http://www.thelema.org/publications/itc/itc103.pdf
I was reading the above PDF publication, and came across a article by Soror Meral (Phyllis Seckler).
I find it quite interesting as it touches my Buddhist background on the concept of what the Mahayana Buddhist's call - Emptiness. Emptiness in Buddhism, goes back to the classic quote, "Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form."
Much was wrote on this subject in later Buddhist commentaries by such notables as Master Shantideva. As I understand the concept, Emptiness is a way of saying that nothing exists as we see (or think we see) it. That the angry man, may not be angry. The sad woman may not be sad. The corrupt official may not be corrupt.
Instead of believing in what we see, Emptiness says that these things we percieve are projections of our Karma. We see a violent world, as we have the karma to see it that way. Just as a "dog" has the Karma to see a pencil as a chew toy. A simple change in Karma will result in a shift in perception.
It is the Buddhist contention that one who sees Emptiness directly, would be near Enlightenment... as they would see all possibilities of all things, at every moment. They would see all realities and in fact know the True Reality.
But I degress.
Regarding Soror Meral, she writes:
"Along this line, let me remark that every person when they have but a small amount of development sees the world and others through a narrow window. Thsi window is the own nature. As aspirants to Initation they formulate an idea in themselves of what an Initated person out to be like. This idea is none other than the idea of the own Higher Self which has broken through into the mental and conscious life. We could also use Jungian terms and lable them the Anima and Animus which Jung states is a bridge to the knowledge of the Divine. They are the ideas of all that is good or true or beautiful or of the highest that we may know. The student who has found a guru or a teacher immediately begins to project his own idea of his Higher Self on to the guru and begins to demand that the guru live up to this idea! If the guru is quite different from the student's ideas of him there is bound to be much disappointment. Worse, the student may be seriously hampering the guru in his function, for if the guru says not what the student expects to hear, there is much trouble. Still worse, the student is not allowing another to live in Freedom. Is not Thelema a Law of Freedom? For this reason the position of teacher or gurucould be a very dangerous position for anyone not firmly set in his own Will."
Further Soror Meral continues, "....Such a person never grows to the point where he can face himself. In the case of the search for a proper guru who will combine in himself all the ideals the student wishes for himself, this may lead the student to join one Occult Order after another in the hopes that, finding himself in another, he may then attain Initiation more quickly."
And now Soror Meral gives an antidote to the problem:
"What is needed in all such situations is a more thorough understanding of the own nature and a mturing process which leads one to know and to be one's own Higher Self. It is the path of a slave and of a coward not to realize that the ideals one projects upon another are one's own and do not necessarily belong to the other. Further, it is a serious attempt to enslave and hamper another person in their true nature to demand or even to think that he or she should live up to one's own formulated ideals. Here we see the root of the reason why the lower levels of mankind wish to pull the genius down to their own levels. The undeveloped person cannot recognise his own projections, be they of the higher or lower variety, and so when he learns of others who live above the laws of his herd mind, he becomes afraid of such freedom and desires to pull the genius to his own level of thinking. This is one reason why the Book of the Law states, 'Ye are against the people, O my chose!' Cap. II, v. 25. For ramifications of this problem it might be very profitable for you to study Nietzsche and especially his 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra.'"
With all that said, I find that Soror Meral's words have convicted my heart. In reading them, in typing them out, I see back down my recent years and see I've behaved similarly as she describes.
I have been guilty of this same attitude of projecting my ideals onto the guru/teacher of my past. In finding not the corresponding resonance, I left.
If only I understood Emptiness more clearly... or better yet, saw it directly, perhaps my path would have had less variation. Or perhaps where I've been, is exactly where I should have been.
Either way, my future direction should be one of no projections. I can't simply "do that" right now, but I can strive to try.
0 comments:
Post a Comment