Crowley's stupendous 9=2 initiation.
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Sorry I'm so chatty and self-focused today, but I'm on to something about myself, and I tend to get that way...
For me to function in the world of the "sane" requires my participation in a very complex lie - so complex that I lose myself in it - must lose myself in it - or I become a complete bugabear... Part of that complex lie includes the idea that I have progress to make toward some goal because another part of that lie involves me wanting better for myself than I currently experience.
The daily interaction with people part, I have down now. The part where I take up the Work with the same intensity I had before... that part's still hard.
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[Noting that my world hasn't upended for saying all that out loud. That's new too. Also, noting the potential and carefully backing away from the applecart...]
Bring me home again, Lynyrd...
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I think at this level, it's also a lie to call it a lie. In other words, the language just doesn't do it justice. It's more of some sort of threshold between two states of consciousness. Whether or not those states of consciousness correspond to actual levels of Being, well.. that's the $93 million question. Keeping that thought in mind, it's that state of consciousness that may be the illusion...
But if it does correspond to a level of Being, then it's not really a lie anymore than pain is a lie, nor an illusion any more than pain is an illusion. They're real.
But to that state of consciousness (Being?), it feels like an illusion.
Below that state of consciousness (Being?), knowing the feeling of freedom and illusion, there is added a hint of guilt and accusation, of acceptance of the responsibility of the necessities of creation (manifestation), and it is called "lie." -
Each small step up the tree, and each little glimpse of the road ahead, seems like enlightenment at first glance.
This causes initiates to rest on their laurels for a period after each successive "initiation".
This is why we need "Dark nights of the soul" to show us that something is not quite right.
Lets face it, if we were perfectly content we would not trouble ourselves to do the work.
Discontent is what drives us onwards, therefore, cherish discontent.
93 93/93
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@Dar es Alrah said
"
@Archaeus said
"Each small step up the tree, and each little glimpse of the road ahead, seems like enlightenment at first glance.This causes initiates to rest on their laurels for a period after each successive "initiation".
This is why we need "Dark nights of the soul" to show us that something is not quite right.
Lets face it, if we were perfectly content we would not trouble ourselves to do the work.
Discontent is what drives us onwards, therefore, cherish discontent.
93 93/93"
Sometimes a good mystery can be just as good.Nuit says 'existence is pure joy'. Not just 'Tiphareth' but* all existence* - including Yesod and Malkuth.
As the personification of spacetime, Nuit's view seems to be in direct contradiction to the Buddhist view that dis-ease is a quality of all sentient beings...
Who/What do you think Nuit is in the Buddhist mythos - and what are the implications of this regarding the work?"
I think it depends on one's POV.
For someone like me, who is admittedly not particularly enlightened, and limited by my contradiction dis-ease can appear to be quite real.However, I don't take myself that seriously, thankfully, and wholeheartedly accept Nuits POV, with the aim of making my own match it.
Otherwise I'd be a Buddhist, not a Thelemite
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@Jim Eshelman said
";) I should have said that I long ago stopped worrying (most of the time) about whether anything is true. The correct question is usually whether it is useful.
You don't get away without lying. You just have to pick your lies carefully so that a particular auditor is likely to come to a true conclusion."
Haha! Love it, Jim.
Belief is the calvary of the mind. An unorganzied calvary will be inefficient.
Nothing is true - but we use the truth to believe.
We use truths/beliefs to achieve our goals:[excerpt from an essay below]
You are an amalgamation of everything that you have been taught.
You are an amalgamation of your inherited biology.
These are both flexible, they can be manipulated by known methods.[look up psychosomaticmedicine.org, epigenetics, biofeedback, brainwashing, behaviorism, etc.]
Our vehicle of perception is “inside” or subjective (psychological).
What we perceive is “outside” or objective (material).
They influence each other in a recursive feedback loop.Manipulating this feedback loop has two facets.
Manipulating the “material” can be considered with a biological model.
Manipulating the “psychological” can be considered with a symbolic model.To manipulate the biology and/or the psychology, we must first have models.
Manipulation can only be achieved through belief in a model.
We must choose models that we can believe in as a reality*.Scientific and psychological models are costly, at the expense of growth and accuracy.
Scientific models are quantitative and can never encompass all variables.
Psychological models are qualitative and can never encompass all variables.All variables can never be known due to limited measurement technology.
Therefore, all models are relatively true for the time being.
As the models are extremely flexible, the “truth” they describe is relative.Manipulating relative truth can be done by manipulating the variables:
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Let T represent TRUTH – a unit believed to be a reality.
