Carl Jung, The Red Book, “Tension of the future”
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This isn't a Thelemic text, but sometimes as I'm reading Jung's Liber Novus, I am struck how much he starts to sound like an initiate.
This next bit hit me like a truck.
The tension of the future is unbearable in us. It must break through narrow cracks, it must force new ways. You want to cast off the burden, you want to escape the inescapable. Running away is deception and detour. Shut your eyes so that you do not see the manifold, the outwardly plural, the tearing away and the tempting. There is only one way and that is your way; there is only one salvation and that is your salvation. Why are you looking around for help? Do you believe that help will come from the outside? What is to come will be created in you and from you. Hence look into yourself. Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfill the way that is in you.
Oh, that all men and their ways become strange to you! Thus might you find them again within yourself and recognize their ways. But what weakness! What doubt! What fear! You will not bear going your way. You always want to have at least one foot on paths not your own to avoid the great solitude. So that maternal comfort is always with you! So that someone acknowledges you, recognizes you, bestows trust in you, comforts you, encourages you. So that someone pulls you over onto their path, where you stray from yourself, and where it is easier for you to set yourself aside. As if you were not yourself! Who should accomplish your deeds? Who should carry your virtues and your vices? You do not come to an end with your life, and the dead will besiege you terribly to live your unlived life. Everything must be fulfilled. Time is of the essence, so why do you want to pile up the lived and let the unlived rot?
Carl Jung, The Red Book: Liber Novus, A Reader's Edition p. 384
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I could ask the question "what does an 'initiate' sound like?" But I won't.
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I apologize for my idiotic sense of humor before, Hermitas. Here are some thoughts on that Jung quote, for whatever they may be worth...
"Shut your eyes so that you do not see the manifold, the outwardly plural, the tearing away and the tempting. There is only one way and that is your way; there is only one salvation and that is your salvation. Why are you looking around for help? Do you believe that help will come from the outside?"
These are definitely the words of an initiate. Especially the underlined query.
"Thou wast long seeking Me; thou didst run forward so fast that I was unable to come up with thee.
O thou darling fool! what bitterness thou didst crown thy days withal. Now I am with thee; I will never leave thy being.""What is to come will be created in you and from you."
These not so much. That which is created will end. That which is born will die. That which is, always is, was and will be. Creation and birth have meaning only in relation to the concept of time and are thereby subject to anicca. Time is only a mirage within the seeming concatenation of our thoughts.
"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. If I say Come up upon the mountains! the celestial waters flow at my word. But thou art the Water beyond the waters."
"Hence look into yourself. Do not compare, do not measure. No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you. You must fulfill the way that is in you."
Back on track with this sequence of sentences. The road of initiation is inward.
"All day I sing of Thy delight; all night I delight in Thy song. There is no other day or night than this. Thou art beyond the day and the night; I am Thyself, O my Maker, my Master, my Mate!"
"You will not bear going your way. You always want to have at least one foot on paths not your own to avoid the great solitude."
These two sentences are extremely insightful and possibly of tremendous benefit to any adepts in training.
Compare to <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14646&start=0#p99404">viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14646&start=0#p99404</a><!-- l --> --(if you want to)."As if you were not yourself!"
See my comment before the previous one.
"Who should accomplish your deeds? Who should carry your virtues and your vices?"
"Magick is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will." Every intentional act is a magical act. In the Hindu theory of karma, every intentional act produces karma. "Equilibrium is the basis of the work." Therefore, choose your acts carefully, mindfully. The Great Work is the solution of complexes. Only in the perfect stillness of mind is no production of karma, and it is the greatest lure for the HGA. "Hence look into yourself." Exactly.
