The following is based on the supposition that unity comprises multiplicity to realize itself.
The interaction of unity and multiplicity is called ConsciousNess* and regarded as an inter/extrapolation that relates in a Point of View which manifests ConsciousNess.
* (The particular spelling is to emphasize the relationship of Conscious: purposeful, aware – and Ness: being, existence)
In 2750, an Egyptian priest of Ptah paraphrased it like this: “The seeing of the eyes, the hearing of the ears and the breathing of the nose report to the mind; the mind is the center of cognition, the tongue expresses the cognized” – and as this cognition consists of reflection & projection, the priest added – “thus gods are made”.
The Egyptians called the cognition Hoor Paar Kraat (Horus the Child) and its Reflection & Projection Isis & Osiris. This relativity, or state of ConsciousNess did apparently not suffice, as they reflected & projected Isis & Osiris with Nephthys & Seth, setting off a contrary Reflection/ Projection (R/P) dynamic, wherein Horus became the arbiter of its pole positions – or field limits – and thus an intermediate viewpoint.
Cultures subjected to this contrary R/P dynamic, called it a war of gods. In the Egyptian version, Seth divided Osiris and claimed his throne – or pole position – which put him into opposition to Horus, who joined (wed) his “mother” Isis.
With the son of this marriage the entire process repeated itself – that is: the contrary R/P field and its intermediate viewpoint were doubled and turned into an eight-pole R/P dynamic which filled the Egyptian pantheon with numerous Horus variants.
The history of Egyptian ConsciousNess (or religion) demonstrates, that it was henceforth governed by attempts to restrain this division-multiplication process through a 9th pole (or god) – which might have been the first monopolistic (or monotheistic) attempt to transform the intermediate into an absolute viewpoint, in order to fix the pole positions and thus inhibit the creation of additional R/P fields and respective viewpoints.
*(Point of View is essential – viewpoints are circumstantial)
It is not known if the priests realized that thereby they fixed the contraries too, or if they feared losing their prosperous pantheon-managements, when they exiled this so called “Aton” to (or with) the Israeli tribes, whom he henceforth ruled under the term JHVH. And it was the son (Jesus) of this (four-poled) contrary R/P field, whose (cross-shaped) coordinate got established in the Hellenic time/space, where it became a principal pattern for the formation of the Occident.
The R/P patterns of the Egyptians and the ancient Greeks were similar, except that the Greeks established four intermediary viewpoints and thus a contrary field within contrary fields,
which brought about a R/P mode that was to become renown as rationalism (after the Latin ratio = calculation) and to give birth to the philosophers and geometricians who separated the fields and assigned one to psyche and one to soma (mind & matter), turning them into the cornerstones of a polarization-dynamic that was going to shape the occidental cultures.
The Selfrealisation urge brings about three principal R/P modes – the alternating, whose manifestations complement each other – the contrary, where they contrast each other, and the dualistic R/P, whose manifestations appear separate.
The alternating R/P is typical for the Orient, whereas the contrary R/P has been dominating the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Hellenic cultures and became the foundation of the R/P mode of Dualism which characterizes the Occident.
(Orient & Occident represent here R/P systems as well as cerebral & global hemispheres)
Every R/P system has particular Self concepts, realization ways & methods.
Know thy Self is the premise of all.
In the Occident “Know Thy Self” has been inscribed (ca.450 BC) on the temple wall of Apollo at Delphi, and made famous by Socrates who said “Knowledge is inherent in man, not outside. Wisdom is to recollect”.
That it had little chance in the Occident, is probably because its thinkers began to dedicate themselves to the - at around the same time emerging - ratio of Dualism, which confines knowledge to operations of the intellect and wisdom to occult quarters.
In the Orient “Know Thyself” was taken quite seriously by Hindu and Buddhist thinkers, and brought about innumerable researchers and scholars, who developed and taught methods and techniques to further the investigation and the Selfrealisation of mind.
In Hindu & Buddhist traditions “Know Thy Self” concerns Prajna, the active principle of the mind, manifesting as integration & differentiation, as creative & unifying urge.
“Liber Al vel Legis” (LAL) proposes the inter/extrapolation dynamic of ConsciousNess as the active principle of Selfrealisation.
In LAL the creative and the unifying urge is personified with Hadit & Nuit (the Egyptian goddess of All).
LAL II describes their interrelationship from the perspective of Hadit :
3. In the sphere I am everywhere the center, as she, the circumference, is nowhere found.
4. Yet she shall be known & I never.
6. I am the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star. I am Life, and the giver of Life, yet therefore is the knowledge of me the knowledge of death.
7. I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.
The Inter/extrapolation of the 8 R/P poles (indicated by the doted wave or spiral) is envisioned spherical
GRAFIC
The pole equations (for convenience’s sake numbered) are ascribed to cognition 4-6, understanding 3-7, and knowledge 2-8, whereas 5 marks the Point of View, O the circumference and 1-1 the R/P equation of Selfrealisation.
