What the hell is the abyss anyways?

[Marblehead]

... they keep getting out of hand and expanding into all directions ...

and falling into the abyss.

[Nungali]

See BKA ... we keep trying .... BKA .... BKA ?

 

Damn !

[Marblehead]

See BKA ... we keep trying .... BKA .... BKA ?

 

Damn !

She'll be back. She always comes back.

[GrandmasterP]

A thread on a forum is just like unchecked thought processes, they keep getting out of hand and expanding into all directions. Breathe in, breathe out.

 

+1 on your...

 

"I'm just making this up as we go along really...

 

This is called arcane knowledge."

 

I could not agree more.

 

[MooNiNite]

Maybe of interest for all of you who are interested in crossing the Abyss.

 

http://www.theomagica.com/on-crossing-the-abyss

 

>Chris<

 

this was a great read, thanks. from the way he writes it was suprising to me that his most life changing experience was almost losing his job.

[BaguaKicksAss]

this was a great read, thanks. from the way he writes it was suprising to me that his most life changing experience was almost losing his job.

 

First world problems?

 

It is interesting though, some things which seem like nothing to some devastate others.

[Asmo]

@MooNiNite

this was a great read, thanks. from the way he writes it was suprising to me that his most life changing experience was almost losing his job.

 

Mabe you missed that part

 

"Finally, later on I was faced with emergency surgery, I lost an organ and was confronted head-on with the possibility of dying."

 

Chris

[Marblehead]

Yeah, if we are going to think of the possibility of dying we need to do it while we are still alive; it'll be too late after we have died.

[stefos]

Hi all,

 

The abyss is a Greek word (Aveesos in Greek....I'm Greek by the way & it's my first language.)

 

Quote from Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology.

Abyss

In our English Bibles, the Greek word abyssos [a [busso"] is transliterated as "abyss" (RSV "bottomless pit") in every instance except Romans 10:7, where it is translated "the deep." In the Septuagint abyssos [a [busso"] translates Tehom almost exclusively, but in rare instances ShuLam ( Isa 44:27 ), MeshuLam ( Job 41:22 ), and Racha ( Job 36:16 ).

In the Old Testament abyssos [a [busso"] is invariably descriptive of the watery depths of the earth, whether oceans or springs, in contradistinction to the land (e.g., Psalm 77:16 ; 78:15 ; 106:9 ; Isa 51:10 ; Amos 7:4 ), although in Psalm 71:20, "the depths of the earth" are spoken of in a manner almost signifying death (however, it probably means no more than the depths of one's troubles on earth). Abyssos [a [busso"] never translates Sheol, so in the Old Testament it never carries the idea of the realm of the dead or the afterlife. In Genesis 1:2 the total inchoate earth is called "the deep, " over which the Spirit of God hovered.

During the intertestamental period the situation began to change and the meaning of abyssos [a [busso"] broadened to include the idea of death as well as the realm of demonic spirits (e.g., Jub 5:6; 1 Enoch 10:4, 11).

In the New Testament the changeover is complete. Abyssos [a [busso"] is never used to refer to the waters of the earth. Here it is used in two ways. First, in Romans 10:7 Paul uses it specifically to mean "the realm of the dead, " drawing from Deuteronomy 30:12-14, but not quoting exactly. He contrasts "ascent into heaven" with "descent into the abyss, " but because Christ was there, the abyss should not be conceived as an evil or demonic realm. Second, Luke (8:31) and John ( Rev 9:1-2 ; 11:7 ; 17:8 ; Revelation 20:1 Revelation 20:3 ) describe the abyss specifically as the dwelling place of demons and the beast and as a place of confinement unto judgment that is under God's control. In lu 8:31 the demons beg Jesus not to send them into the abyss, knowing that they will no longer be free to wreak havoc on the earth. Here, abyssos [a [busso"] is similar to tartarus [tartarovw] in 2pe 2:4, where the angels that sinned are confined until the judgment. In John's vision of the fifth trumpet ( Rev 9:1-11 ), the shaft leading to the abyss is opened, releasing the demonic hoard of locusts. Their ruler is "the angel of the abyss, " whose name is Destruction (Heb. Abaddon; Gk. Appolyon). The beast who ascends from the abyss ( Rev 11:7 ; 17:8 ) presents a complex picture. Combined, it represents the antichrist, demonic power, Rome (i.e., political power as supportive of the harlot), and ultimate evil. This beast is to be thrown alive into the "fiery lake of burning sulphur" ( Rev 19:20 ). Satan is chained in the abyss for a thousand years ( Revelation 20:1 Revelation 20:3 ), until he, too, is thrown into the lake of fire ( Rev 20:10 )

