Reflections

After years of studying shamanism and ancient currents of witchcraft, as well as seeking spiritual teachers from different disciplines, I realize I don't need any of these things. I was trying to source my power from outside of myself, and in that very act, denying my essence.

I've observed that those invested in spirituality today tend to fall into the patterns of the left hand path and the right hand path (I don't believe the unseen is this simple, but unfortunately human nature tends to be.) Those of the right path often seek false unity and give away their strength and self-definition in choosing harmony with others. Those of the left hand path often seek strength and independence, yet in denial or ignorance of their own selves.

As is often the case, I think the truest path is somewhere in the middle: realizing you're already Divine while trying to embody a more refined and expansive expression of divinity. It seems the Asetian path acknowledges this. It values the synthesis of power and love, and reaches for the deeper essence of both.

Although its teachings may seem complex to the layperson, the heart of the tradition is simple and self-evident. At the risk of sounding like an idolizing buffoon, I believe Asetianism is one of the least corrupted and most powerful currents alive in the world today.

What do you mean with false unity, you mean an illusory understanding of what unity actually is? That sounds obvious but I wanted to hear your opinion or further elaboration. And yes, I agree that might entail a certain giving away of their strength and individual power in the process, if so, or nearly at all times of such predisposition and path. However, with this said, like yourself I do believe in a balance because in the rigid understandings that we have got of the Right Hand and Left Hand paths in the West in general I do not see them as very balanced but on very far fringes of spiritual extremity.

This leads me to the second point: indeed, the Left Handers do seem to extol the individual self in some way and seek to preserve it intact in contrast to dissolving in some universal wholeness. But in this I do not see a true realization of their actual Selves. I do not see the Self-realization spoken of in the East that also ties into what they call God-realization; a realization of the oneness between their essential Self and the experientially apperceived deity. Also in the East the perceptions of Right Hand path and Left Hand path are significantly different than in the West. I'd say that the Left Hand path Yogis for instance, following the outlines of Yoga, albeit ignoring the yamas and niyamas - moral do's and do not's - majorly only seek the powers attained by yoga without actually realizing its ultimate goal that it was directly intended for and so stumble within the illusions and nets of Maya or cosmic delusion still.

I would tend to agree that a balanced approach is necessary, and that the two paths are not as contradictory in the (deeper) understanding of the East as they appear to us Westerners. I honestly think that the "westernization" of Eastern concepts is a general problem of New Age spirituality and popular esotericism - just look at the totally faulty view of karma prevalent in the West!

I believe a middle path should be sought: Not the frontal opposition to and isolation from the cosmic order (as thought in many Western LHP schools) and also not the dissolustion of self in cosmic consciousness (which would basically mean an individual existence). Instead, I seek to continue existence as an individual entity after my physical death (by building up a functioning "soul body" during life), but not in a state of isolation, but in a state of harmony with the divine. Paul Twitchell, the founder of Eckankar, called this "becoming a conscious co-worker with God", and while I don't agree with Eckankar's precepts in general, I like this definition very much.

What you said about the "the oneness between the essential Self and the experientially apperceived deity" also ties in nicely with a statement by the famous German philosopher Hegel (I'm translating this freely from German now, so please excuse if it sounds a bit awkward): "In man, God attains the true realisation of Himself".

I meant to write "(which would basically mean an END of individual existence)". Again, dear admins, could you please consider adding an "edit" button to the posts? Pleaseeeee

I think this forum used to have edit buttons before I joined, closer to its inception. The problem with it from what I gather reading old threads is that people abused the edit button to make posts into something else than what they were originally written as so as to frame people. I personally prefer no edit button for that reason. Of course there are other ways but I see only complication in those still.

As for your main post, I will return to that later. Got to think and contemplate.

The edit function had to be disabled years ago because people are dishonest and take advantage of those things to gain leverage. For example if the edit function was still active people like Vincent recently here would have completely changed his posts when things went downhill for him. It seems that he has done something similar in his FB profile, making up some conspiracy theory to save face and guess what, there's still people that bought it. So I really enjoy that posts can't be edited here so that what people say stays as reference without further deception. It's all about transparency so it's a great thing.

Don't worry about typos and mistakes since we're not nazis here lol, we all do those from time to time.

Veiled One wrote:
Although its teachings may seem complex to the layperson, the heart of the tradition is simple and self-evident. At the risk of sounding like an idolizing buffoon, I believe Asetianism is one of the least corrupted and most powerful currents alive in the world today.

Your understanding is right when you mention Asetianism as a path that explores both the lighter and the darker sides of spirituality and magick. This is a tradition that doesn’t fear taming both demons and angels. It’s an alchemical tradition that reaches its power through the magickal union of opposite forces, or as some of the old guard still describe it, the Path of Mastery. That focus on balance is however deceptively simple, which can make it appear easier than it actually is. I think that is where many initiates fall, since this alchemy of darkness and light is not only dangerous but extremely difficult to achieve. Even then it's not a permanent process but a constant state of refining skill. It’s not something understood with only a few years of practice and most people these days simply lack the commitment and discipline to master something that can take a lifetime of work with many falls in-between.
Your assessment of Asetianism as one of the least corrupted and most powerful currents alive in the world today is truthful but it pays a severe price which is its strong emphasis on secrecy and the outstanding efforts that have been put in place for its safekeeping throughout the years. That makes it also one of the least accessible traditions to the uninitiated.

Jonathan, I agree with the removal of the edit tool precisely because of that reason. In fact I was one of the few people who recommended that course of action to Elendor back in the day.

