Apech

@Nungali and @Michael Sternbach particularly because you posted Egyptian symbolism before - I just wanted to reference this to do with the idea of the goal as the creation of a foetus. Below is a downloadable pdf entitled 'The sunrise as the birth of a baby'. It's an Egyptological paper so they see things at best in terms of cosmology - while actually its alchemical. I would suggest read page 4 onward ... http://www.franz-renggli.ch/en/artikel/The_surise_as_birth_of_a_baby.pdf The sunrise or vision of the sunrise in Egyptian mysticism is about seeing the nature of things revealed - or the source or origin of things more precisely and is their version of the goal - or at least a stage toward that goal.

Just for emphasis.

So far I've noticed two versions of goals. One is like yours - to remove or strip away to become 'I am' or maybe 'light' or some other definition of the underlying consciousness. The other is to construct or create a foetus or body that is immortal. I wonder if these two are in some way reconcilable(?). And more importantly how do emotions or dealing with emotions result in either of these?

Well ... ignoring the superfluous conversation of the last page or so - this brings us to an important question: If emotions are the path, what is the goal? Here is a quote from The Journey to the East by Herman Hesse pub. 1932, just for interest since I am reading it - I'm not sure how valid it is for people to have their individual goals - but certainly what he writes here of the League applies to TheDaoBums I suspect.

Thank you for the download - I read most of it but it got a bit repetitive. I can say without a shadow of doubt that spiritual bypassing is not me. In fact I abhor it. I was trying to explain why a code could be helpful to one's development, that's all. I wasn't suggesting it as the be all and end all of the path. But it is important for most people to corral their chaotic lives. Do you still consider a desire for happiness or a desire to be content sufficient as a goal?

Oh! Nungas you are as relevant as ever!!!!!

You do, though choose to remove the energy blockage - which previously you chose not to. But I won't belabour the point. I see it more that you for instance start with a chaotic life, one without real purpose perhaps, and you decide at some point that you need to get your shit together. To do this you make a personal vow (or a public one for that matter) to try to be better. So you do adopt a code which puts you under pressure - actual pressure in your life to change. This might be to be more compassionate and loving ... but then the difficulty, the learning curve is to understand what these are in practice and not just nice sounding theory. The bypassing occurs I think when people prefer to sit in a room thinking about compassion or how to 'be nice' so that they can feel better about themselves. This is useless at best and counter productive at worst.

Yet again a beautiful post - and I cannot disagree with any of it. But can I be that which you describe? To be brutally honest - no I can't. I have no intent to judge others but I do have an intent to distance myself from quite a few. As per your point c) it is the case that I recognise it because I have it within me - but to have something assimilated in you is not the same as to operate it in the world. We are encouraged to do good - and I try to - but to be good that is something else

@johndoe2012 and everyone, What I was trying to get in the question is perhaps best illustrated by outer or ordinary life. People have their comfort zones as @manitou pointed out. many people run through a routine life - because of safety and sometimes even if this routine is painful in some ways at least it is familiar. So there's a kind of comfort even in negative states. This applies to internal emotional life as well - most people have a set range or feelings, responses and emotions which they habitually inhabit. These may be part painful, part happy but in the end they are inertic. Their mind is just running through certain strands and unless life kicks them in the butt somehow they are unlikely to leave this 'nest'. So @Bindi this is what I mean about clinging to negative states. I think we do it. It is very hard to shake. Very hard to get out of. @manitou you mentioned judging people and this reflecting back onto you. I admit to this. I do it - but also sometimes its just the truth about people. In my experience there is a big difference between those who cultivate and those who don't. And those who don't like to bind you with their second attention, their dream minds into whatever world they create. I try to treat all with respect and kindness - because that is the way. But that doesn't mean I have to be blind to what people do and how they are. @Nungali the symbolism is very interesting. I think the role of Mercury/Hermes/Thoth is key. We mediate between the sun and moon and this is a key alchemical process. Thanks everyone.

This Joe Rogan interview is fascinating - as long as you can cope with a bit of Graham Hancock - but the history trail in Greek culture is great.

@Bindi and @manitou, Great posts both. Wonderful. I hope to respond in some way when I have digested them. Thanks.