 

Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology. Edited by Walter A. Elwell
Copyright © 1996 by Walter A. Elwell. Published by Baker Books, a division of
Baker Book House Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan USA.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

 

Does this help?

Stefos

 

I think it does.

[silent thunder]

sort of... the bible has never done much for me literally...

 

figuratively... allegorically... there is some connection, but it's receding in its influence in my experience of life.

 

in my experience of the abyss, or the void, there was no god of any kind, any where... there was no where, there were no kinds...

[9th]

What it "is" involves questions of unimaginable profundity, and limitless unknowns - which are matters quite distinct from its "purpose" according to ceremonial magicians, in regards to their stance in relation to it and its role in the initiatory process.

 

And in regards to such initiatory processes in the far east, the idea of the 'charnel ground' is relevant here.

 

 

On the face of it or alternatively the cosmetic level, the charnel ground is simply a locality often chthonic where bodies are disposed of, either by cremation or burial.^[1] Though the charnel ground is to be understood as a polysemy and metaphor it must be emphasized that holy people as part of their sadhana and natural spiritual evolution grappling with death, impermanence and transition did historically in both India, China and Tibet as well as in other localities, frequent charnel grounds, crematoriums and cemeteries and were often feared and despised by people who did not understand their 'proclivities' (Sanskrit: anusaya).

 

From a deeper structural significance and getting to the substantive bones of the Vajrayana spiritual point of view however, the charnel ground is full of profound transpersonal significance. It represents the 'death of ego' (Sanskrit: atmayajna), and the end of:

• attachment (Sanskrit: Upādāna; Tibetan: len pa) to this body and life
• 
  
• craving (Sanskrit: Tṛṣṇā; Tibetan: sred pa) for a body and life in the future
• 
  
• fear of death (Sanskrit: abhiniveśa)
• 
  
• aversion (Sanskrit: dveṣa; Wylie: zhe sdang) to the decay of 'impermanence' (Sanskrit: anitya).^[1]
• 
  

Prior to spiritual realization, charnel grounds are to be understood as terrifying places, full of 'roaming spirits' (Sanskrit: gana) and 'hungry ghosts' (Sanskrit: pretas) indeed localities that incite consuming fear. In a charnel ground there are bodies everywhere in different states of decomposition: freshly dead bodies, decaying bodies, skeletons and disembodied bones.^[1]

 

Simmer-Brown (2001: p. 127) conveys how the 'charnel ground' experience may present itself in the modern Western mindstream situations of emotional intensity, protracted peak performance, marginalization and extreme desperation:

In contemporary Western society, the charnel ground might be a prison, a homeless shelter, the welfare roll, or a factory assembly line. The key to its successful support of practice is its desperate, hopeless, or terrifying quality. For that matter, there are environments that appear prosperous and privileged to others but are charnel grounds for their inhabitants--Hollywood, Madison Avenue, Wall Street, Washington, D.C. These are worlds in which extreme competitiveness, speed, and power rule, and the actors in their dramas experience intense emotion, ambition, and fear. The intensity of their dynamics makes all of these situations ripe for the Vajrayana practice of the charnel ground.

 

 

[JinlianPai]

The abyss is the point of no return and thats what makes it so freakin scary.

[idiot_stimpy]

The abyss is the point of no return and thats what makes it so freakin scary.

 

Someone give me directions so I can jump in.

[Nungali]

Just keep going 'up' (in relation to yourself) ... you will get there eventually .

[Bud Jetsun]

The abyss is the point of no return and thats what makes it so freakin scary.

 

 

One can return. I returned and I know of others who have also returned.

 

One returns as one who has experienced unlimited timeless eternity of void-being. Any and every additional experience a consciousness has changes the consciousness.