And, back... yes, I do agree with what you say, Lightseeker, particularly regarding the "westernization" of Eastern concepts such as karma. Those notions have taken on a shallow interpretation as with everything that is dug from its well and taken somewhere else outside of proper contextual understanding and into a vague reconstruction in people's minds with baser understanding. The concept of karma is actually quite profound and ties into a notion explored even in the Asetian Bible where Luis Marques states that not even the Gods know all ends, in reference to taking simpler paths in contrast to hard working ones; not even the Gods know all of how karma works or can predict it absolutely.

I have one concern though: If I dissolve myself into cosmic consciousness, do I exist then at all, or am I just resolved into nothing as nothing? For that reason I do feel better inclined to follow your own type of practice in regards to building myself up but not in a way that is isolative from the divine or cosmic order of things, although I can sympathize with those other views from a certain perspective but whether that knowledge is actually true or not is up to debate. They are interesting philosophical speculations or premises however.

MysticLightShinethForth wrote:What do you mean with false unity, you mean an illusory understanding of what unity actually is?

I mean an intuition of unity that comes from the false heart/heart chakra (all chakras integral to the "matrix" and not fundamental reality) as opposed to genuine knowledge of one's interconnectedness with all things. This false sense of unity is often represented as "love and light" and involved in superficial sentiments, manipulated by our controllers to make us docile and weak.

On the contrary, "true" unity does not try to dissolve the individual or their personal eccentricities and experiences, but sees the individual as a fundamental building block of collective awareness, an integral and self-sufficient microcosm of the whole. It celebrates strength, power, and Will.

MysticLightShinethForth wrote: I have one concern though: If I dissolve myself into cosmic consciousness, do I exist then at all, or am I just resolved into nothing as nothing?

It is my personal belief that there is a true Self (separate from the collective) that should not be dissolved back into Source, and that all spiritual and religious beliefs which advocate such a practice are founded in a type of disinformation or propaganda. We can acknowledge that we come from Source without desiring to return there, which to me seems antithetical to the entire point of differentiating and evolving as separate beings in the first place.

Veiled One wrote: We can acknowledge that we come from Source without desiring to return there, which to me seems antithetical to the entire point of differentiating and evolving as separate beings in the first place.

I would absolutely agree. Dissipating back into some sort of Nirvana would run contrary to the whole purpose of creation and evolution. However, this doesn't mean we should strive to "isolate" our psyche from the Source and stand in opposition to it (as advocated by the ToS and other LHP organisations). Instead, we are meant to return to the Source as self-conscious individuals, bringing with us all the accumulated experiences and attainments so that we then may actively participate in the creation of a new cycle of existence in a higher capacity. You could basically sum up the whole sense behind our existence on the material plane in the following: "As we are now, God once was. As God is today, we will once be."

MysticLightShinethForth wrote: The concept of karma is actually quite profound and ties into a notion explored even in the Asetian Bible where Luis Marques states that not even the Gods know all ends, in reference to taking simpler paths in contrast to hard working ones; not even the Gods know all of how karma works or can predict it absolutely.

Exactly. Luis Marques is actually hinting at a big secret here, namely the existence of a hierarchy of Gods. Every God we know of has a God above Himself, this goes back ad-infinitum right until the primary Source that is beyond all human comprehension. Just as a sidenote, a similar notion is also explored from a Christian perspective in Mormonism when Joseph Smith speaks of "a point in all creation where Gods and matter ends" that is totally uncomprehensible to us while incarnated in the flesh or in the lower spirit realms.

Veiled One, the heart shen or chakra is not false, nor are any of the other chakras or shen centers. Nowhere in the ancient and old traditions of the world that speak about the subtle anatomy of the human being have I come across the notion that they would be false but rather understood to be integral parts of our being in the subtle sense and tying into correlation with our own biology too. What is false is people's beliefs in unity without being established in unity consciousness in the Heart, failing to expand their sphere of perception beyond the mind and thus only ending up saying "love and light" without actual meaning; it produces an illusion upon repression of their true feelings and this might apply to me likewise. I don't go around and speak something I cannot uphold. Besides I see the notion of "love and light" as incomplete by definition if that is all to be spoken about and promoted. It's a trap and a lie so many New Agers are deceived by; truth and reality requires acceptance of both sides of the coin and not just one incomplete half, similar to what Victor wrote about so nicely above although differently about balance. But there are indeed elements of superficial and vague unities that do weaken and make people docile in certain thought currents based upon mistaken and flawed notions of "love and light" - so far I do agree.

MysticLightShinethForth wrote:Besides I see the notion of "love and light" as incomplete by definition if that is all to be spoken about and promoted. It's a trap and a lie so many New Agers are deceived by; truth and reality requires acceptance of both sides of the coin and not just one incomplete half

This is one of the oldest truths known in all ancient mystery traditions, ultimately, as long as their is free will and an objective universe based on polarities, light can't exist or manifest without dark, and vice versa.

I recently found a very interesting tomb in our Watchers' archives that contains an old fragment of an "alternative" beginning of the Biblical Genesis. It reads (translated from Hebrew): "And God spoke: `Let there be light!' And it was light. But with the first ray of light, there came also the first shadow of darkness into the world".

Interesting, that sounds like something I had thought about myself some days or week ago: "In the beginning there was Light; but when the Light shone upon creation, there was shadow and so duality immediately came into existence upon the spark of creation." It might posit a little bit of a strangely inverted principle of creation, where Light arose before darkness as a singular force yet becoming another polar opposite when creation was made as if merging in a particular sense. I do recognize that there are other systems that believe light arose out of darkness or that darkness gave birth to light, however. Yet... at the highest plane maybe darkness and light, night and day, are one. It certainly is an interesting and entertaining notion to ponder upon, in reflection about, light and darkness in relation to creation. It might seem like simple notions or "too philosophical" but they are in fact the building blocks of existence in one way as the primordial forces of duality, in my view.