[Since truth is relative, it is merely the space between the POV of the "outside" or objectivity, and the POV of the “inside” or subjectivity]
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Let i represent INSIDE – a unit believed to be “inside” (psychological or “absorbed”) -
Let o represent OUTSIDE – a unit believed to be “outside” (material or “observed”) -
Let m represent MAGNITUDE – a unit to represent the degree of belief in any unit of i or o. -
Let D represent DURATION – which is the length of time a belief is considered a reality.
Since T is infinitely flexible, as the variables of psychology and scientific observation are infinitely flexible, then the equation of "belief as truth" is represented as such:
T = (i x m)-(o x m)/D
The “scientific” community at large is the group considered to have the authority on truth by the majority/masses. This ambassador of truth was previously the religion via clergy, it is now science via media. The truth with the best PR campaign usually wins. This normally translates to how much money is backing the truth. Which is generally the idea that the reality of the masses is controlled by those with the most wealth.
The above paragraph is simply a model created from belief. How useful is it?
** I propose that we learn how CLAIM OUR OWN REALITY AND TRUTH, when and where we choose, based on careful observation as to what is best for any given situation for us subjectively, and be able to employ OUR OWN REALITY AND TRUTH AT WILL SUCCESSFULLY.**
Hopefully this was okay for me to share.
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I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it.
That's off saucerfull of secrets I believe. Either that or Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
Poor cid. All he had to do was slow down. "Delinquents" back then did not know proper procedure for treating schizophrenia with psychedelics like L and Mush.
Believe it or not, thousands of people with schizophrenia so bad they couldn't get out of bed, were made completely normal by:
Dosing very small amounts of LSD or Psilocybin, in the 20-25mcg range and getting them used to it a few times. Upping the dose gradually and slowly until you're at that point where 500mcg has opened up every pathway in the coral maze we call our brain, and the person finds their way out of their own illusion.
Many old heads will know what I mean. When you first start tripping, you have a lot of hypnogogia going on, (the patterns change into known objects and patterns like dancing rows of candy.)
After you've been way into your own brain a few times, the hallucinations dissapear into auras and visible energy throughout the universe.
You could look at a schizophrenic person as one who has not broken out of the first stages of hypnogogia and are in their own world singing with dancing rows of candy, ... .. ... along with paranoia, suicidal or homicidal thoughts, and poop-flinging. (I'm trying to lighten the mood. I've a family member that I love very dearly with schizophrenia.)
Aaahh, the old days.
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I can tell you exactly what it was, I think.
The "tolerance" to LSD comes from something you may call "one-mindedness", further into "nothingness", but let's focus on the one-mindedness.
When it comes down to anything, the highest form or pattern of it is Circular, no matter what. (I will not here, go into how it relates to things of three right afterward.)
LSD brings you, idealistically, and the entire time subconsciously, to the point in the beginning of the "Clear Light", I'd call it "circular" even though it is way more than that. "Of everything that is round and perfect" would be a better way to put it.
When you've stared at it all night, again ideally, it takes you double the dose the next night for the same effect. (Strange that things with Powerful Things and Acid, and psychedelics in general, and the illusion of Darkness, come in Doubles. "Double, sinister and deadly.) The one-mindedness you experienced that held the acid at "bay" was your own smaller version of the "clear light" in the form of very important work you were doing. Now your work isn't as "powerful as" the clear light of reality, so it didn't totally dismiss the LSD, only prolonged the time of onset.
(ON-Set. Another word/word set to look at qabalistically. Major relation to psychedelics seeing as psychs are the drug MOST paid attention to in regards to Onset.)
Congratulations, you have successfully made something in your own life/mind temporarily as important to you as the Clear Light of Reality. This is rare. You have the ability to dose or meditate and hold the clear light for hours on end, I know this for a fact.
Some, it takes only the time to eat a meal, some the time to blink an eye, (then, years and then YEARS later, they complain of "flashbacks" of a "flashlight-like" circular light at the center of their vision every once in awhile -- again, very strange.)
Peace and Power to You and Yours
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@Dar es Alrah said
"Isn't Yesod the 'Treasure house of images?'
Take the energy up and away from Malkuth and Yesod and the images disappear. All there is left below is the black and empty matter of the material body receding away."
Better stated, I think, in terms of the World of Yetzirah rather than Yesod - but your point is made well either way
(Yesod is the repository either way.)"Of course, the Buddha's say everything is unsatisfactory also. And I wouldn't say that exactly."
Me either. Or, rather, it depends on what you mean by "everything." The key syllable is thing.
So, again, it's a matter of the four Worlds, not the sephiroth. In my early days of digging and exploring, I thought the basics of Buddha's philosophy applied much farther upstream. At some untraceable point along the way, I came to realize that this isn't so - that one laughs much sooner than I once thought.
