essay

Iuratus Roundup


Since I’ve completed my essay/series on Liber Iuratus, I’m compiling all the links into this post, to make it easier for people to access later on. Thanks for the interest and support as I shared my journey into the text. It was one of my favourite papers to research, even if it involved reading and rereading the text with a fine-toothed comb.
Liber Iuratus Series Intro
The Construction of Christianity Through Conjuration
Analysis of Non-Christian Elements and Their Integration with Liber Iuratus Honorii
Analysis of Non-Christian Elements and Their Integration with Liber Iuratus Honorii Part II
Analysis of Non-Christian Elements and Their Integration with Liber Iuratus Honorii Part III
Uncovering Christianity Through the Internal Logic of Liber Iuratus Honorii
Uncovering Christianity Through the Internal Logic of Liber Iuratus Honorii Part II
Christian Elements, The Depth of Knowledge, and Authorship and Audience
Christian Elements, The Depth of Knowledge, and Authorship and Audience Part II
Christian Elements, The Depth of Knowledge, and Authorshop and Audience Part III, and Conclusion and Works Cited

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick

Dharma and Karma: As It Is


Due to my post on sponsorships I got asked a question about karma/merit on twitter. I was asked if there is a difference between merit that affects this life, and what affects another life. Anyways, even though this doesn’t completely answer the question it had me dig out an essay I wrote for a magickal order nine years ago (!) on karma. I feel the need to clarify two things about the essay which might not be evident right away. First, this essay was a study of the textual tradition of karma within Hinduism. Buddhist and Hindu karma can be pretty different, so not everything translates (for instance Dharma means something completely different in Hinduism from Buddhism). Second, this was about the texts and the traditions, this isn’t necessarily what I personally believe, though there are parts of that. So without further ado here is Dharma and Karma: As It Is, and be gentle, like I said, I wrote it nine years ago, heh.
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Karma has become an unfortunate buzz word in the occult world. You see it used by New Agers and Neo-Wiccans, by Recons and people from all walks of spirituality, regardless of how applicable karma is to their theology. It’s not unfortunate that the concept has spread into all these groups, but it is unfortunate how it has become bastardized, most often to fit a White Light worldview. The trouble arises from people using the basic concept of karma out of context, without including dharma. It is the spiritual equivalent of talking about terminal velocity without mentioning gravity. You are talking of the effect but disregarding the cause. When karma is viewed completely removed of dharma you have to balance the equation. Since this balancing is done by people who tend to view the Wheel of Life as a semicircle, what you end up with is the abstract concept of Goodness being the opposing force. Now this implies that there is a Universal Law of Good/Bad, which is a concept that does not appear (as far as I’ve seen) in Hinduism before the arrival of Thomas the Apostle and his Christian influence. Thus karma becomes the sickening sweet and simple White Light concept of “If I do good, I get good back; if I do bad, I get bad back.” In fact this has nothing to do with Karma.
So what does Karma actually mean, and what is Dharma? Karma is a Sanskrit word, which means, in the most simple form, “action,” also easily translated to “effort,” “work” and “deed,” from the root word kr (pronounced the same as the “Kri” of Krishna) meaning “to do” or “to make.” Karma as the concept applies would be much better understood by the English phrase “action/reaction,” for in many ways, it is a reactionary concept, but this is not understood by most people in the Western world today. Newton’s Third Law comes to mind: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This is not a perfect analogy, for most people would not see the system of karma working with opposite reactions; but the reactions are definitely equal, even if it is in a way that is not understood by those still trapped in Maya. Now if karma is Action/Reaction, then the question next need to be answered is: What is Karma acting upon and reacting to?
The simple answer is dharma. Dharma is a Sanskrit word which is hard to translate to a simple meaning. The closest word would be “duty,” but that may sound a bit mundane. Understanding the root of dharma sheds some light, for dharma comes from the root word dhr (pronounced “dhri”) which means “to carry,” “to bear,” “to hold up,” “to sustain.” This root word helps show how significant the “duty” in dharma is to be taken, for dharma is what is used to uphold and sustain the universe on a profound level. This cosmic duty covers your essential reason for being. We are given Dharma by Krshna, by the Godhead, by the Divine, by the Source, by our Higher Self – by any of these. It doesn’t matter what your view is, since in the end all those Emanations come from a single Source, and in the long run they all return to a single Source. It is our obligation, to our self, to others, and to everything to follow our dharma, no matter what it is. If we follow our dharma, it affects our karma, or rather, has no effect upon it. The Purusarthas (the goal of life) is to release yourself from karma, so you can be Liberated. Lack of karma is the reward of dharma. When you do not follow your dharmic path, you begin to form karma, there is no good or bad karma. Some karma is more disruptive than others, but all karma is an obstacle on the path to Liberation. For a Brahman to act impiously, for a Ksatriya to refuse to fight the right battle, for a Vaisya to act unfairly, for a Sudra refusing to harvest, all these things will create karma for an individual. When you act contrary to your dharma, you develop Karma, and it depends on your current karma how your karma will form.