Ok. It's getting very witchy in here - I suppose its just under three weeks till Halloween witch might explain it. i want to raise something important to do with emotions and the path - and that is why do we cling to negative emotional states? Why don't we just throw them out? or to put it another way why do we develop harmful habits or routines in thinking/feeling/acting which are destructive to ourselves and others. And I am sure it is not just not-knowing or not being aware of them. There's something deeper which I feel as a comfort in ignorance. It's hard to be strong and aware but for an easy life - just be stupid. Just look around (call me a misanthrope if you will) don't people seem to glory in their not-knowingness don't they seem to derive strength from it. While those of us who cultivate - don't we seem often to have a hard time of it???? So why does this preference exist in all of us - and what is the solution? (You may write on both sides of the paper - if you finish the test before others exit the exam hall quietly and leave the pencil provided on the desk.)

This is a real book apparently ...

@Michael Sternbach mentioned above about a threefold way of understanding the world (?) or reality perhaps and its link to the microcosm in man. @Bindi spoke about thinking and feeling. And our subject of course is 'emotions are the path'. I like to look at this as physical body reflects subtle body. In both with have a threefold-ism. For instance the three Dantiens and physically the head, thorax and abdomen. Thinking, feeling and .... energying (if there were such a word). Emotion could be said, perhaps to be that which pulls us out of or into alignment of these three (?). Our work - alchemically, is to distill, thoughts and feelings and urges ... somehow put them into relation to each other ... by overcoming (?) the tendency of conflicted or negative emotion to muddy them, pull them out of alignment etc - which creates our emotional states. We use thinking to reflect on them and energy to push them into alignment and feeling to explore them. Thoughts? (or feelings?) about what I am saying?

By the way ... shall we get back on topic - there's a lot more to say I reckon.

I think I might have to go No-vember this year cos I'm downing a lot of this red wine ... I love it but hate any hint of dependence. yes the Neteru (Netjerw, Netcherw) - which is the Egyptian word for god/gods for those who don't know - pre-dates and does solve 'the problem'. But for us, the problem is so very invasive that even when we think we have stepped outside the Judeo-Christian mind-set - quite often we haven't. I've just read a book by Tom Holland called Dominion (it was recommended by a Bhutanese Lama) which makes the point very succinctly that even Atheism, Humanism, Secularism and so on are Christian ideas. As are things like Hinduism, Buddhism and Daoism ... funnily enough. Christianity is fucking weird. Truly. As cultivators/practitioners we have a real relationship to the numinous ... and to go back to the subject of this thread it is essentially an emotional relationship ... I think this is because the strands of energy which move through us from the infinite kind of spark us off ... there are carrier waves which we primarily feel and then image to ourselves. So our primary relationship to energy is real in this immediate sense. We have our own personal emotional memories which we have to deal with, process, assimilate ... but part of that is realising that the energy in those emotions is the same as that radiating from the non-dual core. (I may have burbled on a bit too long - so forgive ).

That would be a long post.

From my own experience I don't work with deities very much - but when I do I notice that they have the ability to take you beyond the boundaries of your own mind. This can be disconcerting but very helpful. I am reminded about DJ's warnings to CC not to go to world of inorganic beings. So I wouldn't recommend total reliance on a tutelary deity - but I would recommend allowing them in at certain times for an extra boost, broadening of view or to move you beyond a barrier that you are struggling with. But always dissolve and return to consciousness itself and integrate into yourself whatever experience is given.

It depends on the sadhana but as a general idea the day after a new moon is good.

Puritans are hard line Protestants who like to wear black, have no statues or images and are obsessed by hell fire - like the Pilgrim Fathers who went to America. Catholics like dressing up and have lots of saints ... they are big on guilt tho' as you say. Their priests are rather fond of boys. There is nothing weird or fucked up about Christianity

By the way I'm really enjoying this thread and I'm glad I started it - thank you everyone for your contributions so far and please do continue

Right. I'm sure Michael will answer this but I thought I'd put in my 2 cents worth. We have this problem us Westerners because no matter what our upbringing (mine was English humanist therefore no real religion) our thinking is run through with Judeo-Christian ideas and themes. Its inescapable I think. In fact the Christian way of thinking has even infected the eastern systems which we receive. There's always the feeling of the big mono-God which must lurk behind the divine. That it is somehow superior to think that there is one true reality rather than a non-dual pluralism. There's something very different about Abrahamic thinking from any kind of pagan, mystical or shamanism - all of which allow for multiple divine entities and expressions - because they have an idea of the numinous as being real and manifest while Judeo-Christian thinking produces a distant and austere God beyond everything. I'm not expressing my self very well because I've just drunk a bottle of red wine But I think even terms like archetypes suggests that the entities which are gods are somehow symbolic or abstract and not real.