It wasn't until I was writing Visions & Voices and compelling myself to describe some technical terms for the glossary that I got clear what I really thought about some of these matters. (Compelling yourself to written definitions can have that effect!) I ended up defining each of the "three characteristics" in ways that applied only to Assiah and Yetzirah (paraphrased as "physical and psychological"). FWIW, here they are:DUKKHA. n. Buddhism. One of three characteristics that all things have. Often translated “sorrow” or “suffering,” a more nuanced translation would be “dissatisfaction.” The principle is that all things physical and psychological are ultimately insufficient or unsatisfying.
ANIKKA. n. Buddhism. One of three characteristics that all things have. It means “impermanence,” i.e., that all things physical and psychological are continually changing.
ANATTA. n. Buddhism. One of three characteristics that all things have. It means “not-self” (no atman, “self”). At one level of understanding, it means that nothing physical or psychological that one can witness is oneself.
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@Dar es Alrah said
"And I consider Nuit - the consciousness of spacetime - to be identical to the Atman.
"Hmmm... agreeing more than disagreeing (it's another definitions thing).Speifically:
I don't consider Nuit as "consciousness of spacetime." I consider Nuit to be spacetime. I then agree that the Atman (Kether) is the point of innocent consciousness of Her (the Zero).
So, in that sense, I think we agree except in word usage.
"That sounds like I'm disagreeing doesn't it? lol. I'm not. I agree there is no self/persona really. Yet consciousness is a pervasive quality of spacetime/yesod nevertheless - and I call this Atman.
"Oh, well, now I disagree that we agree.
I hold that there IS a self - just not one that's unchanging, or that has psychological or physical characteristics that are ultimately satisfying. -
Jim's explanation of "DUKKHA" reminds me of what Crowley defines clearly as "Welchmertz", where everything in the universe is partly responsible for everything else's sorrow.
The other definition he gave was,
"Eternity grown and travaileth until now."I guess by "now", he means until the point of explanation. I guess there's a hidden subliminal meaning by that last definition to make humans temporarily unaware of welchmertz, or try to move away from the experience of it.
The ceasing of sorrow is very healing, though. I guess, in our universe, two of the operative incarnations of evolutionary catalysts seem to be fire and water. In buddhism, I believe, Fire corresponds to the noble eight fold path, a way to move away from the sorrow of eternity.
Water corresponds to the ceasing of sorrow. Is something higher trying to tell us that we are being looked after, almost spoiled by the universal makeup of bringing beings to their higher selves --
or is it telling us that to live and evolve is ecstasy and to take a lesson from Ra Hoor Khuit and leave sorrow behind, taking the high road. -
Dar, I'm not sexist at ALL by any means, but I was going to ask you if you place Nuit/Atman in Yesod because of your female role in active creation?
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@Dar es Alrah said
"Jim Eshelman wrote:
Dar es Alrah wrote:
And I consider Nuit - the consciousness of spacetime - to be identical to the Atman.
Hmmm... agreeing more than disagreeing (it's another definitions thing).Speifically:I don't consider Nuit as "consciousness of spacetime." I consider Nuit to be spacetime.
Definitely a definition thing. Nuit is both. Perhaps 'consciousness 'in' spacetime would have been a better way to put it."I don't mean to jump in, but it is challenging to think of a definition that is Not. I think Nuit is definitely not a consciousness though. It is where the aspiration goes, but is never found. Boundless. Ever beyond. Otherwise, would there be room to grow? A definition implies a limit to that defintion. Any +1 implies the -1, in particle physics and beyond.
Infinite space is impossible to comprehend. Can it be called "not-consciousness"?
*Then the priest answered & said unto the Queen of Space, kissing her lovely brows, and the dew of her light bathing his whole body in a sweet-smelling perfume of sweat: O Nuit, continuous one of Heaven, let it be ever thus; that men speak not of Thee as One but as None; and let them speak not of thee at all, since thou art continuous! *
It reminds me of Kant trying to describe space. As soon as you try to describe a container of "black nothing", you still need words -- absence of something presupposes a thing -- only a ________ that has no observer can be Not. But yet there is the potential of something to manifest.
And the manifest creates the opposite -- the non-manifest -- by virtue of the thought.
Anyway, good Venus day conversation.
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Also:
@Jim Eshelman said
"I ended up defining each of the "three characteristics" in ways that applied only to Assiah and Yetzirah (paraphrased as "physical and psychological"). FWIW, here they are:
DUKKHA. n. Buddhism. One of three characteristics that all things have. Often translated “sorrow” or “suffering,” a more nuanced translation would be “dissatisfaction.” The principle is that all things physical and psychological are ultimately insufficient or unsatisfying.
ANIKKA. n. Buddhism. One of three characteristics that all things have. It means “impermanence,” i.e., that all things physical and psychological are continually changing.