In LAL it is called a star, embodying a microcosm that relates a macrocosm. Macrocosm is the inter/extrapolation-sphere of stars - or microcosms.
II
“Do what thou wilt – love under will” is the maxim of LAL and its philosophy Thelema (Greek: Will)
Will is the creative and Love the unifying urge of Selfrealisation.
Will & Love are complementary and considered the strong force of ConsciousNess.
LAL is foremost designed for the Occident i.e. Dualism, yet represents principal aspects of ConsciousNess analogous to those set forth in the cosmologies and philosophies of the Orient
.
According to Buddhist teachings, the world is an aggregate of particles.
The particles are in perpetual motion – they manifest instantaneous and contact the senses as flashes of energy – mind interprets the reactions of the senses.
(Some Buddhists schools treat mind as 6th sense.)
“It has been stated that during these contacts, both the sense-organ and the object with which it is in contact undergo changes because both are aggregates of particles in movement.
The intensity of the different contacts varies. Only some among them awake an echo in the mind.”
(Tibetan Buddhist teachings -Alexandra David Neel)
There are possibly as many a mind as there are beholders. There are minds of rulers and serfs, of believers, sceptics, sinners and saints - some minds prefer to operate with intuition others with the feedback mechanism of the intellect - some try to depend on themselves, others on faits & gods - some minds are obsessed with material possessions & moneys, others with religions and mysticisms. There are minds that wallow in misery, sorrow & suffering and minds that pity, doubt, discriminate & chastise themselves.
Whatever its operation modes, mind is driven by the urge to realize itself.
Do what thou will is probably the most direct and instantaneous way of Selfrealisation.
Being spontaneous, Will manifests Self unadulterated.
Will cannot be willed as there are no two Wills.
“Find yourself to be the center of your own Universe. Explore the Nature and Powers of your own Being. This includes everything which is, or can be for you: and you must accept everything exactly as it is in itself, as one of the factors which go to make up your True Self. This True Self thus ultimately includes all things so ever: its discovery is Initiation (the travelling inwards) and as its Nature is to move continually, it must be understood not as static, but as dynamic, not as a Noun but as a Verb. “
(from “Duty” by A. Crowley)
“If we knew our mind perfectly and realized what our Self-nature truly is, all of us would be enlightened." (Hui Neng)
III
When the 8 R/P poles linear related a cubelike R/P constellation with 2 viewpoints comes about. Their inter/extrapolation is arbitered by a virtual 3rd viewpoint called “I”. Its Latin namesake “ego” has become the trademark of its domain, renown to entrap its beholder and to impede the Selfrealisation process.
Ego is probably around since mind is aware of itself, and appears in every R/P system, yet most prominently in Dualism I.e., the Occident, where it has become an exponentially growing complex fed by the delusion to be the non plus ultra of Selfrealisation.
Christian religion has been playing a major role in the ego formation of Dualism and its collective back-up, commonly called Occidental civilisation – at least until the rise of its sciences and the “supper-ego” called Sapiens.
Sapiens is the offspring of Carl von Lynne, a Swedish classifying specialist who, mid-eighteenth-century, made up a new category of Homo, which he labelled Sapiens (Lat: “wise”), apparently to distinct it from the former and to give it a superior touch.
With the help of the evolution theory and the respective backdating his birth a few hundred-thousand years, the “Ego-Sapiens” has since been promoting himself to the pinnacle of evolution, supreme of mankind and crown of creation – latter justly, as he crowns himself with evermore and spectacular self-delusions.
One could blame a straying of the mind, or “ignorance of the Self nature” (Buddha), if Sapiens were not to attack everyone who does not satisfy & support his Ego-Weltbild, and try to corrupt other R/P modes and their cultures, subject (literally) every thing to his possession-obsession (which probably originates in the hope to be able to realize himself through material possessions (objects-moneys-etc)), divide his collectives into races, have & have-nots, superiors & inferiors (etc.) and play them out against each other in order to feed his ego-complex, and last not least, if he were not deliberately destroying Nature aka Gaya, Pacha-mama i.e. the organism that bears and nourishes the psyche/soma (mind/matter) aggregate that houses him.
Homo venerated Nature throughout ages as mother and often as goddess as well. Sapiens began to treat her as an accidental & dumb contraption, and proclaimed himself, destined by genetics or genesis, to be her governor, and of course of Homo too - as a matter of fact, of anyone who is not ruthless and stupid enough to rape, plunder & poison his mother.
That she is getting sick: has fever, respiratory problems, blood (water) infections, skin cancer – just to mention a few symptoms similar to those manifesting in the organisms of mammals – does not concern the slave of greed & possessions who gives a damn about the wellbeing of Nature, as long as he can make a buck from her corps.
