The Great Work - How do you define and live it?
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I'm so glad you asked this question Sol. I had a great conversation with a close friend of mine about this two weeks ago. I was born on September 10, 1982, which is the Second Decanate of Virgo and falls under the rulership of the Lord of Material Gain (see 9 of Disks in the Thoth Tarot) When I set out on the path, I had a very vague idea of what the Great Work is, but I knew I was called to perform it in this lifetime since I was a child. So far, much of my work with humans has been about developing a tight "inner game". Getting rid of beliefs and behavior patterns and establishing new ones. Tuning into one's internal dialogue and modifying it accordingly. Things of that nature. There is also an entreprenerial drive within myself. I want to create pieces of work that transform people. That touch, move and inspire them and hopefully motivate them to produce their own creative works. The further I move within myself, the further my influence expands and the more people I touch as a result of the work I do on myself. I want to be famous and I don't know if that's an ego thing or if there is a higher purpose for wanting fame. I certainly don't want it for the sake of it. I'd like to be an example of someone who has come forth, performed their True Will, make their dreams come true and made it possible for other people to do the same.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
From my MR:
*It seems to be much better to adjust to the moment constantly in life, rather than talking about doing it -- which has a tendency to lead to egoic charged obsessions instead of ecstasy in every moment.
The Joy is in the Going.*
This about sums it up for me.
Love is the law, love under will.
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The great work is to establish on earth the kingdom of God. That is the organic state, in which each individual "caste" is set one against the other in a system in which each individual contributes to their own natural function, such that the whole works to fulfil the needs of the parts.
The individual work is to discern from the whole of nature and within oneself what one's natural function and purpose is, and the necessary means to do that one goal, without distraction by various wants and desires than lead to inefficient function of the biology, the social role and the spirirtual/psychological aspects of the individual. It is not to "Create" yourself it is to discover what nature made you to be, and do that and only that.
The Great work is the social work of ensuring that every individual work is efficiently organised to reduce friction between individual aims and to ensure the collective works to the benefit of the individual needs.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Froclown! Its been a long time! Hope you've been well.
@Froclown said
"The individual work is to discern from the whole of nature and within oneself what one's natural function and purpose is, and the necessary means to do that one goal, without distraction by various wants and desires than lead to inefficient function of the biology, the social role and the spirirtual/psychological aspects of the individual. It is not to "Create" yourself it is to discover what nature made you to be, and do that and only that. "
By this rationale, are we talking determinism? By discovering what 'nature made you to be' opens up too many cans of worms. Isn't life dynamic?
Most scientific models show a large degree of chaotic influences. Epigenetics, memes, adaptation, and other various influences seem to indicate that we have a hand "creating" ourselves -- wouldn't you agree?
Love is the law, love under will.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
For me the Great Work is to do anything, even the smallest act to fight the sorrow I see when I close my eyes. There is so much pain and misery in this world. Souls are crying.
Since I feel the Motta A.'.A.'. is concerned with the welfare of mankind, my True Will and Great Work is the True Will and Great Work of the A.'.A.'. . Therefore my job is to cleave to the A.'.A.'. and let the energy of the A.'.A.'. do its work.
I really see it like this, but my truth is no ones but mine.
Love is the law, love under will.
Fraternally,
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If you believe that the A.'.A.'. as on organisation is helping with the great work, then of course contribution to that order will help with the great work. However if you believe that some how mysterious energies or occult forces will make the world a better place because of the meditations, rituals and others things a few individual do in their basements in order to perturb their brains to produce illusions and personality changes, you are mistaken.
The only way to change the world and achieve the great work is to take direct and practical actions. To reformulate social and political laws and common codes of behaviour as well as the metaphysical beliefs that promote and justify those behaviours. You have to take actual measures to say set up an economy based on the needs of the community, rather than on the abstract notion of creating money for money sack. To remove the social conditions than produce low self confidence, guilt, inhibit action, and produce neurotic anxiety, depression, and crime.
Without taking direct practical actions, what you are doing is nothing more than praying, which is just wishing. And ritual for no other reason than to "Explore your spirituality", or "develop yourself", is nothing more than masturbation, unless you use those incites and skills to achieve practical results.
Well as to causal determination, now every star's orbit is set by the gravity of every other star, every planet receives it's light a star, and it's proper purpose and orbit is discerned by discovery of which star or which planet that it is, and what are it's ties to all other planets and stars, by knowing it's relations, if can learn it's orbit and cease to Desire to stray from the orbit, and when it is content it it's own true orbit, not envious of other orbits, then it ceases to be disappointed when it's reality does not match it's dreaming.
This is the meaning of Do what thou Wilt. It means also WILL what thou Do.
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
"Without taking direct practical actions, what you are doing is nothing more than praying, which is just wishing. And ritual for no other reason than to "Explore your spirituality", or "develop yourself", is nothing more than masturbation, unless you use those incites and skills to achieve practical results.
