Suffering

I've been focusing a lot lately on William Law and Jacob Boehme (if didn't notice).  Their respective philosophy's are quite similar, almost mirror images if you ask me.  Law came along and interpreted a lot of the German Boehme's writings.  They aren't the easiest esoteric writings to interpret that you'll come across.  For most that come across them they will be viewed exoterically or from the surface and brushed off as just more religious fanatacism.  The majority of people, esotericsts included, see anything Christian and automatically head for the hills.  A year ago I wouldn't have considered reading this type of material.  Six months ago I doubt I could have seen through the allegory despite my new found openness to Christianity.

Jacob Boehme and William Law's teachings are the absolute best I have come across.  Or should I say that they are the best for me in my current state.  Occultism gave me the foundation I needed, but this type of Christian Mysticism is the teaching that will propel you forward.  It breaks the process of enlightenment down to as base a state as possible.  There is no seeking when you are trying to find the center sphere where one could become enlightened.  As they say it is dying to the self that is required, nothing more and nothing less.  They interpret scripture to give the seeker a foundation as to how scripture details this whole process, how we came to be in our current state and how we are able to escape.

How does one go about dying to their self?  First what must be realized is that we are all living in sin, we were born into sin and we are living in sin.  When Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good evil she disobeyed God and thus fell into a world based on duality.  God had forbid the eating of the tree for our own sake.  We were to live our lives in a plant like existence, never detached from divinity.  Lucifer came along and told Eve that she would become like God if she ate of the Tree.  What he didn't tell her was that she would fall down into hell where she would die and be separated from God.  The seed was cut off from God and was forced to live in the world of beasts.  We see this world as normal but if we looked at it from the spiritual worlds, from God's throne, we would see ourselves as beasts.

We now live through our own will.  We have free choice to do as we please.  Because we do not live through God's will we live in sin.  If we want to escape this hell then we must fall back into line with God's will.  The way to do this is through learning from the two poles.  When we observe and experiment constantly switching poles seeing what works and what doesn't, we are climbing the ladder back to our throne.  God is not evil.  The only way back to our natural domain is to see the difference between good and evil and eventually find a balance between the two.  Someone who is afraid to face evil is going to become too attached to this world and being that this world is not natural to us then that is not a good thing.  Someone who is constantly immersed in evil is opposite to God.  God is light, he is not darkness.

God or enlightenment, our natural home is stillness.  It is the center where all is balanced.  This is what we are all seeking either consciously or subconsciously.  Most are not at a stage where they can consciously make the effort to reach the center sphere.  This as the mystics will tell you is the hardest thing anyone in life could endeavor upon.

Shifting poles and working your way up the ladder is a painful task.  To this means much trial and error.  It means constant change.  This change brings about pain and suffering.  We have all built up many bad habits.  We don't like to suffer so at any chance when there is a stillness, when we are in our own mind, we seek to fill it with some activity so we don't have to face the pain.  This silence is the way to alleviate the pain, but first we must face it.  One will see no purpose to suffering, there is no goal that the suffering will bring him to so he will choose not to suffer.  TV and video games and drinking at the bar quells any disturbances within.  To truly walk the path one must be fluid, in mind and body.  We must always keep going, we can never stop or we'll start going back to where we were.  One can't just get to a certain spot and say I'm happy that I've gone this far.  As in the matrix you can either take the red or the blue pill, but once you make the decision to let go and walk the path, the door is shut behind you.

I myself didn't quite know what I was getting involved in.  There was a point I came to where I knew I could not continue down the path that I was going down, getting drunk with buddies at any opportunity that arose.  I'm obsessive about most things, all or nothing.  I was a pothead and essentially an alcoholic.  The flip side of it is that when I started finding my way into conspiracies, then on into spirituality, psychology, religion, etc. I became obsessed with this stuff.  I dedicated my life to it.  Along the way I had a major fall where I got a DUI not too long ago and I made myself stop drinking that moment.  I've also now been forced to stop smoking pot.  These events are pushing me closer and closer to my ultimate goal, where when I was drinking and smoking still I was still holding on to my old world. 