Nor can she expect much help from the coryphaei of his sciences, as it was them who furthered her degradation, and are thus not very likely to abandon concepts that they have been feeding & feeding on.
Ego-abstructs are largely motivated by emotions.
As time/space motions of Reflections/Projections, emotions are weak forces of the mind.
Emotions can enslave and drown the mind, impede its judgment, force its decisions and even drive it to selfdestruction.
That the Egotist (a subspecies of mind) eagerly subjects himself to emotions, is probably because they seem to confirm & affirm his existence. He even claims them to be essential for his survival as well as for being human, which might also be the reason for his belief that emotions make up a “person” (Latin: mask of actor). A belief that has been reaching religious scales, considering that all the lost, the losers and those who want to play a role in the ego-domain (namely Occident), make - with the help of media & commerce – ever more spectacles of their emotions.
There are innumerable works about emotions and their effects, but only few do mention that emotions can be addictive too. An omission that ought not to surprise, since addicts do not only tend to deny their predicament, but elaborate sophisticated cover-ups, excuses and deceptions, and often try to seduce and to corrupt those who do not cherish anxiety, angst, distrust, hatred, envy, greed, frustration, grief, guilt, shame, hostility, regret, jealousy, rage, sadness, sorrow, etc.etc
Sorrow and suffering are the favorites of the commiseration apostles who, for convenience’s sake, declare existence itself to be suffering & sorrow. Claiming moral and divine authority, they make it their life task (and business) to spread misery concepts throughout their collectives.
The collectives of Sapiens are parasitic and sustained by social, historical, economical and plenty of other myths - foremost the power myths nourished by those who admire, fear & desire the power they ascribe to their “powerful”, who enhance it with the possession myth which claims that power arises from material possessions - a myth that has become a religion, money being its god, Wallstreet its temple, bankers its priests, capitalism its bible and opportunism its moral.
Most collectives feed on emotions. Simple collectives evoke them with demons & taboos, stimulate them with gods of revenge & sacrifices and refresh them with recycling religions. In the Occident greed & envy are the dominant emotions and fostered by the media that handle advertisements, fashions, entertainments, personality designs, manner of conduct & communication and foment emotions (foremost fear) that support the ideologies & politics of their rulers.
Sapiens cultivates the myth that his occidental civilization is everlasting, yet all civilizations do eventually disappear, be it through inner corruption, outer pressure or suicide.
Corruption is foremost powered by ambition, envy & greed and manifests in the Occident and its (Ego) dependencies as turbulent changes of personal & collective parameters, intoxication and consumption frenzies, sexual abbreviations, media saturations, political opportunism, escape cults and so on; as a matter of fact, most aspects of present (2023) occidental civilization can be seen as manifestations of weakness, disorientation and decay, and it seems to have suicidal tendencies as well, considering the eagerness with which its subjects attack, rape, blunder & poison Nature, and feed their children to cyber demons, media monsters and money vampires.
The more confused & helpless Sapiens gets, the more he seeks refuge in sciences & technologies that promise to turn him into a robot-like Homo-Artefact – of course immortal and with Marvel-superman constitution - and to shelter him in a virtual/digital/ cyber world controlled by AI.
Although they claim to be objective, occidental scientists cherish ego-traits such as money & fame. Crowning themselves with dynamite (Nobel) laurels also reminds that they are developing ABC devices capable to eliminate mankind, which contradicts their evolution & survival ideologies and receives plenty of excuses & explanations, except that it might be a short circuit or the ultimate ratio of a confused mind (which calls itself Sapiens).
Occidental scientists investigate, interpret and manipulate the material i.e. energy/particle world, whereas oriental scientists investigate the interpreter and manipulator i.e. the mind.
According to Buddhist researches, the energy/particle-contacts stimulate mental formations which are furnished with names and symbols and - in case of occidental sciences – classified/categorized with the R/P feedback mechanism of the intellect.
In Dualism the feedback doubles up and serves as so called scientific method to confirm, define and establish mental phenomena.
And since the stimuli are fleeting bursts of varying intensity and act on senses which themselves are particles in motion, the creations (discoveries) of occidental sciences are like jigsaw pieces they stuff into 3d frames (R/P cubes) and join with “grand unifying theories” (myths).
Moreover, many of these creations/inventions do require repairs & improvements (updates) and thus become action-reaction-chains (comparable to the cause-effect principle of Buddhism) that litter the landscape of Sapiens with innumerable and mostly useless abstructs.
LAL calls it “ill ordered house”, but penitentiary (from penance: self-punishment) is more proper, considering the legions of technologists who, under the guidance of science, invent myriads of apparatuses and instruments to optimize its walls, guarded by philosophers and ideologists who justify, glorify and universalize its fatality, not to forget the anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists & other repair-logists, who try to make it escape proof.