"I never said that;)
My Jewish Forefathers had a saying that is still said to this day. "Pray; then get up and do something about it".
I am actively involved with my Work that doesn't include praying
Love is the law, love under will.
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@Froclown said
"However if you believe that some how mysterious energies or occult forces will make the world a better place because of the meditations, rituals and others things a few individual do in their basements in order to perturb their brains to produce illusions and personality changes, you are mistaken."
(Here we go again
)One individual meditating alone, isolated from all human contact, has the power to transform the world - because that person has access to the field of group mind from which all people's ideas emerge.
"The only way to change the world and achieve the great work is to take direct and practical actions."
Thoughts are practical actions.
PS - I'm also a big fan of physical action as a basis for change. I just didn't want thought itself excluded from the mix.
"To reformulate social and political laws and common codes of behaviour as well as the metaphysical beliefs that promote and justify those behaviours. You have to take actual measures to say set up an economy based on the needs of the community, rather than on the abstract notion of creating money for money sack. To remove the social conditions than produce low self confidence, guilt, inhibit action, and produce neurotic anxiety, depression, and crime."
Or... transform the consciousness first, and let those with transformed consciousness change everything else as they are moved and inspired to do.
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consciousness = brain activity
Ideas come from physical matter of the brain are caused by physical matter of the environment.
There is no such thing as a field that unites all minds, if you want to transmit information to another mind you have to do so with a physical object, like a picture, letter, sound, or light pattern, which is subject to locality and physical as per example the speed of light. All you do here is encode a pattern of brain matter in some other matter than causally interacts with the sense organs of another human biology in a way that replicates a similar pattern of events in the brain matter of the other person. (language is also only possible when we learn via direct experience how to code and decode brain patterns into shapes and sounds, and we all share a common key)
The only way meditation can effect the world is my effecting the personality and behaviour of the individual, which is done by effecting the brain matter, not via mind or weird forces or anything like that, but by various forms of rewarding correct brain patterns to encourage them and discouraging others. But one man on an island having blissful visions and developing a keen mind with a wide scope and focus, is pointless. Has no effect on anything and might as well not exist, all his thoughts and feelings are for naught, he might as well die.
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Seems to me that denying the existence of something is as much an acknowledgement of its existence as saying it does. Because Truth is in the union of opposites, and not in the fragmented polarities that we can only see by looking from one Yetziratic point-of-view at a time.
(oooh, I love how impossible it is to avoid internal contradiction when talking about Truth with words!
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@Froclown said
"consciousness = brain activity
Ideas come from physical matter of the brain are caused by physical matter of the environment."
Actually that is not quite true; if it were, then consciousness would not be necessary as the whole system would be automated. The idea that your awareness is mere causality based on the physical and chemical make-up of your brain is a gross oversimplification that implies that everything we do is purely reflex action, and the subconscious would deal with everything; although it is true that the brain functions by firing neurons in various parts of the brain, in practice we find that the whole is exponentially greater than the sum of its parts.
The mechanistic/materialistic approach to life went out of fashion in the 1870's
Although for the record I am not implying that physical matter is not required, because everything needs a medium in order to manifest, and organic matter is our mode of manifestation.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=idXYOH5FpnE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
The above link is an excellent description of the differences between Organic Traditional community and modern liberal community.
Taking one of his analogies, he says that the organic community is like the natural forest where many different types of plants and animals co-exist each with it's own role or purpose, while the modern community is like a farmer's field that seeks to control and foster only one type of plant, segregating and killing off all other weeds and pests.
The organic community, with it's strict caste system and it's brutality of survival of the fittest where everyone finds their niche through extreme measure of self assertion and combat without a safety net, expresses the early Dionysus aspect of the previous aeon. While the modern society that aims for softness and comfort, and reduces to equality can be though of as the Father aeon's final overly protective, logical and controlling Apollo form.
In any effect the great work of establishing the law of Thelema. Can be though of as neither the wilderness nor the strictly controlled mono-crop fields. Rather we can think of the Permaculture techniques of organic farming, in which the system is designed to be self regulating. That is the plants and animals are selected for their natural properties and behaviours, and they are placed together in such a way that what one needs the other produces and what one produces the other needs. This way, there are no weeds, the inedible plants will nitrogenate the soil, or feed the animals than produce organic fertiliser. Flowers are planted with crops that will attract pollinating insects and repel pests. The whole system is set up to work with the natural eco system, not in spite of it, growing no plants and keeping no animals than might plague the natural environment.
In this way we combine Dionysus with Apollo while respecting the natural world of Isis, and each part is selected and set to work in a way that benefits the whole. Thus you have "Star in star and system in system" the whole is designed such that it maximises the potential for growth and natural interaction for every part.
That I would say in the Ideal of the great work.