Before when I was having a down moment I would just smoke a little pot and wala I'm seeing vistas and feel connected to everything, my suffering (or potential suffering) was turned into an ecstatic high.  Now I have nothing there to comfort me and that is how I want it.  It's hard to let go and face the pain, but deep down this is what I want.  The goal I have means everything to me and I'm not going to stop until it is fulfilled.  A great example is that I'm taking piano lessons.  There is a recital in February that my teacher asked me to participate in.  I told him I would think about it.  The truth is that I'm deathly afraid of being on stage in front of crowds.  I told him that I am all about conquering my fears so I would like to do it.  But then in the back of my head I knew I would bitch out and take the easy road out.  Now at this point, I know that I must suffer and go through with this.  If I am ever going to achieve the ultimate goal then surely will have to not have problems with doing something as simple as playing a piano in front of people.  What am I afraid of?  A bunch of parents and kids who might witness me fuck up playing piano?  I mean that is ridiculous that I have conquered so many fears that I never thought I could, yet I fear playing the piano in front of people.

Suffering is a beautiful thing.  It makes you that much stronger.  It releases that energy that you have been repressing that is holding you down.   How much pain and suffering are you willing to withstand?  When someone attacks you can you be nice back to them?  It takes a lot to do that. 

So we must find the still quietness inside.  If one was to look at it from the occult side of things they would say I have a desire body (hell) and a vital/soul body (heaven).  The desire body (devil/man's will) now rules over humanity.  The vital body (god/god's will) must overcome the desire body.  Notice I said the desire body was equivalent to man's will and thus man cannot simply will himself to find balance.  Man willing himself would create motion and motion is opposite to balance or our natural state.  This is why we must simply die to ourselves through suffering in the stillness.  If you desire to to fall into line with God's will, your subconscious, the divine half of you will bring it into manifestation.  But you must also stand in the fire and fight to maintain your balance in the center.  It was either Boehme or Law who said that eventually the inner light or sun will come and overtake the darkness, essentially filling it with light and extinguishing the dark as a candle does to a dark room.

It's funny how I thought life would start to get so much easier.  I thought life would be great, I would start gaining some occult powers, the energy inside would start building up, I'd find myself in altered states of consciousness.  Yet here I am some of these things have happened and they don't mean much to me.  They are effects, for some reason after all I've learned I cared about effects.  It was nice to see changes taking place within and their requisite external changes but you have to keep it moving.  After a while it's like the hot water in your shower, eventually it starts to feel cold.

There are going to be just as many lows on the path as there are highs.   Naively I could not see this.  I let my energy go along for the ride on the upswing.  I left the ground, had my head in the clouds and didn't come back down until I slammed into the concrete at 100mph.  One must control his energy.  Keep it in the center.  The tides will naturally change, this is the law of rhythmic change.  You simply don't have to go along for the ride.  Keep stable in times of highs and lows.  When you are low keep your faith.  If you can't keep your faith when times are low then all of your work is for nothing.  Don't be afraid to suffer, this is how you evolve.  This is how you get your energy to vibrate at the correct frequency.  Do not go along for the ecstatic ride when you are on the high end of the cycle.  Keep your feet on the ground.  Watch your pride.

It's funny how I started to think I knew it all because I knew occultism and knew how to use energy a little bit.  This is a dangerous game and anyone who comes into it like I did without a teacher helping them along better stay grounded and go slow.  There is a lot more going on around us and within us than you we comprehend.  If one isn't grounded in reality then he will eventually find himself grounded.  The grounding I got was the best thing that could happen to me in regards to the path.  It was forced suffering.  It changed my viewpoint real fast, but it cost me in the short term.  Short term means nothing.  The short term is a little thimble in the grand scheme of things.  On the path we must take baby steps but we must concern ourselves with the big picture.  You do what you do because of a goal you have that can only be reached in the long term.  Patience is key.  If you're willing to work for years with no return and still keep going that is true faith and you will be rewarded it seems to me.