From:    Josh Norton                            Area: Thelema
To:      Fir                                    16 Feb 95 17:31:00
Subject: Master Of Temple                       UpdReq 

Thus said Fir to Josh Norton concerning MASTER OF TEMPLE: 
 Fi> Hi Josh,
Howdy! The Ameth pix are in the mail, BTW.
 Fi> I was talking with a GD friend the other night about stations
 Fi> beyond Tiphareth.
 Fi> They really don't believe that incarnate beings reach the
 Fi> farther stations.  Interesting contrast to past discussions
 Fi> on this echo.  A tad more conservative perhaps.
Mmmm... Which G.D. is this? And at what point in the process do they 
think the grades become unattainable by incarnate beings? At the so- 
called "Abyss", I would assume from the title of your message.
I can't speak to the specifics of their belief without much more 
information. But it seems to me that they've become caught in the same 
damned idiotic dualism that has plagued most Western religions and 
systems of initiation. That is, that there is a "gap" of some sort 
between spirit and matter, and that at some point you have to "jump 
over" or "bridge" that gap in order to achieve further initiations. Your 
friend's group would seem to have the worst version of the delusion, in 
which it is believed that you have to separate from the "material" pole 
entirely to get to the "spiritual" pole of the duality.
As I've said before -- too many times, some would say <G> -- no such gap 
exists. Every level of finite existence is equally and 
undiscriminatingly connected to the enclosing transcendental aspect. And 
all of them, from the transcendant perspective, are equally "spiritual" 
in nature. The apparent polarity between spirit and matter is an 
artifact of a limited viewpoint.
Getting whimsical for a moment....
From the transcendental level, the relationship between the finite and 
transcendental aspects of existence is somewhat like the relationship 
between a football field and the world. The field is an arbitrarily 
limited region of the whole. Within the field, restrictions and 
limitations on actions -- the "game rules" -- are applied that don't 
apply in the world at large. And the players agree to play by the rules 
and forget, for the duration of the game, that any other sorts of action 
are possible.
But the game field isn't truly separate from the world. Someone could 
readily walk out onto the field and have a picnic, or perform any other 
of the many "forbidden" actions. He likely to encounter resentment from 
the players if a game happens to be in progress, but he doesn't have to 
follow the rules if he doesn't want to.
As with football, our finite world exists largely as a result of extreme 
limitations and restrictions placed on the unlimited potential of the 
transcendental aspect. Somewhere along the way -- by who or what I don't 
know -- a portion was marked off as a playing field, and rules imposed 
on actions within that area. Not all of the "games rules" are 
consensual; finite reality isn't entirely a product of our own minds. 
But for the greater part, our awareness follows the rules because it 
simply doesn't know any better, and has been trained into the habit of 
doing so. As Buddha said, the cause of sorrow is ignorance. ;-)
Our awareness (as distinct from our "self", which is a game rule) is not 
intrinsically restricted by the rules of finite existence. I suspect 
awareness is itself one of the transcendental aspects of existence -- 
possibly that related to Chokmah. In any case, once it gets over its 
habitual states of restriction, it is perfectly capable of perceiving on 
any level of the Tree of Life, even while continuing to operation 
through a body. It can step outside the games rules when it wants to, 
like the picnicker on the football field.
... First, dearie, I must sprinkle you with fairy dust.
___
 X Blue Wave/QWK v2.12 X


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