Castes as part of the Body of Brahma

Castes as part of the Body of Brahma

So what Action/Reactions are there to be taken as dharma? Dharma in Hinduism is classically split between the Castes – Brahman, Ksatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra. The castes dictate what field of ’employment’ you are to take up. Simply put the castes and the dharma break up as follows: the Brahman (Of Brahma) are the Priests, the Teachers, and similar ‘thinking’ jobs; the Ksatriya are the warriors, the military, the nobles, and others in a ruling position; the Vaisya were the business people, the merchants; and the Sudra were the more traditional working class, farmers, artisans and the like. Outside of the caste system all together were the Untouchables (now called Harijan, the Children of God), whose role was to do the Unclean tasks (which compounded their nature as ‘untouchable’). They would handle the dead and the ashes, clean the sewers, and so on. The castes also functioned as a hierarchy that was maintained by karma, for as one worked towards Enlightenment/Liberation/Moksha, one would be born into a Higher Caste (Brahman being at the highest, Sudra at the lowest, and Untouchable outside of the system, but technically even lower than Sudra). Dharma is far more complex than five basic roles in life, and it is understood that within each one, hundreds of “sub-Castes” or rather “sub-Dharmas.” The castes mentioned above are simply the most common divisions. This is loosely analogous to astrological signs, granted one might be a Libra and that influences the personality, but there is so much more in the person, and their chart, that makes them more than a cookie cutter Libra description. There are more than twelve types of people in the world, there are more than five dharmas.
Karma exists in three states: Prarabadha, Samchita, and Agami. Each of these karmas can form from the same Dharmic Transgression, but they are manifest in your lives in different ways. Prarabadha Karma is the karma that creates the ‘foundation’ for your next life: it is the karma that dictates a person’s caste, their family, body, time of death, and the like. It is karma that cannot be changed within the span of a single life; it is the framework that is created for a certain incarnation. Samchita Karma is the karma that creates the personality for your next life: it carries personality traits, talents, likes/dislikes and abilities. Agami Karma is the karma of the present incarnation: it acts as punishment for the transgressions in the here and now, though if Agami Karma remains unfulfilled at the time of death it can become another form of Karma (usually Prarabadha Karma).
Arjuna's "Say what?" facepalm.

Arjuna’s “Say what?” facepalm.

Now that karma and dharma are explained, the problem still stands of the White Light conception of karma, and the problems that arise there. As karma has been explained, you may not see much of a difference from “Do good, get good, do bad, get bad”, for most people will agree you are to do your job, but what if your job is something considered “bad?” What if your dharma was to fight? Or worse, to fight and kill your entire family – to take your sword, and end the life of most of the people you hold dear? This is precisely the scenario that Arjuna finds himself in during an epic battle in the Bhagavad-Gita (to over-simplify the background scenario). As a Ksatriya, refusing to fight would make him gain karma, but he is being asked to kill his family, which is something most people today can barely fathom. Krshna, as his best friend, and the Godhead, convinces him things are all right, because he must understand that the body is temporary, but the Soul is eternal: he is releasing them from one form so they can grow in another, and in return he fulfills his dharma and comes closer to Liberation.
Now even the above scenario can be considered a straight-cut dharma. But what if someone’s dharma involved a violent transgression; murder, assault, or stealing, for example? These cause physical, and emotion trauma, which in the broad view of Wheel of Life, is something that, according to some understandings of reincarnation, needs to be understood, and overcome by every individual to help further themselves towards Liberation. As mind-boggling as it may sound, especially in a world view that is not based around dharma and karma, there are times when such things are the ‘right’ thing to do on a cosmic scale. It doesn’t make it pleasant, but it is necessary. Death is needed for life, light is needed for dark, and violation is need for security. There are theoretically people out there whose Dharma relates to the “Dark” side of life, and as bizarre as it may seem, these people are only doing their job when they murder, violate and steal. As it may be in their Dharma they are in their “right” to do these actions, but it must be noted that this does not mean they should be allowed or accepted, for if your dharma is on the more “Light” side of life, and you allow these events to happen without trying to stop them, then you are not fulfilling your dharma either, for “evil” unchecked is “evil” supported. It may be their dharma to try to act that way, but perhaps not to succeed, it may be in someone else’s dharma to prevent the atrocities they set out to accomplish.
In the end, the truth of karma bears little resemblance to the Karma of the Western world. Gone are the quasi-scientific use of a three-fold return concept, erased are the Abstract Concept of Good and Evil – all that remains is our Duty, and our growth towards Perfection.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick

