What is Will? Are we not, by definition, conformed with it?
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I've thought myself into a corner over this one and I'm hoping someone can hit me with a new perspective to knock me out of my hole. Here goes:
"Will", in its most fundamental, over-arching, capital-W sense is equivalent to the life-force that creates -- and in a sense is -- all of reality. It is Hadit, the force of motion, the "going" without which existence wouldn't. Everything that we perceive as "natural law" is, in fact, this life-force, or Chiah, playing out at every level, on every plane, in everything. It is Consciousness. It is Life. It Is.
Tracing this force back to its source, we arrive at something called the Primum Mobile, the "first swirlings", that reinforces this core idea of motion as the thing on which this force depends. First there was Not. Out of this Not: motion. From this motion, aeons upon aeons of a cause and effect chain landed us in the present moment. But this cause and effect chain by necessity follows the rules of natural law (Will) without exception. The things that we think of as "selves" are results of this cause and effect chain. The things that we think of as our personal wills -- illusion, though they may be -- are results of this cause and effect chain. Every motion that Chiah now makes through reality is a result of this cause and effect chain.
When we are told that the idea of a personal will -- or free will as generally understood -- is an illusion and that the goal of the work is to open our personalities up to become better conveyors of the free-flow of Will, we are put in the position of believing that there is some power that we have that is not-Will which is currently blocking Will from freely flowing. How is this possible? The implicit paradox is breaking my brain a bit. I can wrap my head around the idea of an undifferentiated, non-enlivened Not/Nuit/field-of-form sitting around in the darkness of eternity awaiting the enlivening spark of Chiah/Hadit/Will to break its inertia and bring it into the dance. What I'm having difficulty wrapping my brain around is a bit of enlivened reality -- myself/my personality/me/* -- that is somehow at odds with the very force that enlivened it while at the same time not violating the laws of nature by which that enlivening force is defined.
No matter how I follow the path, the premise of an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, universal "Will" seems to imply a deterministic universe. The idea that the only true meaning of "free will" is the free, unimpeded flow of this Will through us seems to remove "individual choice" from our toolbox. Without the thing that we generally call "individual choice", how is it possible for us to "cause change to occur in conformity with Will"? Aren't we, at that point, just automatons fulfilling the requirements of the cause and effect chain?
Oh... and Happy New Year!!!
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You're not alone in this. I'm not gonna give an opinion, at least for now. Let's see what kind of responses we get.
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When I speak of nonconformity with Will, I mean primarily that the personality is making choices at odds with it - is resistant (either intentionally or unintentionally).
The personality has no "will power" - will is universal, finding expression through the particular. But the personality has a lot of Won't Power.
Whatever it is to anyone else, to me it isn't deterministic unless you consider it deterministic to be what you are rather than something you aren't. Will is like electricity that moves through different devices differentiated by their construction. These devices do different things (refrigerator things, or microwave things, or TV things) based upon how parts were put together to create them.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"When I speak of nonconformity with Will, I mean primarily that the personality is making choices at odds with it - is resistant (either intentionally or unintentionally)."
But that's from the perspective of the personality, right? (Even if it's not aware of the conflict.) From the perspective of the Will, it's all always good in the hood, no?
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Sure, there's a point of view in which that's true. Will is always successful within the conditions of its context; which is another way of saying that water always runs downhill in the particular path that it ends up following.
Therefore, that part doesn't matter, right?
What I think matters is the optimization of each distinguished construct through which Will moves.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"When I speak of nonconformity with Will, I mean primarily that the personality is making choices at odds with it - is resistant (either intentionally or unintentionally)."
This is where I'm getting hung up. If Chiah is the driving force of everything, how is possible for the personality to make a choice at odds with it unless the personality is somehow not part of "everything"?
@Jim Eshelman said
"
The personality has no "will power" - will is universal, finding expression through the particular. But the personality has a lot of Won't Power."What is this "Won't Power"? If Will is universal, doesn't that preclude a volitional force in opposition to it? Inertia of a pre-existent state I get but this doesn't appear to be that.
@Jim Eshelman said
"Will is like electricity that moves through different devices differentiated by their construction. These devices do different things (refrigerator things, or microwave things, or TV things) based upon how parts were put together to create them."
Hmmm... Movie's about to start so I'm gonna have to get back to this one. It doesn't feel quite right but definitely deserves some more pondering.
