The Great Work - How Much Effort Does It Require?

David

"Strenuousness is the Immortal Path--sloth is the way of death. The Strenuous live always,--the slothful are already as the dead."
Dhammapada, v., 21.
Listening to The Equinox (on my Kindle) this morning, I found the above quote in Frater P's analysis of Buddahism. This brought to mind a line of questions I want to put to our group (including anyone who happens across this thread in the future):

What does it mean, practically, for you to perform the Great Work?
How many hours do you spend in magickal or meditative practices?
How is your work divided between study, ceremony and silence or otherwise?
How has this changed over time?

Inquiring minds want to know.

93s

-David

Takamba

Simple answer: There is no other work. All work supports the Great Work.

Fr Seraphis

Invoke as often as possible.

Al-Shariyf

"What does it mean, practically, for you to perform the Great Work?"

I'm still working that out but for now it's along the lines of discovering what I made an agreement to do when I came into existence and doing it. To me, the Great Work is like a great excavation.

"How many hours do you spend in magical or meditative practices? "

My mornings typically consist of 20-30 minutes of relxation, mediation and ritual practice.

My evenings are much shorter. I'd say 20 minutes tops. So I guess that would put me somewhere in or near the 1hr per day mark.

"How is your work divided between study, ceremony and silence or otherwise? "

Occassionally I spend 30 minutes to an hour studying in the morning and 30-60 minutes studying in the evening.

Archaeus

Depends really, I tend to fit it around my extremely fluid routines, sometimes I'll do several hour a day, other times I'll do very little for days. I don't really think that having set hours every day is vital, as long as you get the necessary tasks done, (getting diaries typed up on time etc).

Sometimes I'm happy to do several risings in a day or extended periods of meditation or study, overtimes I don't have the energy to do much, so I do what I can when I can.

But the short answer is: The Great Work requires every ounce of your energy, and is in no way restricted to your formal practice.
You should live the Great Work, not compartmentalize it into your mornings or evenings.

93 93/93

Al-Shariyf

"You should live the Great Work, not compartmentalize it into your mornings or evenings."

I apologize if I left you Archaeus and everyone else on here with the impression that my performance of the great work is compartmentalized into my morning and evenings.

Your comment may have not be directly at me but I took it as such. I should probably look into that but for the sake of clarity I meant to give a direct answer to the OP's question about the length of time one spend's in magical and/or meditative practices, NOT the length of time one spends performing the Great Work.

I work about 10-12 hours a day for a company whose sole existence is to transform what it means to be a human being. We constantly put people in touch with what is possible for them. One could say we are in service of Nuit if one were to consider Nuit as pure possibility. I don't consider it a coincidence that I work for such a company even though it doesn't inherently mean anything that I work for said company but it DOES have personal significance to me and where I am at in my training and development as an initiate.

Archaeus

That comment wasn't directed specifically at you, but more at the idea the the Work was something that we do in the morning before going to work or whatnot.
I'm certainly not the person to pontificate on exactly what the Great Work is and is not, except in as much as my own experience of it is concerned.
In my own case I would say that although part of it (a big part of it) does involve sitting in a darkened room chanting or whatever else I might be doing at any given time, I consider my daily life to be the testing ground where progress is actually gauged; its easy to feel enlightened when you don't have to deal with other people, bills, work, education, relationships and all the rest of it.

As someone (I forget who) said once: "If your Zen doesn't work on fifth avenue in rush-hour, then it's not real Zen".

You can train soldiers, but you will never know how they will fight until you send them to war.

Al-Shariyf

"its easy to feel enlightened when you don't have to deal with other people, bills, work, education, relationships and all the rest of it."

Well said.

Jim Eshelman

LOL You remind me of a conversation with Richard Alpert about 30 years ago. He had recently left India to move back in with his father in Boston. "It's easy to be a holy man on a mountain top," he told me."Try doing it while living without Jewish physician father!"

It was a big new learning phase for him!

Macsen Melinydd

God.. Try doing it in the suburbs! You guys could not imagine the craziness tucked away in the 'normalcy' of modern suburban life. Or maybe you could.
I don't know.
I do know that psychological projections are the very columns holding order together in many cases here, and that being someone aware of such impractical mental habits--especially so as someone who actively works to undue them--leaves me constantly walking on eggshells so as not to say something that would shatter the fragile stability of the people around me.
I have no safe breathing room, my presence is a flood.
I fear progressing spiritually, I fear attracting too much energy to the area, to myself and the people around me, dreading the possibility that I will overflow them.
Or at least I did.
Working on that.
I've learned over the past few weeks that the Great Work is indeed a Great amount of Work
But.. To the summit! To the eternal snows!

Uni_Verse

I am carried forward without effort by the momentum built,
The universe a constant sea of interaction of me with me
Upon the very base of I

Anonymous

Just reading this brought up the memory of a common skit in cartoons. One character asks for a piece of cake. A small piece is cut out of the larger whole by a gracious host with the impression that the character will take the small piece, but instead, in a sinister turn of events, the character takes the larger piece leaving the poor host with a comparably miniscule piece of cake. Perhaps this sinister character is my higher self...lol! I guess your feelings change depending on where your perception is anchored - but I thought the imagery was funny.

David

All very interesting perspectives. I personally find that the regular commitment of dedicated time in the morning and evening, roughly an hour on each end these days, is critical and infuses the rest of the day with a growing sense of interaction with the Universal and recognition that all of life is the Work--the big piece of cake, if you will.

Uni_Verse

@Diluvium said

"I have no safe breathing room, my presence is a flood.
I fear progressing spiritually, I fear attracting too much energy to the area, to myself and the people around me, dreading the possibility that I will overflow them."

I continually drown my Self,
To keep my Self,
From d-stroying my Self,
Burning The World down!

Though who am I really trying to save?