Silence, Self, and Socialization: Krishnamurti- Right Education and Meditation


One of the degrees I just finished was related to how people learn and process information. Below is my final essay from a course studying the philosophy of schools as a system and individual education. We read Plato, Dewey, and Krishnamurti in that course, for their opinions on education and schooling. Yes, I mean that Krishnamurti, Madame Blavatsky’s pet. His belief is that schools are completely and utterly wrong and misguided, we teach the wrong things and the wrong way, and all schooling really should be is a place to nurture people to their true self. No math, no science, no English, no history, just learn who you are…and when you can’t get a job…I’m not sure. Anyways the final project was personal (rather than academic) in which we were to reflect on a “learning experience” and how it relates to one of the authors we studied. I wrote upon the first time I did a ten day Vipassana meditation retreat and related it to Krishnamurti’s idea of a true self hidden by social conditioning. This is longer than most posts, but I felt there was no where good to divide it. I’ve reformatted it when I could to include information from the readings or a previous essay of mine that would have been known/contextual to the prof. This is basically me looking at the value of meditation and isolation in regards to understanding/experiencing/revealing the self. I think this is something crucial to being a magickian of any value, and something a lot of occultists overlook, or claim they have done without doing so with any real effort or result. So while it’s geared to a prof dealing with education, read it as a magickian and question what would happen if the world fell away, and who would remain?