 

One can never think the same way twice, walk into the same river twice, get splashed by the same wave twice, breath the same breath twice, etc.

 

Thoughts are not instantaneously expressed. This means if one is in a state of having thoughts, one can not be in the 'Now' that is all that can be non-delusion.

 

The closest one can approach to the void while thinking of the void (or anything) is infinitely distant.

 

When one gains complete mindfulness (or takes huge amounts of nettle tea or various other perception-shifting helpers your brain was designed to interact with), one can still the mind enough to gain the awareness one never could have been outside the void, one simply couldn't recognize it because ones own delusions/illusions were always obscuring the omnipresent void/oneness from being perceived.

 

Chose to experience inward silence without delusion, and one is experiencing the void they always have been in but lacking awareness. It's not a state of being text could ever do more than stumble in the dark at describing, I choose to attempt it because I have acquired a taste for stumbling in the dark.

 

The singular key is simply mindfulness. Recognize ones thoughts are ones exclusive domain, and therefore one always has perfect mindfulness. Appreciation of that realization is all one needs to manifest perfect mindfulness, cease thought and enter the state of timeless being that is the void.

 

It's not scary or happy. If something is scary or happy that is not the void, that is peering at the void in fear without experiencing the void. The void doesn't have concepts like scary or happy, the void is the oneness of being. To impose human text based descriptors to it is similarly effective as waving ones hands towards the ocean to evaporate it. It does something, but other consciousnesses will have a limited ability to appreciate or even detect your efforts.

 

With unlimited Love,

-Bud

[FieryWind]

 

The abyss that we should be aware of is really the third chaos which is the lowest of the three, the tenebrous underworld where darkness and misery reigns, the ones who deny their Innermost by divorcing themselves from Divinity will eventually migrate into the submerged layers of the earth within the inferior fifth dimension, clothed with their lunar protoplasmic bodies such souls enter into greater and greater levels of density as the laws multiply deeper down they go. The downward journey of the left hand path leads directly to the second death as mentioned by Dante Alighieri in his poetic work 'Dante's Divine Comedy'.

 

In the 8th and 9th spheres of hell the complete disintegration of the ego takes place, said to be an unimaginably painful experience, the soul after being purified of the former aggregates is liberated back into the elemental kingdoms of nature starting at the bottom which is the mineral kingdom, slowly the soul, pushed by the evolving forces of mechanical nature, is raised into increasingly more complex mineral bodies until graduating into the plant kingdom which signifies a new level of development. From here the soul migrates from body to body until reaching the animal kingdom where it learn to fornicate in line with instinctual impulses for the generation of its species. Gradually the soul progresses to the stage where it learns individuality, it no longer moves with the herd as such, this signifies that the soul is close to entering into the humanoid kingdom which it lost previously before entering into the abyss.

 

Upon entering into the humanoid kingdom, the soul is equipped with rationality, the intellect. With this newly acquired faculty, such a soul is capable of distinguishing the difference between purity and impurity (Good and Evil) the higher purpose is to transcend his lower animal nature and all the behaviors associated with those levels in order to enter into the higher planes of consciousness.

 

If the soul is incapable of transcending his lower animal nature and gives in to the passions and lure of his/her ego, then after exhausting their karma to enter into new humanoid bodies, such souls devolve back into the lower kingdoms to again enter into the infernal worlds, aka hell, deepening their suffering and experiencing the horrors associated with the shadow worlds which are devoid of Divine qualities, they are actually inverted aspects of the higher Divine spheres or Sephiroth.

 

There is no "final, absolute liberation" after the second death, the abyss is a revolving door back into the mechanical process of nature. The wheel of Samsara as some call it, the teachings of all the great Masters, such as Jesus, Buddha, Samael Aun Weor all teach how to consciously transcend this mechanical process, the ego is a child of mechanicity, thus the ego will eventually drag one back into the underworld to experience the horrors of hell.

 

Read the book 'Hell, the Devil and Karma' by Samael Aun Weor if you are interested in this whole subject.

Edited September 25, 2014 by FieryWind

[silent thunder]

Well, that's one type of abyss, but not for me...
The one I experienced there was no devil, no concept of devil, no concept of anything.

No world, no light, no objects of any kind.