To accomplish this we need to have a large organisation with this goal in mind, and we need to teach there methods not just in framing but to all aspects of society, to bankers, lawyers, merchants, to generals and corporations, to politicians as well as to scientists. We need to as Crowley said work on putting this principle into practice, first teaching it to the abstract fields to study it and refine it to their field and second to have it put into practical application by leaders of industries and professions.
Sitting in the temple staring at the tip of your nose, will not get the ball rolling. I mean how can you attain without practical action, is not the cup of our lady the physical world, and does not the attainment demand selfless total sacrifice of every last drop of blood, giving your all to a filthy, impure thankless world, seething with abomination and unclean fornications, Muddying yourself up with the degeneracy of the world, and having no single drop of hope for getting anything in return.
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I think the idea behind "sitting in a room staring at the tip of your nose" as you put it, can be summed up thus:
"You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye."
Matthew 7:5
And also:"Physician, heal Thyself"
Luke 4:23The idea being that until you have discovered your own Will/Orbit/K&C of the HGA/ whatever; you are in no position to do anything in a co-ordinated manner.
"if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch."
Matthew 15:14So, the idea of "sitting about staring at the tip of your nose" is not about some sort of Mañana attitude, at least not for those of us who are actively involved in the Work, meditation is as pragmatic as recycling and conservation work for me, it just works on a different level is all.
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@Dar said
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@Froclown said
"The great work is to establish on earth the kingdom of God. "No. It really isn't.
It's a fantasy that pleases the ego that wants some 'real work' to do so it can feel usefully employed, worthy, needed, and that there is a reason for it's existence that is way lot cooler and suits it far more than the present one it's experiencing but not accepting.
To think that 'the great work is to establish on earth the kingdom of God' - is pure hubris. The kingdom is established. It's been pretty established for the last 4.54 billion years infact.
I think you're over thinking all this completely, Fro."
It always struck me as funny that my avowed goal in life "To perform the great work" basically consists of seeing my own bullshit in order to be completely natural, and anything more than this is mere hubris, and what makes it even funnier is that I am required to jump through all these hoops to get back to the original nature.You have to laugh I suppose
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In lieu of the daily meditation not being posted yet I am posting a few thoughts. I guess it forms something of a response to the question posed in the topic heading.
Monumental systems that purport to define the relationship of the individual to the culture, humanity at large, the planet and the cosmos are monumental distractions, imho. They tend to put me to sleep. I know with some certitude—the result of staring at my nose in a locked room—that any idea I hold as truth is an instance where I am no longer creatively and dynamically engaging my reality.
I am content for the moment with knocking things down. If something resists my efforts to knock it over it gets my provisional respect, at least until I get a little bigger and stronger and finally manage to push it over; the longer it stands the more respect it gets, until it falls, then it's time to move on.
No offense, but whenever I read Froclown's didactic posts about the glorious new world order of Thelema, I have this fantasy about the time when one faction of Thelema will rise up and massacre those other factions that it doesn't agree with. In this regard I am my own best example of why these visions of order are bunk! In the fantasy I'm kind a hoping his faction gets whacked because I love the mess! I find the patchwork nature of reality that one experiences in the field much more comforting than the theoretical fantasies of someone who clearly has not lived.
How do I define and live the Great Work? By getting on with it, even in this totally illogical, chaotic mess of a world. Worrying about how it all fits together just means I sit around arguing on forums like this against ideas which are clearly temporary at best. My advice to myself: enough with the reasons for not working, now it's time to lock the door, sit with an erect spine and stare at the tip of my nose.
Love and Will
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I have to admit, my one reservation about Thelema is that it might one day acquire a "Prophet" or some sort of unifier who will destroy the diversity and simplicity of the philosophy and, taking the pseudo-Nietzschian standpoint transform it into a kind of Spiritual Fascism where anyone who doesn't get with the program and do their "Will" as dictated by the heads of the ruling party, will be summarily put to death or ostracised as "centres of pestilence".
The arguments are fun, the ruminating and the "who's got the biggest ruach (read "Penis") contests" are fun, but the thing is, as you say, to just get on with it, and try not to **** with anybody along the way.
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Yay!!! That was fun!
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Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I just read all these post and I am going to say whats on my mind. I am not going to quote anyone. I hope this is not a problem.
There is such a thing as the 93 current. Once you experience it you cannot mistake anything else for the 93 current. It has a very distinct "feel" or "taste" .
The 93 current emanates from the Spiritual plane. The Spiritual plane is the A.'.A.'. (The Spiritual plane is pure energy. There is no form and there is no difference made between anything.) So the 93 current comes from the A.'.A.'..
If we allow ourselves to move with the flow of the 93 current, then by definition we are doing our True Will.
Why?
The 93 current is a natural force of the Universe. If one is aligned with the motion of the Universe, one cannot be doing anything but one's True Will.
All of us are striving to be in harmony with the Universe even if we fight this Harmony.
Love is the law, love under will.
Fraternally,
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Not into??