Thanks, guys! Good food for thought.
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Think on this: According to the Pentateuch, the first command God gave humanity was "be fruitful and multiply." Essentially, this means that The True Will is to procreate. Now, if you walk about saying this or that is not the type of sexual behavior you allow, or this or that is not the type of sexual partner you allow, you are making choices at odds with The True Will.
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@Gnosomai Emauton said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"When I speak of nonconformity with Will, I mean primarily that the personality is making choices at odds with it - is resistant (either intentionally or unintentionally)."This is where I'm getting hung up. If Chiah is the driving force of everything, how is possible for the personality to make a choice at odds with it unless the personality is somehow not part of "everything"?"
Trying to answer with only a few minutes, and having only been awake 15 minutes (it's now 6:00 and I'm without a RockStar yet)...
I think there is a tendency to try to anthropomorphize Will (we see everything, including the Infinite, in terms we recognize as ourselves) - to ascribe to it characteristics of intentionality and choice. Returning to my earlier metaphor, in talking about water flowing downhill it is easier to speak as if water wants to run downhill, and to think in terms of it being better if it runs straight downhill. Ah, but it's only the judgment that makes it wrong, and there is no judgment in the plane of physical mechanics - only on the plane of intellect and, in a different way, in the plane of reactive emotion, does judgment exist.
It is better for water to run straight downhill only in the sense that in an unresisting environment it would naturally do so. The path it takes is an interaction of the universal tendency of all things to move toward each other (gravity) with various kinds of resistance.
Second, I think I see a bias in your thinking. (All thinking has a bias. That's part of thinking's job, i.e., to have a distinctive point of view.) You are thinking about this in terms of the infinite and disregarding the experience of the finite. That's a useful exercise, and I can tell it's serving you.
Ah, but as part of that exercise, you've actively enlisted other voices to struggle with you on it. How could we turn down a brother's request?
And in doing this, you are enacting the processes I am talking about.As I meander through thought corridors, keep visualizing water running down a rocky, mixed-earth, uneven hillside.
First, you are yourself enacting the resistance of which I speak. It's in the architecture of your mind. Second, you are engaged in a struggle between two things your intellect has "divided for love's sake."
I mentioned a bias toward thinking in terms of the infinite. For an intellectual discussion I'm going to employ my intellect's trait of judgment and call this a problem. The problem is that it's inauthentic unless you are living in the moment in the experience of the infinite. If you aren't experiencing the unencumbered infinite in the moment, then, instead, you are thinking about it - a worthy exercise for the purpose of the struggle, but not "being there."
The authentic experience is in the moment - in a distinct intersection of time and space. How does all this look from the perspective of the soil through which the water is flowing?
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@Jim Eshelman said
"The personality has no "will power" - will is universal, finding expression through the particular. But the personality has a lot of Won't Power."What is this "Won't Power"? If Will is universal, doesn't that preclude a volitional force in opposition to it? Inertia of a pre-existent state I get but this doesn't appear to be that."
It's many things, but I'll stay on one track and go this way:
Consider the human nervous system's ability to process high levels of sophistication. This is something that has developed through time. If one steps outside of time, from the perspective of the infinite, that's all one - big deal - aeons are just part of an instantaneous fiat - but from within time there are gradients or incapacity.
One can take this from a mystic's point of view and say, "See, in the whole scope of things, it's all good. It's complete. And at any moment, it's just right, too, because it's moving through that texture called time in its own right way." OTOH from the point of view of the magician, situated at an intersection of time and space, there is far more than the infinite - there is the infinite and all of its differentiations and diversities as part of a tapestry that is being consciously chosen and woven by a specific, distinguished individual's choices.
It is our nature to struggle. We are the kinds of creatures who inherently struggle. And to take on the Great Work (should that be one's choice) is to take on accelerated levels of struggle. Because, "It's all good in the long run" doesn't engage with each point-event of the going. In the short run - the immediate now, the snapshot - we need diversified language for the interweaving threads of the tapestry. Here, our projections, in order to continue seeing ourselves and the universe in reciprocal mirrors, need to include (for example) characteristics both of the infinite and of the finite. Especially the finite, because that's where most of us nearly always have, in the moment, authentic experience.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"I mentioned a bias toward thinking in terms of the infinite. For an intellectual discussion I'm going to employ my intellect's trait of judgment and call this a problem. The problem is that it's inauthentic unless you are living in the moment in the experience of the infinite. If you aren't experiencing the unencumbered infinite in the moment, then, instead, you are thinking about it - a worthy exercise for the purpose of the struggle, but not "being there.""
