29 November (Nuit) Liber CCXX, 1:41-45
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41. The word of Sin is Restriction. O man! refuse not thy wife, if she will! O lover, if thou wilt, depart! There is no bond that can unite the divided but love: all else is a curse. Accurséd! Accurséd be it to the aeons! Hell.
42. Let it be that state of manyhood bound and loathing. So with thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy will.
43. Do that, and no other shall say nay.
44. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.
45. The Perfect and the Perfect are one Perfect and not two; nay, are none! -
@CCXX said
"41. The word of Sin is Restriction. O man! refuse not thy wife, if she will! O lover, if thou wilt, depart! There is no bond that can unite the divided but love: all else is a curse. Accurséd! Accurséd be it to the aeons! Hell."
A few thoughts on some of these verses.
"Sin," by etymology, has nothing to do with "badness." It is error - French erreur - and specifically (from archery) that type of error which comes from falling short of the mark. As AC wrote in Aha (I quote from memory only), "This is sin - to hold thy holy nature in." It is to constrain oneself, due to doubts, fears, and conflicting thoughts or emotions, from giving all of oneself to one's will. This, by itself, bespeaks Restriction - self-restriction primarily, but secondarily an interference with the Will of others as well.
It is in this spirit that the next two verses appear. I agree with the general view that "man" and "lover" refer to the grades from v. 40. In this sense, it provides a very intriguing contrast between the instructions to the Adept and the non-Adept. The Adept (the Lover) is instructed to take witness of his or her own Will, and the Non-Adept (the Man of Earth) to take witness of the Will of others. This is obviously too simple, but is nonetheless the basis of some serious instruction.
And furthermore, the Lover, if so led by Will, is to depart. But depart from what? Only the particular Adept can know that. It is unique to each. But a renunciation is (by history and experience) always warranted. (Soror Meral used to pose the challenge to posers: "Oh, so you're a Lover, are you? Tell me, from what have you departed?")
And this is because of the next line. Only love unites, for love is unity, ahevah is achad. Any contrary effort is foredoomed - and is also pure hell! The use of "curse" here also bears the marks of the ecclesiastical use of a declaration of anathema or censure - here the words of Nuit, whose nature is love, who represents all existence as this unity. Anything but love is a withdrawal from Nuit - it is not done unto Her!
"42. Let it be that state of manyhood bound and loathing. So with thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy will."
(A Chokmah verse, continuing the thread on Will.) The clearest portion is the conclusion. Not only are we to do our will - we are to do nothing else! And we are to do it "with our all." It must be the whole of our life.
The first sentence, then, seems to refer to the "accurséd" state that is not unto Nuit. I do not know exactly what a "state of manyhood" is, but it is obviously not an experience of Unity. It is the state of complex duality ("manyhood") that is the cause of sorrow, of suffering. It is "bound" because it is a "bond" without real love. It is thus loathing.
A relationship without love is a good example of this. It is hell. It is filled with loathing. It is imprisoning. Such an experience is surely, in itself, to motivate us to the alternative, which is, with our all, to do naught but our will.
"43. Do that, and no other shall say nay."
The universe will impede one who acts contrary to his or her will; but, we are told, there is no resistance when one does only one's will, and does it with one's all. (It is a Binah verse, addressing the issue of resistence to one's actions by the Universe.)
"44. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect."
"Pure will." I am reminded that Yesod is the Purifying Consciousness. The will that is here discussed is (from the verse content) obviously clear, undistorted, &c.; and by this word "pure" we are likely told that it is especially undistorted by the instincts, emotions, and reactions. Quite the contrary; the adaptive aspect of the psyche, and the inherent force of the will in subconsciousness, likely ensure its pure manifestation. (The word "pure" is THVR = 220, the number of verses in the Book.)
This will is to be "unassuaged of purpose." AC had difficulty with this language. "Unassuaged" can perhaps best be rendered as "undiminished." The inherent passion or drive of the will is not to be diminished. Thirdly, it must be without "lust of result," for all of the usual reasons. Pure. Undiminished in its purposefulness. Yet without lust of result. Such will is perfect will. (AC renders "without lust of result" as "nonattachment," which is good.)
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Thanks for the exposition on this. It's very useful for where I have been at recently.
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"**44. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.
- The Perfect and the Perfect are one Perfect and not two; nay, are none!**"
Crowley says somewhere that v. 44 can be used as a banishing formula, so I decided to begin any spiritual practice (meditation, LBRP, whatever) by reciting it. Intuition prompted me to include v. 45 as well. Over time, v. 45 in particular has acquired a number of meanings for me. First, it seems to promise that two people doing their wills perfectly will not be in conflict ("are ... not two") but in perfect harmony. Then, the Perfect and the Perfect can refer to Nuit and Hadit. More significantly to me, they can refer to my Daimon and "myself made perfect", so that reciting the verse expresses my aspiration. Recently, I've associated them with the "two eyes" of the Complete Reality school of Taoism, which I take to be superconsciousness and self-consciousness.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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@CCXX said
"41. ... O man! refuse not thy wife, if she will! ..."...
I agree with the general view that "man" and "lover" refer to the grades from v. 40."In addition, though, there is an important pragmatic sense in the surface meaning of the words. It's only in the last hundred years that there has been widespread acceptance of the idea that a woman could have the right to act according to her will, apart from whatever her husband (or father or brother) allowed her to do.