Pure void.

[Nungali]

Awww man .... you could have at least illustrated it with Dore

[FieryWind]

Well, that's one type of abyss, but not for me...

The one I experienced there was no devil, no concept of devil, no concept of anything.

No world, no light, no objects of any kind.

Pure void.

 

CHAOS

(Greek χάος) khaos "abyss, that which gapes wide open, is vast and empty." There are three primary applications of this term.

"The first Chaos from which the cosmos emerged is between the Sephiroth Binah and Chesed. The second Chaos, from where the fundamental principles of the human being emerged, exists within Yesod-Mercury, which is the sexual human center. The third Chaos, the Infernal Worlds, exists below the Thirteenth Aeons in the region of Klipoth, in the underworld." - Samael Aun Weor, The Pistis Sophia Unveiled

The abyss (not the inferior abyss), or the "Great Deep." Personified as the Egyptian Goddess Neith. The Great Mother, the Immaculate Virgin from which arises all matter. The Chaos is WITHIN the Ain Soph. The primitive state of the universe. Esoterically, a reference to the semen, both in the microcosm and the macrocosm. Alchemically, it is said to be a mixture of water & fire, and it holds the seeds of the cosmos.

"In truth Chaos came into being the very first." - Hesiod, Theogony

"First I sung the obscurity of ancient Chaos, How the Elements were ordered, and the Heaven reduced to bound; And the generation of the wide-bosomed Earth, and the depth of the Sea, And Eros the most ancient, self-perfecting, and of manifold design; How he generated all things, and parted them from one another." - Orphic fragment (Greek)

[Marblehead]

Yeah, I think it is fair to associate the Abyss with Chaos.

 

Made me think of a couple of Discordian folks I know but have lost contact with.

[silent thunder]

I can see where you guys are coming from, but my experience allowed no room, nor ability for chaos to propagate itself.

It was nothingness. Absolute and pristine, pure and untouchable, unfathomable.

 

Perhaps I'm barking at the wrong mongoose here.

 

I'm talking void and you're all talking abyss... think I got it now.

 

*bow*

peace and happy hunting.

 

edit:

Yea, I'm talking about the abyss it turns out

as I let it settle further...

 

Abyss as in void of anything... a great emptiness. Not filled with horrible things, vengeful things, or neutral things or... anything.

 

Abyss... agreat emptiness, void of things.

Edited September 27, 2014 by silent thunder

[Nungali]

Yeah, I think it is fair to associate the Abyss with Chaos.

 

Made me think of a couple of Discordian folks I know but have lost contact with.

 

Bury a golden apple in a shoebox in your backyard - one of their underground agents will soon be in contact with you.

[katsura]

There are some who equate it to the Dukkha jnanas of Buddhism. That is, after undergoing a pivotal point in your spiritual practice, you come face to face with suffering in a fundamental way.

 

Sounds pretty abysmal to me.

[Bud Jetsun]

I can see where you guys are coming from, but my experience allowed no room, nor ability for chaos to propagate itself.

It was nothingness. Absolute and pristine, pure and untouchable, unfathomable.

 

Perhaps I'm barking at the wrong mongoose here.

 

I'm talking void and you're all talking abyss... think I got it now.

 

*bow*

peace and happy hunting.

 

Antithesis of chaos.

 

This has been consistent with my experience as well.

 

Indefinably perfect contentment in all aspects does nothing to describe it adequately.

[C T]

The legendary warrior king, Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu, victorious in the epic battles of Julu and Pengcheng, notably remembered for his fearless tenacity in taking 60,000 men to face armies of nearly ten times that. Eventually succumbing to his own thirst for power, he was trapped at Gaixia, and, staring into the abyss, he composed the Song of Gaixia (垓下歌), fondly thinking of his horse, Dapple, and his consort, just before he took his own life.

 

《垓下歌》

The Hegemon's Lament

力拔山兮氣蓋世。

My strength plucked up the hills,
My might shadowed the world;

時不利兮騅不逝。

But the times were against me,
And Dapple¹ runs no more;

騅不逝兮可奈何！

When Dapple runs no more,
What then can I do?

虞兮虞兮奈若何！

Ah, Yu,² my Yu,
What will your fate be?