I have had the same problem as Gnosomai and that basically sums it up. I still think (a lot?) in terms of the infinite but nonetheless I do what I have to do regarding the finite moment by moment.
Edited:
Funny. Reading LXV:IV for the Holy Season I found that the chapter somewhat adresses part of this issue, particularly these (emphasis mine) verses:
"46. In the height and the abyss, O my beautiful, there is no thing, verily, there is no thing at all, that is not altogether and perfectly fashioned for Thy delight.
- Light cleaveth unto Light, and filth to filth; with pride one contemneth another. But not Thou, who art all, and beyond it; who art absolved from the Division of the Shadows."
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A short interlude (while I collect my thoughts):
Last night I decided to close out the weekend by watching a movie. First choice was Conan the Destroyer, currently On Demand and a suitable followup to last Sunday's viewing of Conan the Barbarian. Unfortunately, there seemed to be something wrong with the film transfer as it was filled with digital artifacts. I surfed around the free On Demand choices to see if there might be a suitable alternative, first contemplating The Beastmaster -- which I, somewhat surprisingly, have never seen -- and finally settling on Wonderland. Sadly, a few seconds into that and I realized that the problem wasn't with the film transfer but with the cable line. Digital artifacts, once again.
Miffed but undeterred, I switched over to Netflix and spent my standard 15-20 minutes scrolling through titles to find the one that spoke to me. This time, it turned out to be John Dies At The End, a film that's been sitting in my queue probably since it was released but which has never quite made it over the threshold. Tonight was the night.
I had intentionally refrained from finding anything out about the film because it seemed like one that should be entered virgin. The Netflix blurb: "Promising a trip that transcends time and space, a drug called Soy Sauce is sweeping the landscape -- and quietly robbing users of their humanity." The only recognizable name in it was Paul Giamatti, someone who typically rubs me the wrong way, probably why it took me so long to get around to watching it.
I won't ruin any of you with spoilers but will just say that there are core threads of the film that specifically relate to everything I'm wrestling with in this thread. The drug, Soy Sauce, fractures time and space for the user and puts him in direct communication with every point-event in the universe. This is, needless to say, very weird.
About half-way through the film, our hero gets hit with a double shot of Soy Sauce and falls backward through reality in a split second of figuring out how to evade the bullet heading his way. His thought-stream:
"Okay, think. You're standing on the thin cool crust of a gigantic ball of molten rock hurtling through frozen space. You're in a situation that could threaten the nature of said existence on said molten ball, depending on which decision you make. But wait. There are a shitload of subatomic particles in the universe, each set into outward motion at the moment of the big bang. Thus whether or not you move your right arm now or nod your head or choose to eat fruity pebbles or corn flakes next Thursday morning was all decided at the moment the universe crashed into existence 17 billion years ago. Thus it is physically impossible for you to deviate...
I never finished this thought, as I suddenly realized I was no longer in the trailer."Once the film was over, I hopped online to find out more about its origins. Turns out the writer/director is Don Coscarelli... the writer/director of The Beastmaster.
Synchronicities descending.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"I think there is a tendency to try to anthropomorphize Will (we see everything, including the Infinite, in terms we recognize as ourselves) - to ascribe to it characteristics of intentionality and choice."
I think this is actually the opposite of what I'm doing here. What I'm having difficulty with is intentionality and choice as actual things rather than illusions. Will, as outlined above, is the motive life-force that flows through everything and, as such, is everything. It's the thing that moves, the motion that moves it, etc. etc. Giving it "choice" would be to anthropomorphize it. I'm using it in its most basic definition as the force that energizes and moves.
@Jim Eshelman said
"Returning to my earlier metaphor, in talking about water flowing downhill it is easier to speak as if water wants to run downhill, and to think in terms of it being better if it runs straight downhill. Ah, but it's only the judgment that makes it wrong, and there is no judgment in the plane of physical mechanics - only on the plane of intellect and, in a different way, in the plane of reactive emotion, does judgment exist."