Theosophy's "World Teacher" and a total babe

Theosophy’s “World Teacher” and a total babe


“The individual is of first importance, not the system; and as long as the individual does not understand the total process of himself, no system, whether of the left or of the right, can bring order and peace to the world.” To Krishnamurti there was no more important concept than the self and self-knowledge. To him all the problems of our world essentially can be laid out at the feet of self-delusion; a misunderstanding of who and what the self is, and how the self is connected to others. This philosophy led him to advocate schooling as growth, not a method of schooling that is indoctrination and conversion, but an education that is first and foremost about the self, and developing the self.
While I cannot help but find his text idealistic, and perhaps even hypocritical due to his time and support with the Theosophical Society, I also cannot deny the wisdom of what he says. Perhaps it is idealistic to think humanity as a whole will ever reach the state of self-abnegation Krishnamurti hopes for, or that by having “right teachers” all other problems will fall away, but idealistic or not it is a start. “Right teachers” and “right education” may not solve all the world’s troubles but it can start the change. He claims that “[t]he responsibility for building a peaceful and enlightened society rests chiefly with the educator” which is a daunting responsibility for anyone who wants to be a teacher, but he is largely right. Outside of the family, teachers are the most influential socializing force in the life of the student, in some family structures they may be more influential, and if this teacher isn’t the right kind of educator, then the student receives the wrong education, and the wrong conditioning.
When I did social work I focused on oppression and realized how much of all the racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, ablism, transphobia, and other oppressions were rooted in socializing and conditioning, often unconsciously. There is a difference between knowing a candle produces heat and feeling the flame, and there is a difference between knowing how conditioned we are intellectually and experiencing that conditioning. Experiencing the social conditioning is exactly what I feel happens when I’ve undertaken ten day long vipassana meditation retreats, or when I’ve spent time in retreat at temples. One might argue not all conditioning is bad, but I’d argue that all conditioning is false and restrictive. This is much the way that Krishnamurti sees it, something restricting the self from understanding the self; conditioning is all the masks and distractions we put upon ourselves and others and that prevent us from a true engagement or understand, preventing personal freedom.
king of spades tom“Freedom comes with self-knowledge, when the mind goes above and beyond the hindrances it has created for itself through craving its own security.” Only by being aware of our conditioning can we overcome it, only through overcoming our conditioning can we see the self as it truly is. My qualm with Krishnamurti’s text is he advocates this state of self-knowledge but gives no vehicle for its development. Personally I’ve found this self-knowledge, at least to some extent, within vipassana. Vipassana, meaning insight or seeing deeply, is the meditation attributed in mythology to the historic Buddha, though it predates Buddhism as a social-religious institution and the practice of vipassana requires no belief in or understanding of Buddhism, and as such is a secular practice. I do not attest that vipassana is the only way to gain insight into the self, for that would be arrogant, assumptive, and do what both Krishnamurtia and Buddha reject and that is set one “belief” system against another.
Writing the memoir on a vipassana retreat and analyzing it is quite difficult, for parts of it are very abstract. Part of the trouble in writing the memoir is one of the reason that the retreats are so effective: the monotonous repetition of the days, all the same with no variation. I’ve explained the value I’ve found in vipassana retreats and personal practice as an experience in deconditioning, over the course of ten solitary days, where all you can do is meditate/breathe, sleep, and eat, there is nothing to distract you from yourself. After a time you are left with only one object, yourself. In that time, in that place, everything you think and believe becomes a question. It is so radically out of the ordinary to do nothing but focus on your breath for ten days that you can’t help but evaluate and doubt the self. Some of this is conscious, and some of this isn’t, which is what makes this so hard to write about. As I sat in the meditation hall fear and grief crept up on me as I wondered what would happen if my fiancé died while I was in retreat, and slowly this faded away. Not the thought that it was a possibility, but my self-investment in the possibility faded.
If someone died while I was in retreat, there is nothing I could do, and there is nothing my awareness of the event could change, so I had nothing to do but keep breathing. Some people think this may be a cold reaction, but I find it is a truly logical and loving one. Part of my conditioning is to think of people as “mine”; my mother, my sister, my lover, my friend, but that thought is just limiting them and me. While I was in retreat an estimated one and a half million people would die across the world. The only real difference between these people and the people above is I don’t consider them “mine.” Another part of my conditioning is to think I can dominant and control the world [Edit: Not in the paper, but this idea is compounded as a magickian obviously]. I can influence myself and my reactions and actions in the world, but I can’t dominate it and control it. This illusion of power is one of the vices that Krishnamurti sees as inhibiting the free person from accessing their own potential for growth and in retreat in various aspects I came to grapple with some of this illusion of control. What happens when someone lets go of that illusion, if only for minute? There is a peace, and an ability that Krishnamurti values, to not impose a false-self upon the moment.
That was a clearly defined experience for me, the object of the experience is easily pointed to and traced back to me –lover, possession, attachment, dominance– but others are more nebulous experiences that can’t be pointed to in the same way. Slowly during the retreat there was a dawning of self (or non-self) awareness. So much of “me” is made of what I’ve learnt from everyone else; in fact most of what is “me” isn’t me, it is everything but me. Waking up at 0400 is not a pleasant experience for a night-owl, but over the retreat 0400 quickly became an easy time to wake up, because I’m not a night-owl, that’s a label of convenience placed upon me due to when I find it easiest to operate in our society. Being an avid reader, an athlete, a musician, a child, a sibling, a friend, a lover, political identification, gender, race, class, sexuality, likes and dislikes; all of these are to some extent a conditioning, a mode of thought and identification placed upon me, without others to reflect them these identities are meaningless. More importantly in many ways all of these are restrictions keeping me from being or perceiving the self that I am. Yet in silence over ten days, with no distractions, these labels, these conditioned ideas begin to fall away. Manners, mores, social patterns, ethics, morality, in that same silence these get challenged. How much of what is thought of as right is objectively right, and how much of what is right is what teachers, family, friends, religion, media, and society have said and implied is right? How much of the identity is something “real” and how much is convenient labelling and conditioning?
breakthroughI have no answer for these questions beyond the vague: “A lot more than we realize, and a lot more than we are willing to admit.” I feel through vipassana I’ve been able to grapple with some of this conditioning, see who is left when the world falls away. In this way I feel that I’ve been granted access to Krishnamurti’s “right education” in some ways, not in the system he saw it embodying, for that is something required to be on going and from an early age, but through a type of deconditioning or deinduction. Rather than being granted an education that taught me “to question the book, whatever it be, to inquire into the validity of the existing social values, traditions, forms of government, religious beliefs and so on” or “to discover the true values which come with unbiased investigation and self-awareness” I was, and am, given the opportunity to retreat from society, the source of this conditioning and restriction, and for a short period at a time deal only with me. This let me cultivate my own understanding and freedom, rather than be coerced into a social conformity, understand my own values and define them in absence of an imposing social force. In solitude from others, life, and society, the self can become the focus and one can see the distractions and conditioning that hide the self, from society and ourselves. When in the throes of life we never have the chance to deeply question what we feel, what we think, what we want, because we’re too busy doing what we think we want, or reacting in the ways we’re supposed to feel and think.
This is the conditioning that Krishnamurti finds so damaging. While his idealized education may not be realized, he is quite right that in order to truly develop and nurture students the teacher “must be aware of our conditioning and its responses, both collective and personal” or we will only perpetuate the systems of dominance and oppression, restriction and devaluation. While many of us like to think we understand how much of our life is based on societal conditioning, we don’t, and for me it was the strange alien world of ten days of meditation that began to shake my identity, to thrust my awareness against the cage of my ideals, wants, and beliefs and force me to look at them. It was there I got to try to see how many of these concepts are me, how many of them are valid, and how many of them are damaging memes that if I want to be a “right person” or a “right educator” I need to confront and eliminate.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick