The Book of the Law Study Group 2.30
Always Wondering
I am beginning to understand that I am fairly attached to "why". I have spent the last few days listening to myself and I ask why a lot. If we don't ask why how can we know ourselves?
On first glance this verse feels to me like the self-pity type of why, which is often part of the grief process and perhaps related to the great sorrow. I can see getting hung up on that. I have.
It would be easy to accept this verse as a simple warning against self-pity. But I am wondering about the other whys. Don't they speak to an inquisitiveness that would lead one to magick? I guess I don't understand why asking why would make the will stop. (See there, why?
)
AW
On first glance this verse feels to me like the self-pity type of why, which is often part of the grief process and perhaps related to the great sorrow. I can see getting hung up on that. I have.
It would be easy to accept this verse as a simple warning against self-pity. But I am wondering about the other whys. Don't they speak to an inquisitiveness that would lead one to magick? I guess I don't understand why asking why would make the will stop. (See there, why?
)AW
thorhammer
I think that "why" implies a lust of result in a way. It suggests a need for logic, a logical leadup stretching into the future, a certain mapped out way of getting from A to B. By asking "Why?", we are expressing doubt that the moment's action is the right one, and that implies that we "know better" than our will.
\m/ Kat
\m/ Kat
Always Wondering
thorhammer said:
Thank-you, Kat you got me thinking of results and I found this in Yoga for Yellowbellies.
I do agree that discussing, or worse justifying, results is a lost cause. Indeed I have had questions regarding yoga in which asking them out loud seems futile, with unsatisfactory results.
Perhaps I grew up just behind the age of "question authority". It is fairly automatic that if someone tells me not to question, that is the first thing I am going to do.
I love this. This speaks to the process I saw myself falling into with this verse. "Why?" does seem to start a din of noise in my head. Perhaps it is logic I am attached to.
AW
panpiper
I think there's also the issue of engaging with the world. Too many of us analyze at the expense of actually doing.
Liber LXV Chapter I:56
And Adonai said: The strong brown reaper swept his swathe and rejoiced. The wise man counted his muscles, and pondered, and understood not, and was sad.
Reap thou, and rejoice!
Liber LXV Chapter I:56
And Adonai said: The strong brown reaper swept his swathe and rejoiced. The wise man counted his muscles, and pondered, and understood not, and was sad.
Reap thou, and rejoice!
Always Wondering
panpiper said:
That would be me. I am one of many.
panpiper said:
I have been trying to wrap my head around Liber LXV for about a month now. Thank-you for drawing the connection to this verse.
And welcome.
AW
Always Wondering
I thought of you Kat and what you said when listening to this podcast. I think I get what you are saying now.thorhammer said:
http://aruno.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=109&Itemid=9
AW
ravenest
Always Wondering said:
I've spent the last few weeks, on and off, listening to a 3 year old; why, where, who, which, how. At one time it all got jumbled out into a stammer of repeated 'w' s
Always Wondering said:
'Oh why, oh why did this have to happen to me?" - Kurt Vonneghurt's answer: "because you were there, smuck!" -of course, that isnt always the answer - but its handy to remember that we are not always the centre of THE universe, just a very small insignificant speck (not forgetting that that speck is totally unique and is the centre of 'its' universe).
Always Wondering said:It would be easy to accept this verse as a simple warning against self-pity. But I am wondering about the other whys. Don't they speak to an inquisitiveness that would lead one to magick? I guess I don't understand why asking why would make the will stop. (See there, why?
I agree, I dont think it is talking about this - I dont think we stop asking why - in that context.
WHY is very important. I believe what Crowley is refering to is this;
I wake up at 4:30 am and know I have a great story in my head, I wake up fully awake and jot down the summary, then I go back to bed and fall asleep instantly. I wake up refreshed at 6 am, get out the laptop, consult the notes, realise I dont need them (as its all in my head) and it just flows out. Everyone seems to think it is a great story. I can agree, as it isnt really like I wrote it ... it got written somewhere else, I was the secretary.
At no time during this process did 'why' exist in my universe.
Perhaps its part of my True Will to be a writer.
If it is my True Will to be a helicopter pilot or a nurse, I am not going to fly off in the copter or go to work at 6 am washing old people asking - why. I'll just do it. .... Because ... ; see, even that doesnt make sense.
There is no why or because when one is eneacting ones will.
If you keep asking 'why' (particularly - why am I doing this) chances are that you are not doing a job or activity in alignment with your True Will.
Same with love and sex, when you really love someone (in eros and passion) do you ever think why? I dont think so, it seems the most natural thing in the world (or most supernatural) to express it.
So I take the verse as specifically relating to the fulfillment of and enactment of the True Will. Not just asking why on any other ocassion that may LEAD one to understand the True Will.
Which also leads to the big question; Why am I here?
If your asking that, you are still on stage one of the big journey.
Aeon418
So what happens to the god who stops to asks why?
The mind is wonderful machine that vastly increases the scope of human action and expression way beyond any other animal on this planet. Through this vehicle called the mind, deity can experience things that just aren't possible with other animals. But the mind is a double edged sword. While on the one hand it gives us access to immense possiblities, on the other it cuts us off from our connection to the godhead. (Once again we're back to the legend of the "so called" Fall.) The purpose of the Great Work is to regain this connection so that mind no longer has to stop and ask why.
