Working with a "draft" True Will statement?
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"In another thread, Jim has talked about a certain stage in the A.'. A.'. where the initiate distills their True Will into a brief statement. For example, Crowley's "To teach the next step".
In another thread, the path of True Will is described from the point-of-view of bringing an essential underlying motivation to bear on each task before us, as opposed to thinking of True Will as a specific life path that we choose.
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Yeah, I've been stuck on that last one for much of my life in one way or another.
Sucks.
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"Do I experiment with using the phrase as a core motivation, and see how it feels?"
I think you should. And if it doesn't work for you then you are always free to change it as you see fit.
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Why not do something along the lines of signing an oath stating that your true will for now is to attain the full knowledge of your true will?
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Av, I don't think there's any problem with that at all. You're putting it to the test of your life\ - which is where it needs to be tested.
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Thanks for the responses everyone.
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This very exercise is recommended by Paul Case and his students (although they don't use the term "True Will".) Lotterhand, Thursday Night Tarot, the chapter on The Emperor goes into this. I've found it useful to periodically review and update mine.
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@AvshalomBinyamin said
"Do I experiment with using the phrase as a core motivation, and see how it feels? Do I hold off until I am ready to formalize it in the future some time? Do I work with a more broad, undefined motivation in the meantime?"
I think you're going about it in the wrong way altogether.
I discovered my True Will while painting mantras in Sanskrit on a plaster wall. It was the equivalent of being hit with a ton of bricks, psychologically. It was a definite and clear understanding, that I immediately set down into words. I understand it was the discovery of my True Will because I used that terminology to describe the experience even though I was ignorant of the doctrines of Thelema at the time.
My point is this: it comes more as an inspiration than a conscious choice.
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I am hoping that resurrecting this thread will serve to re-present both some practical instruction as well as some variety of experience for those who may have previously missed it.
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"In another thread, Jim has talked about a certain stage in the A.'. A.'. where the initiate distills their True Will into a brief statement. For example, Crowley's "To teach the next step".
In another thread, the path of True Will is described from the point-of-view of bringing an essential underlying motivation to bear on each task before us, as opposed to thinking of True Will as a specific life path that we choose."
Well, hopefully, the definitions of True Will that I offered here will make this clearer:
<!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13284&p=88785#p88785">viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13284&p=88785#p88785</a><!-- l -->When you talk about "distilling" True Will into a "brief statement," what you're talking about is forming a mental representation of the Will for the purpose of assisting you in making choices. This is the realm of definition 3.
After you spend enough time observing yourself in a diverse number of situations, you can start tentatively drawing conclusions about your True Will. Importantly, this isn't a story or a narrative or a picture of "who I am as a person" or "what my life's purpose is": it's a collection of facts that you feel you've inferred about your Will. For example, you may discover that you like children, but that fact doesn't reveal anything about "who you are as a person" -- or suggest that you're a "good" person or a "nice" person or a "family" person -- any more than the fact that you like ham or like the smell of pine cones.
These mental representations can be useful in limited circumstances, mainly when dealing with making decisions that affect your future. For example, it's a lot easier to decide which subject to study in school if you have a mental representation of the kinds of things your Self enjoys. Such a representation also makes it easier to do things like plan for this weekend or set your schedule for the coming month.
But here's the important part: the representation is just that -- a representation. It's a finger pointing at the moon, it's a map directing you toward something, it's a fuel gauge (one that may be often right but that can sometimes break and read "full" when the tank is close to empty), it's a view of the lawn through a smudgy window that sometimes distorts what's going on out there, etc., etc., etc.
The person who trusts the representation and starts following the representation around -- without bothering to continually pay attention to the Will in the moment and confirm that he or she is still following the path of the True Will -- is going to miss the mark. Just paying attention to the representation is like just staring at the GPS while you drive.
There's no substitute for consistently paying attention. Everything else is a tool that aids in that goal.
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"is it dangerous to start bringing a "draft" distillation of our True Will to bear on our every task, before we're absolutely sure of that True Will statement?"
This was the core question of the (now 2+ year old thread).
"I don't trust that I'm at the stage to really be able to evaluate that on my own."
This was the actual crux of the issue.
Trust yourself. Test, evaluate, educate, work, verify, let success be your guide. But trust yourself.
Los, quite right. One has to keep the gauges calibrated by actually looking at the road. The most helpful recent advice I have read, was the illustration of testing your car's alignment.
“to obtain control of the vacillations of my own being.”
One of my core vacillations has been a lack of confidence in myself. When I stepped on the gas, so to speak, my car pulls to that side of self-doubt. So I've had to calibrate that gauge, by "turning the dial" in the other direction, (confidence, trusting myself).
Step on the gas, see which way you pull, adjust, repeat.