This section also seems to be adding ideas to the problem that weren't there to begin with. I don't think there were any judgements in the original question. I at least don't see any of these things as better or worse, I'm simply looking at them as what natural law/Law/Chiah/Will dictates. Water runs downhill because, in our reality, large conglomerations of motion attract smaller conglomerations of motion, pulling them toward each other. The water and the earth don't merge because, in our reality, motion spinning clockwise repels other clockwise spinning with a force comparatively stronger than the gravitational attraction and thus keeps the surfaces of the water and the earth at a mathematically specific distance from each other. No judgement there; just math.
@Jim Eshelman said
"Second, I think I see a bias in your thinking. (All thinking has a bias. That's part of thinking's job, i.e., to have a distinctive point of view.) You are thinking about this in terms of the infinite and disregarding the experience of the finite. That's a useful exercise, and I can tell it's serving you.
Ah, but as part of that exercise, you've actively enlisted other voices to struggle with you on it. How could we turn down a brother's request?
And in doing this, you are enacting the processes I am talking about.As I meander through thought corridors, keep visualizing water running down a rocky, mixed-earth, uneven hillside.
First, you are yourself enacting the resistance of which I speak. It's in the architecture of your mind. Second, you are engaged in a struggle between two things your intellect has "divided for love's sake.""
Your observation of my bias in this discussion is likely correct. Patrick's later support of it sums me up as well. I tend to think in the infinite while doing my best to work in the finite. I would guess this parallels my initial approach to the Work from the mysticism side and my consequent difficulties getting the magick side to fit comfortably. Nevertheless...
I think I also see a bias in your response that the processes you are talking about are dependent on me actively enlisting other voices. This seems to presuppose that there's a "me" who has the volitional capability to alter the flow of the stream of cause and effect through these actions "I'm" taking.
From your previous post:
@Jim Eshelman said
"Will is always successful within the conditions of its context; which is another way of saying that water always runs downhill in the particular path that it ends up following.
Therefore, that part doesn't matter, right?
What I think matters is the optimization of each distinguished construct through which Will moves."
To extend your metaphor, in its running downhill, the gravitational attraction between the water and the center of the earth will, at individual point-events over time, surpass the friction holding soil and rock together. As this process continues through the aeons, the path of the river will straighten and the banks will smooth as the water reforms it into a closer and closer approximation of a straight line: the optimization of its particular construct. Does this mean that the water is consciously reshaping the river? Or is that a personification of a mathematically precise cause-effect process?
Are we consciously streamlining our personalities to enable the freer flow of Consciousness? Or are they streamlining because the cause-effect chain has progressed to a point where that's what they do? Am I asking these questions because something called "I" exists outside of the cause-effect chain and can volitionally perturb it with my thoughts? Or are these questions being asked because the cause-effect chain that produced my mind is playing out the effect necessitated by its previous cause?
Sardonyx's now deleted post (dammit Sardonyx! Stop it!) pointed to our awareness of these point-events and our inability to predict their outcome as the crux of this process. One particular molecule of water could flow left or could flow right and there is no possible way for us monkey-bots to know the outcome for sure, no matter how big our computer is: Chaos theory -- specifically the butterfly effect -- in a nutshell. But, the thing is, chaos theory depends on a deterministic universe. The inability for us to predict an outcome doesn't change the fact that the outcome is inextricably linked to the cause-effect chain. Our instruments aren't fine enough to measure or calculate the infinitesimal differences between one trial and the next to discover which micro-event pushed one molecule left and the other right but the math that makes it work depends on the inviolability of natural law. Consciousness "choosing" left over right violates that model.
I guess, in some ways, we could envision the Chiah as the computer that calculates each and every one of those point-events. A computer the size of the universe to calculate the running of the universe.
@Jim Eshelman said
"Consider the human nervous system's ability to process high levels of sophistication. This is something that has developed through time. If one steps outside of time, from the perspective of the infinite, that's all one - big deal - aeons are just part of an instantaneous fiat - but from within time there are gradients or incapacity.
One can take this from a mystic's point of view and say, "See, in the whole scope of things, it's all good. It's complete. And at any moment, it's just right, too, because it's moving through that texture called time in its own right way." OTOH from the point of view of the magician, situated at an intersection of time and space, there is far more than the infinite - there is the infinite and all of its differentiations and diversities as part of a tapestry that is being consciously chosen and woven by a specific, distinguished individual's choices. "
The first half of this vision makes perfect sense to me. The second half does not, specifically because of this idea of "conscious choice" within a system that is "all one". You seem to be bending the definition of "infinite" in a way that robs it of its meaning. Stepping out of time doesn't suggest to me that we're only looking at infinite space on one discrete slice of the timeline but that we are observing the infinite entirety of space-time. The "infinite and all of its differentiations and diversities" are all enclosed in the "infinite" as conceptualized by the mystic, are they not? That includes this thing we call "conscious choice".
