29 April - (Earth) Liber LXV, 1:45-
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45. Go thou unto the outermost places and subdue all things.
46. Subdue thy fear and thy disgust. Then -- yield! -
"Know Thyself".
The entirety of my soul even to the outermost reaches must me gathered and given unto the most High. Even those things that I may be ashamed of or fear. The most secret and the most blatant must be gathered togethered and subdued that I may overcome. In facing these I wish to shed them in sacrfice to the most High, my Adonai!
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45. Go thou unto the outermost places and subdue all things.
46. Subdue thy fear and thy disgust. Then -- yield!Many things come to mind, here are a few:
During a particularly difficult and confusing period of my life, about thirty years ago, I had an experience that I can only describe a a voice in my head speaking directly to me. I was not prone to this kind of thing, and it has never happened since. I cannot say exactly what it was or what was happening, but I felt the words as true, and designed to give me strength to 'go on' in any way that made sense or seemed necessary. It sustained me for many years. It took the form of an admonishment or chide:
"Go crazy if you must
Cry if you must
Pray if you must
Do nothing if you must
But do not be afraid
For I am with you"When I lived in Germany there was am Indian woman in a small town about an hour east of Frankfurt, Mother Meera. She was reputed to be an avatar of Durga, and it was possible to make a reservation to visit her house and receive darshan from her. I went several times when I could manage a few days when I was not rehearsing or performing. I do not know if she was in fact what some said she was, but I was, and tend to be open to seeing for myself, and hopefully gaining anything that might help me progress spiritually. She claimed to be able to grant liberation; she would help anyone—each to their individual needs, but to a special few she would give everything. These few were, by her own description, souls who were 'ripe.' These souls had lived, had experienced and been of the world in its fullness.
The concept of the True Will is all but identical to Dharma, imho. Krishna chides Arjuna to stop worrying about whether he is doing the right thing by fighting, by starting a war in which many will die. It's Arjuna's True Will to wage this war, his Dharma. Krishna tells him: do not be afraid, for I am with you...
This sounds like an intellectual analysis, but for me it is Bhakti, it is:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.Love and Will
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Subdue thy fear and thy disgust. Then -- yield!
In contrast to yesterdays passage, today we learn that the striving is necessary, a prerequisite to yielding!
Love and Will
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93,
45. Go thou unto the outermost places and subdue all things.
In my own experience, I've always related this idea to how I've perceived the objective world, and subduing (to the best of my training) the biases and projections based on the outside phenomena/events taking place. Basically, confronting/interfacing with the "exterior". (objective)
46. Subdue thy fear and thy disgust. Then -- yield!
To me, these have to do with the "interior" reactions or constructs that would happen as a result of the above projections. They manifested in threats to my ego (fear of change) and the difficulties in accepting my personality patterns, tendencies of thought, etc. (disgust of the static). (subjective)
And, the solution -- yielding to the HGA in silence and in action -- subduing any shame, fear, or disgust.
To me, "subduing" refers to an aspect of reconciling my "negative perceptions" to become energy that propels rather than stagnates. (relative)
This could be put in a Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit formula...
Love is the law, love under will.
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An imagined conversation. An attempt at a Bhakti approach:
What? You want me to be honest?
Yes.
My fear? -Insanity. My disgust? -Ignorance.
And what have you learned?
I'm pissed at you, Adonai. I trusted you. I've followed you my whole life, and in that moment, trust was complete, and then insanity and chaos followed immediately. If you are indeed real and not a disorder of my mind, what trust have you earned from me?
You've forgotten.
Forgotten what?
Insanity followed?
Yes! ...No. My mouth followed immediately [sigh] and constantly. I had no idea what to expect, nor why to be silent.
And then?
Chaos and insanity.
Go. Subdue thine ignorance, and trust again.
