The Book of The Law Study Group 3.4

Grigori

Maybe not much in this line, so I've been over thinking each word :laugh:

Choose: so we have to pick one of multiple options that are pre-existing.
Ye: I just researched the word, interesting its a plural, I always thought it was singular. So a group has to choose..
Island: something separated, cut off, isolated, surrounded by water.
 

Aeon418

By rousing himself, by earnestness, by restraint and control, the
wise man may make for himself an island which no flood can overwhelm.

Dhammapada.
The primary characteristic of Yetziratic consciousness is multiplicity. There are lots of "things". It's like a great sea, churning and roiling with possiblities and interesting distractions. It's very easy to drift along, experiencing events in a random, chaotic fashion. It's how most people live their lives.

But here we seem to have RHK saying, "Hey! Mr/Miss Yetzirah! This drifting between possibilities is no good. You'll never find out who you are this way. It's time to make a choice and take a stand."

The word Island is interesting. Transliterated into Hebrew it equals 155. That's the same as ADNI MLK, Adnonai the King - the divine name of Malkuth.
In another way it seems very suggestive. The first two letters are Yod(I) and Samekh(S). The Hand and the Arrow. The same title that Crowley gave to Liber O. The following verses do suggest a pentagram or hexagram ritual.
 

TarotCraft

I was thinking of the connection between Malkuth and Binah. The Island is Malkuth surrounded by the Great Sea of Binah. Consciousness in Malkuth is striving to reach Binah and this line suggests to me that the process is not linear, that we are already surrounded by Binah consciousness, like a child in the womb waiting to be born. Binah is Malkuth in potential and is the 'throne' that Malkuth sits on. Binah is the restriction and limitation that allows Malkuth to be manifest.

It seems very female to me, the references to water and earth lead to Mother, Daughter etc.

Taking the Binah/Malkuth connection further, they are linked in various ways on the TOL but the most significant one that comes to mind with this verse is up the Middle Pillar via The Universe to Yesod, Temperance to Tiphareth and the Lovers to Binah.
 

Aeon418

Jellybean said:
I was thinking of the connection between Malkuth and Binah. The Island is Malkuth surrounded by the Great Sea of Binah. Consciousness in Malkuth is striving to reach Binah and this line suggests to me that the process is not linear, that we are already surrounded by Binah consciousness, like a child in the womb waiting to be born. Binah is Malkuth in potential and is the 'throne' that Malkuth sits on. Binah is the restriction and limitation that allows Malkuth to be manifest.

It seems very female to me, the references to water and earth lead to Mother, Daughter etc.
As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I believe the first 22 verses of chapter III relate to the Tarot/Hebrew letters. This verse is Atu III The Empress - Daleth. This makes me think of a protected and enclosed space in which something may grow. A masculine "being" manifesting inside a feminine matrix of possiblities. A womb?
Liber 231 - The Empress

3.The Virgin of God is enthroned upon an oyster-shell; she is like a pearl, and seeketh Seventy to her Four. In her heart is Hadit the invisible glory.
The last sentence in the above quote is significant. Island transliterated into Hebrew is 155. And so is the Hebrew word for, "a seed", QNH.
The seed of divinity within, Hadit, will never grow unless it is planted and protected within fertile soil.
Luke 8:5-8
A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.
 

ravenest

Right now I have chosen to be an island.

- cyclones and tornadoes
roar through the spaces
and rip up the safe places
I thought I had found ...

the only way I can visualise handling it was to be an island and stand firm against the crashing waves. A severe test. At times so severe the island submerged, but its still there. The storm is abating, the aftereffects still need to be dealt with. But I have emerged intact, and now can offer refuge to those caught up in the storm.