To cite Takamba's example, if we lived in a world where there was a magical IHVH in the sky who told us to procreate and then we did or did not as we individually saw fit and this was possible, then fine... Conscious choice. Free will. But in the model we are looking at, we are asked to believe that this choice isn't actually a choice. It's not that IHVH makes a commandment from his cloud and then some of us willing sinners choose not to follow it. Law Is. Gravity Is. Magnetism Is. The Magical Theory of the Universe adds to this that Consciousness Is. The only way I can fathom a system that also allows for individual choices made by individual personalities that may not always line up with what we perceive to be the absolutes of Law -- "Won't power" -- is if we are mistaken about Law.
The one out that I see in this is if "choice" is itself part of the system. If there is an aspect of Chiah that not only moves and attracts and repels but also volitionally chooses when those laws don't apply. But that would be to personify Chaih, wouldn't it?
This does seem to be the standard understanding in the literature. Because I have him in front of me, I'll quote P.F.Case but this or similar exists in pretty much every explanation of magick that I've read:
"First of all, know that the Way is an Art. The consciousness beyond thought is, to be sure, a gift of the Life-Power; but we receive that gift through the working of another. The Life-Poswer has made us able to take natural conditions as we find them, and adapt them so as to produce novel results.
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By slow processes of evolution, the Life-Power brings us to the point where, by thinking, we may discover the laws of hidden forces which are manifested in the conditions of our environment. To go beyond those conditions we must make a new combination. We have to begin where nature leaves off.- Occult Fundamentals and Spiritual Unfoldment, p. 186 emphasis mine"
This echoes H.P.Blavatsky's, "Nature unaided fails," and points to some version of this Chiah that is exclusive to human personality that can and does perturb nature from it's "natural" course. This doesn't feel right, and everything in my scientific mind rebels against it but, if change is something that can actually be initiated by a human personality, I don't see a way around it.
All Chiah is equal; some is just more equal than others.
"The uninitiated believe their "will" to be something originating in personality. The occultist, without in the least denying the fact that free will is part of our equipment, refuses to believe that "personal" free will exists. For the occultist, all that we mean by "volition" is but a synthesis of innumerable cosmic influences, coming to a focus at a point within us.
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The more perfectly we understand that the office of human personality is to serve as a vehicle for cosmic forces, the more freely does the Primal Will behind all manifestation find expression through us. To others we may seem to have very strong personal will. We ourselves will learn from our practice that the strength of our volition is measured by the degree of our willingness to let life find unobstructed manifestation through us.This willingness takes form in thought and word, and the thought itself is unuttered speech. It is a willingness developed through purposeful concentration. Relaxation of body, passivity of mind, one-pointed attention to the real presence in our personal field of the limitless powers of the whole universe, with progressive freedom in the expression of those powers as our dominant purpose - this is the infallible practical formula for triumph in the mind and elsewhere.
Impress subconsciousness again and again with the suggestion that it is the vehicle for Universal Will. Base these suggestions on reason. See that the One Energy enters into all modes of power, celestial and terrestrial. Self-examination will convince you that not the least of your personal actions is anything more or less than a particular manifestation in time and space of some phase of the sum-total of cosmic influences. At our present stage of mental development, perfect conceptions of this truth may be impossible, but reasonable ones we may have at a little expense of observation and reason.
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Complete receptivity is the secret of the most powerful manifestations of will. Receptivity may be increased by control of language. Herein lies the key to all mighty works of practical occultism, for, as Eliphas Levi says truly, "All magic is in the will."- THE TAROT: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages, p.99. emphasis mine"
Over and over, this points to the idea that Chiah controls everything and that the thing commonly understood as volition/free will/choice is the result of cosmic forces not originating in our individual personality. And then we are directed to use our volition/free will/choice -- as commonly understood -- to streamline our vessel.
I feel like a monkey rattling his cage in desperation while the key sits unnoticed in the lock.