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One of the things I keep losing sight of is the fact that there are multiple levels here. This fact I feel does not make a great deal of sense to me on a practical level, but it does tend to help in understanding some of the trickier lines. I have resisted thinking this way, but then I will often find a few days after the initial struggle, I wake with a clarification on something—and lo, it has to do with looking at the structure of the event—it's the scribe, not V.V.V.V.V., who is talking or being told to do a certain type of work. For example, Echo of your kisses, is a request by the scribe, not V.V.V.V.V., the scribe is the Ruach, not the soul itself. It can only experience the echoes—best it can do and still maintain it's functioning existence as mind. The same thing is described by Crowley in the Vision and the Voice—the Seer has to maintain his separateness in the higher Aethers, or risk totally blissing out and ending up with nothing to report. In other words, he keeps an active, perceiving mind in order to make an impression on that same sphere of the mind. I can't find it in the text at the moment, but he goes out of his way to point out, that by keeping the vision at arms length, he does not experience the Aether in its fullness; and he does this purposefully, so he will still be able to relate the contents of the vision in symbols other minds can relate to.
We can only imagine that the actual kisses, referenced in the passage from a few days ago, are being enjoyed by V.V.V.V.V., even though the scribe itself is only 'conscious' of their echo.
Similarly, still considering the special role of the scribe, the idea of removing bias, of Subduing thy fear and disgust, is easily understood as a precondition, necessary for the mind to achieve in order to facilitate the actual crossing of the Abyss by the soul—the mental sphere has to stop trying to figure it all out and stop creating binary judgments and hierarchies of bad, fair, good, and best. Then, able to accept anything it will not get in the way of the attainment of true Understanding—Binah, which is a function of the true spiritual intuition—Then -- yield!
Go thou unto the outermost places
The word 'outer' has significance for me because it is a direct reference to the world—the 'out there.' This experience of objective existence has this virtue, it is a great training ground for the mind, if the mind understands how best to use it. Prakriti only exists to facilitate the liberation of the Purusha from illusion.
This is all not very Bhakti-like I am afraid, but maybe I will do better with today's posting when it turns up.
Love and Will
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I do think that the word "outermost" is the most important in this entire passage. The "subduing" is in terms of the reactions of the body, and especially those of the Nephesh, and even some of those of the Ruach. (Notice that these ae the layers in which Raja Yoga works in calming the impressions received - creating silence in them - so that something subtler, more interior can be perceived.)
Whether that means the most disgusting things, or anything else = it is whatever is found in the "outermost," the most distant from one's center.
In fact, it isn't even necessary to define what the exact level is. Wherever one is in one's growth, there is an "outermost."
Pausing this morning and subduing - quieting - those layers in myself is a nice reminder that at once makes open a deeper (conscious) layer of communion with my own Inmost Belovéd. And, at any given moment, in the heat of an emotional reaction or mind-bending mental rigidity, it is in subduing the outermost that we create the opportunity to fall back toward our own center.
In this is the love of Adonai.
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Reading through this whole post I was just paying attention to the subdue part. At first I thought in the form of an athlete, as in subduing your fears of not being able to do things, or as a person that has never worked on an oil well and when all the people get black from having oil all over them, they say that is too disgusting to do.
A lot of my fears of studying Wica were instilled by the church that I went to. Once I started studying Wica and reading about shamanism, I started to realize that these beliefs were the basis of most religions. I had a friend tell me about a book called “The Golden Bough” which explains how each belief or several of the older beliefs became religion (I have not read it yet).
While reading this post I had somehow missed or did not pay attention t0 #45, so I wondered ‘Why not subdue all things’? Once all things are subdued all that is left is the great consciousness. Then yield seems to have two parts to it. The 1st part is the collecting part as in gathering the yield of the great consciousness. This part still forgets the one part needed to gain the information and that is to yield or let go of yourself and become part of the great consciousness.
Once Jim pointed out that maybe we all were missing the point of “going to the outermost places and subduing all things then my question was answered.