finds silly] serve the purpose. So, yes. I would say that emotional connections are a projection, but at the same time. I honestly couldn't say what that means, though, as some of my conceptions of the nature of the Angel [And the human, for that matter] have been quite odd.
XD. I must be giving the impression I have no passion in life.
93 93/93
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93,
XD. I was only noting that I would play along with the experiment. I've had to clarify that a lot in the past, so it's habit [You would not beleive the number of people who without that disclaimer would assume crazy things, by the way.]
93 93/93
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93,
In my normal life, I'm quite active in various groups [Not like PEW, but more like a group you'd find in a college] that deal with religion in America. For the most part, in public, I identify as an atheist [Note I am not talking about secular humanism, but rather a simple rejection of theism], as it is just easier, and carries none of the baggage occult conceptions of the same carry. Though, I tend to entertain the thoughts in discussion, as I never really bring my own views to such tables, so people very frequently assume that when I start to move along the thought experiment that it isn't an experiement.
I remember last year, I was holding the position that god is existent, and actively malicious against god is real and benevolent. By the time it ended, I realized that everyone around me had thought that I was being serious about it.
93 93/93
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93,
XD. I also tend to keep it a bit secret what I really feel, as in my hopeful line of work, such things could be very easily misconstrued to end my job [I want to teach eventually, at a Uni level.]
93 93/93
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93,
In what I want, no and that's why I consider it okay- it's odd, but not bad. Making it clear I'm into that whole Crowley/ occultism thing would scare a lot of people [And also, is generally like saying you enjoy Lamarck's ideas better than Gould's], and contribute to a list of reasons why "Chris should not be allowed to enter certain communities." XD
But for the most part, yes, it can be quite bad to be an avowed atheist, as a small but vocal subset of the country thinks you are some kind of 'Illuminati,' plant. I've seen that about Dawkins quite a bit
Edit: Thpugh, this does have me wondering, in Ash's case he is trying to identify aspects of.... Er... Whatever it's called with people you want to date as it relates to Love and The Angel- for me, it seems that the same level of effort has been applied to a less personal area [You know what, I'll keep that there, despite how dumb it sounds]. Perhaps that's just another aspect- Love needn't be the uniting of things, but could be a union with a thing and an idea. Though, that does beg the question, from a certain perspective, is there a difference?
93 93/93 -
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@Ash said
"93.
I was thinking the other day as I was deep in an emotional discussion with my girlfriend, and here's what I came up with.
I have difficulty truly understanding love. I thought I understood it when I was with my previous girlfriend (the most major relationship of my life thus far), but it was more projection than anything else (seeing as how I was a teenager during it). I know that now. I'm still in transition into understanding love that isn't projection-based. I feel very distant in many ways."
Yeah. Anytime you move from an emotion to rational analysis of emotion, you're going to stop feeling the emotion so much. The same thing happens in spiritual practice. It's a brain-state thing, and it can have a lot to do with internal permission to feel and experience rather than analyze and self-protect, or vice versa.
" I was trying to grasp what was going on emotionally between my girlfriend and myself; I thought to myself, "isn't everything I experience in any given situation just projection?" Then I realized - well, no, there's always one part of a situation that isn't projected by me (taking the sum of things that aren't projections, that is, and making them "one part"); does that mean that, since every experience is a dance with the HGA (or so I've read), are all situations literally composed of experiences of the Angel mixed in with my own projections, and nothing else?
This would put each individual human being incredibly distant from every other human being on the lower planes.
But so it is, isn't it?
"Jeez... Ask an easy question, why don't ya?
Personally, I'd want to begin by limiting the definition of "projection" a little. In some states of mind, you could take the concept of projection to the extreme and begin to get a sense of the entire plotline of your personal universe and manifestation as a projection you have intended to experience. It can go to a really absolute kind of place, you know? That's why I'd like to limit that rather open concept a bit first.
Psychologically speaking, when I think of relationship projections and their roots, I go back to the formation of object relations (see Kernberg). Our entire sense of self and other, including good self, bad self, good other, and bad other, are completely made up of our personal experiences. You might like to take a look at some of Kernberg's developmental ideas just for the psychological development aspect - the process of developing the ability to own one's own projections and healthily relate to others. And, in terms just of your love relationship with your girlfriend, this is where I'd spend some time focusing. Also, one danger of so ruthlessly analyzing love is that you can feel you've reasoned away all of the projections that cause you to be attracted to any person (calling them meaningless) while leaving the unnattractive projections unanalyzed (they remain meaningful). Think of the opposite exercise - You understand every person you experience to be an embodyment of the Divine - What projections cause you NOT to love them?
Of course, accepting every person to be an embodyment of the Divine is also a projection... Like I said, you can go pretty far with the projection concept. Which will you choose to allow to be more real to you in a* particular situation*? Your separation? Your connection? And in what relationship to your own Will that is also Love? These are the questions for me.
Well..., feeling I've rambled a bit... Don't know how pertinent some of this will be to you... my own plotline gets in the way of my perfect understanding, you see...
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"does that mean that, since every experience is a dance with the HGA (or so I've read), are all situations literally composed of experiences of the Angel mixed in with my own projections, and nothing else?
"Sorry. Still feeling drawn to the question....
It could be seen that way if you define the experience of the Angel as inclusive of all your personal experience - both: things and entities that are temporarily less conscious than you, as well as entities that are more conscious than you. You can think of it that way, but it gets messy in that it doesn't separate the lower consciousness from the higher one, and that's a distinction that the concept of the Angel is intended to make.
Here, I'd make a *functional distinction *between Reality, you, and the experience of the Angel. It's possible to go up a level and consider them all combined Self, etc.. But from the perspective of your question....
I'd say there's the Reality before you,
You (and in some sense "you" is the sum of your projections - your current self-concept),
and experiences of the Angel's presence or influence (as the sort of truth revealing agent of Reality).I'm imagining the traditional Lovers tarot trump, with Adam, Eve, and the Angel above them, self-consciousness being represented by Adam, or the male.
This would be from a practical, functional perspective.
If your questions are coming from practices that attempt to focus on every circumstance as a particular dealing of the Divine with your soul, I'd encourage you to focus on the word "circumstance" instead of trying to insert "things" or "people." It's not this thing, this person, this tree... They are manifestations of the Divine, yes. But it's this or that particular moment of time in my spiritual thought-life. That's where the dance with the Angel is. imho...
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@danica said
"Ash, read this as related to the 'Love' part of your question (but essentially and deeply to the whole of it) :
www.huffingtonpost.com/arjuna-ardagh/goddess-worship_b_660896.html"Danica, this article is nothing short of amazing. Thank you so much for posting it; I have it bookmarked now!