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One last thought that occurred: If we recognize Thou as ××ª× = Tav = Universe (or, frankly, any other of the many attributions that connect ××ª× to the concept of the All), then "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" potentially points us in this direction as well. The Will of the All (Chiah) is the whole of natural Law. There is no personal will, no individual volition. There is only Chiah, doing what it does: moving.
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That layout.. "Paste the sheets."
Paul Case, wherever he got it, made a big deal about those seven columns of tarot keys laid out in that format and related it to a process of development. I'm sure Crowley does too, but you can tell there's some stuff I haven't made a priority to read as yet.
Anyway, you're describing stage 1 (column 1), with the result, in Case's tarot imagery, of the sense of being bound to the Devil. Crowley's key forgoes this bondage symbolism and forfeits some good things for others, imho. But it's that sense of identifying with the personality and feeling bound to the material. In this sense, it would represent the bondage of the personality to the outcome of the "break" (as in a game of pool) of the original impetus of the universe.
The next stage, however, (he said pointing to your synchronicity) is the Tower, and the destruction of the illusion of personal Will.
It doesn't resolve through reason, but rather through an experience of transcending identification with the personality. The Tower.
It is Will itself that is free. And you, but not your personality, are that free Will.
But can you identify yourself with it instead of your personality?
If so, then you move on from the Tower to the Star, etc.
Identifying with the Will itself, which has freely entered this Game of Life and form is entirely scandalous. And if you are successful in accepting your bound personal Will as ultimately the result of a perfectly freely acting Thing, you ultimately find yourself to BE Babalon, perfectly accepting of the Will in all of its questionable, scandalous, painful, joyous forms - and then, even more scandalous, the terrible, premoral Chaos Itself - the only perfectly free thing in the universe.
But we're talking above the Abyss, before the value judgements that require the later, moral realm, where pain and struggle seek a more stable balance.
That which is perfectly Free is free also of morals. And that is the only truly free thing in existence.
But can you identify yourself with That without losing your f-ing mind and becoming a psychopath?
That's a good question, and the tricky bit.
But the point is to transcend the sense of self identified with the bound personality and, instead, identify with that Will that scandalously even now freely chooses the experience of playing Houdini with your sense of being bound.
You actually are that free thing, playing at unbindling itself in order to remember its true freedom in/through you. That's the Game.
Anyway.
Words...
Experience!
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The thing about this game is that it only exists in the present moment.
In the present moment alone lies the Chaos that is the only free thing. And you are bound to its decisions.
Yes, it is a trick of Mind and something of an illusion - not a trick and illusion of words but of Living Mind. Which "you" is really "you"? But it is the very trick of Mind that causes/enables the illusion of individualities. Without it, there is no fun at all.
I am divided for love's sake...
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Anyway, that's the best I got.
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My current solution: "No my will but Thine be done" while I do the best I can.
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Not a reply (no offense), but continuing.
What will you be freely fated to choose if I, myself, am freely fated to choose to encourage you to try to stop being the Ruach so much and to start being the Chiah a little more?
Knight to Queen's Bishop 3.
And is the King your Ruach?
Will you strive or yield?
Are you still interested in the game, or are you Not?
Now, decide.
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@Sardonyx said
"Anyway, that's the best I got."
Pretty great stuff. Definitely got some new synapses firing in all the right ways. No ultimate solutions yet but, then again, I'm still alive so I wouldn't really expect any.
@Sardonyx said
"But it's that sense of identifying with the personality and feeling bound to the material. In this sense, it would represent the bondage of the personality to the outcome of the "break" (as in a game of pool) of the original impetus of the universe.
The next stage, however, (he said pointing to your synchronicity) is the Tower, and the destruction of the illusion of personal Will.
"This! Stages. One foot in front of the other. Horse before the cart.
Also, apparently the Large Hadron Collider is spinning up to possibly create some mini-black holes this week or next which might possibly leak some gravity out of our dimension into a parallel one which might possibly disprove the Big Bang theory and replace it with an eternal universe theory (something I've long thought was overdue) based on the idea that universal forces affect things differently based on their wavelength, meaning that each color or sound has its own intrinsic experience of reality. In other words, the universe may be on the verge of getting a lot weirder than even I give it credit for and perhaps I should just stop pretending I know how it's meant to work and start letting it show me for itself.
Meantime, thanks for the posts... as long as they may last