ANATTA. n. Buddhism. One of three characteristics that all things have. It means “not-self” (no atman, “self”). At one level of understanding, it means that nothing physical or psychological that one can witness is oneself."
BRILLIANT.
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@Frater 639 said
" only a ________ that has no observer can be Not. But yet there is the potential of something to manifest.
And the manifest creates the opposite -- the non-manifest -- by virtue of the thought.
Anyway, good Venus day conversation.
"This sounds like trying to put the idea of Samadhi into words, but the human intelligence keeps skipping to solidarity and reason again.
"The Destruction of the God and the Magician."
No observer, no "experiencer".
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Dar, may I ask you a serious question:
I'm guessing that "God" told the ancient Israelites to eat unlevened bread because there is active consciousness in yeast.
I am a vegan. I am totally unrelying and unaddicted to the proteins and enzymes not many people know about that keep humans addicted to flesh-and-blood food. If yeast has consciousness, then would it not be "wrong" of me to eat it? It being a piece of bread made by cooking animals to death to make flour rise?
Thanks.
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Oh, and your "yo-yo" metaphor agrees with me completely. The Clear Light is that yo-yo, trying to go higher up with every "Yod" or even "Resh" of INRI, right before it falls back down to its original state. I think time keeps resetting itself for the purpose of evolution.
I mean, time does not go "away". After a certain point, we will all be our HGAs looking back into the past to help our "lower" selves.
So yes, an upside down yo-yo. I guess the string would be all the already-evolved Hadits that came before our Universe's Hadit?
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@Dar es Alrah said
"Not really no. Just because you, the birds, and a batch of yeast (that also has consciousness btw) doesn't know how that consciousness works or what the extent of consciousness is (it's in every amoeba on the planet!), doesn't mean it doesn't work for you! I mean - when you get down to the planck scale - spacetime is pretty darned huge. Boundless amounts of qualia and energy running through it's entire holographic structure... Nuit is possessed of all consciousness- everything that has consciousness has to have it via Nuit/spacetime. "
Hmm. Well, that would suppose that spacetime is equated with Nuit. But, to me, "spacetime", as you call it, is more matter and motion, when it is interfacing with my intellect, and put into words. I think the Naples Arrangement is pretty cool. Equating Nuit with "spacetime" is rather limiting, IMHO. But, it's all just semantics anyway.
And the ideas of consciousness and non-consiousness are all Yetziratic in nature. They are ideas. You must conceptualize it to explain it, and it ends up all being Reason in the end. But where is the value? I understand trying to explain Nuit, but I don't have the words...
That's It!
But how can It be That?
It can't be That.
Because That ceases to be It.*But Thou art Eternity and Space; Thou art Matter and Motion; and Thou art the negation of all these things.
For there is no Symbol of Thee. *@ThelemicMage said
"This sounds like trying to put the idea of Samadhi into words, but the human intelligence keeps skipping to solidarity and reason again.
"The Destruction of the God and the Magician."
No observer, no "experiencer"."
Of which we know, but do not speak. To me it sounds like "I" trying to attach importance to words, which are only important the more I am locked into a particular POV. POV's are tools, nothing more...to interpret the illusion. Does it have value?
*Behold! the Abyss of the Great Deep. Therein is a mighty dolphin, lashing his sides with the force of the waves.
There is also an harper of gold, playing infinite tunes.
Then the dolphin delighted therein, and put off his body, and became a bird.
The harper also laid aside his harp, and played infinite tunes upon the Pan-pipe.
Then the bird desired exceedingly this bliss, and laying down its wings became a faun of the forest.
The harper also laid down his Pan-pipe, and with the human voice sang his infinite tunes.
Then the faun was enraptured, and followed far; at last the harper was silent, and the faun became Pan in the midst of the primal forest of Eternity.
Thou canst not charm the dolphin with silence, O my prophet! * -
@ThelemicMage said
"
I'm guessing that "God" told the ancient Israelites to eat unlevened bread because there is active consciousness in yeast.
"I know this was for Dar, but the unleavened bread bit is just for Passover. This was because on Passover they were in a hurry to leave Egypt, and had no time to let dough rise. Nothing to do with yeast (which makes the wine that one drinks on Passover).
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Thanks Binyamin. I've read about unleavened bread but couldn't remember the details in the old testament.
You know, I've made wine, but never known the name of the living microscopic beings that make the alcohol out of sugar. Yeast will do this, but I forget the name of the animals that do this.
I do not know if yeast is used to make wine traditionally. However, all that is needed is smashed grapes, sugar, and water.. along with a container and two smaller containers to make sure air can't get in, only out.
That means that yeast performs the same function as these little creatures already in the grapes, and I guess, air. Does this mean that all fruits and vegetables already have a form of yeast in them?