On God
Is there God? It is a common question among many different people, from philosophers to janitors. The answer that a person finds might depend on the mood, well being, personal luck and various other factors. It can be said “There is no God” or one can say “There is God”, both are subjective opinions and have no influence on the being of Tetragrammaton.
In reality those queries are senseless, due to the obviousness of the answer. People being not in their best state of mind are inclined to be in denial. Do you deny the existence of Life? You can’t see it, and will never see in through a microscope, glasses or with your own eyes. You don’t see life, but the symptoms of life, moving Matter, shifling objects etc. They are alive, but it is not life itself. Then what is Life? The goddess is Alive, born to the male and female aspect of dual God, who permeates all of the universe, who is she?
Any matter is an interweaving of countless threads. Each of them is both similar and different from another, but their unity creates a Whole. The universe is also permeated with channels of the Life force, like leucocytes in the blood system. Even the concept of the World’s Tree, known to our ancestors is a reflection of a primal understanding of the cosmic arrangement, both internal and external. So how does one measure the Force of Life?
Every human being, every plant or animal are creatures of energy different from one another. They are filled with different quantity of the Life Force. For example a turtle, that inhabits the Galápagos Islands, lives for hundreds of years with a little Life Force to it. External factors like the rise of the sea level or human hunters can make those creatures extinct. Humans are more powerful, but certain human habits can lead people to self destruction far before the due time. Strong mages have even more Life Force than regular humans, and Gods are more powerful than mages. Every species has different levels of consciousness. Snail, for example, most probably is not aware of your existence. You are not in it’s system. Humans understand who snails are, but finds it hard to grasp such concepts as infinity or immortality. Gods find it easier, as many things are more understandable to them.
Life is not good or evil, it is the Reality. Creative and destructive reality. Various teachings concentrate their attention only on certain sides of Life, denying others. Black mages are focused on curses, white ones on grace and no one sees the obvious.
A wheat seed growing in the field, in the ground – this is Life and it is good. Fading wheat is death, but it is also good, as it gives new seeds, which will then spawn new life. There is no death, only life, that is sometimes clearly visible, and sometimes shows itself from the other side, but it is Life still.
Life is the reality of our universe. Moreover, it is today’s reality, your reality. And it need your immediate attention. Paint your life in color!
Human place in the universe
What is human like energy wise? There are plenty of theories explaining the main question of life, Universe and the like, but oftentimes they contradict each other. Let us examine several examples based on the lore of russian magic.
Firstly it is worth mentioning that in any esoteric tradition there is separation of an individual into two parts, Spiritual Being and Material Being. First of which is immortal, as he carries a godly spark, the second one is perishable. This separation is not always appropriate, it is mostly used as a metaphor to facilitate understanding or reach certain goal, because everything in this world is a creation of God. The main differential characteristic of a human being is his or her unity as spiritual and material creature, and the proportion of both is always different and dependant on a choice.
Magical vision of the world as a Spiritual System filled with the energy of life allows to come closer to a more complete understanding of the essence of being human. It is a mistake to find exclusively demonic or saint qualities about the person, all those aspects reflect the unity. The world cannot consist solely of positive moments or solely of suffering. The world is diverse and every event in it is important, and magic is a way to change the course of events in your favor.
Every human if examined consists of three parts of sides.They are spiritual, emotional-mental and physical aspects. If we look closely to the spiritual aspect, we can see that human is nonmaterial immortal creature of energy. This creature exists eternally and governs a body and its external environment with the help of thoughts and emotions.
The most fashionable way is to examine a human being with the help of indian chakra system. There are both advantages and disadvantages to this approach. Firstly, of course, the existence of points of concentrated energy, nods of a kind, is obvious to every esoteric. However, secondly, there are too much false and misleading information around this approach to even attempt to use its terminology. However, it is clear, that european tradition of seeing a person as a soul and a body, where soul is immortal and destined for heaven or hell, whereas body will turn to dust, seems primitive in comparison to hindu tradition. The problem lays in globalisation, where everything is mixed together, which doesn’t add value to new teachings. Those teachings lack something of their own, something significant and pleasant, that can really give a person something really new.
Let us examine the energy structure of a human based on ancient russian spells.
What is most significant there for an attentive beholder? These are feelings and desires, that fill the spell with energy, that allows it to become a unique formula. Here are some of them, the three most important feelings:
1. Positive or a will to possess, meaning love, passion for something or someone, willingness to reach a goal etc. For example: getting someone to love you, make a child happy, become rich, satisfied, find your purpose in life. Therefore the Will to Possess drives a person to something new, to things not yet accessible to him or her.
2. Negative – a Will to Destroy. It is a whole spectre of emotions from hatred and meanness to jealousy and stupidity. All those feeling are destined to stop something from happening or halt something that is already happening. For example, jealousy towards anothers’ spouse, hatred towards an enemy and similar negative desires.
3. A null condition or emptiness. In this concept one might put depression, sadness and other feelings close to apathy that lead to self destruction. Generally, depression is a first step towards death.
Those three feelings or desires are the basis in Russian as well as any other magic system. A wish to get something from life or obtaining someone, having a Will to Possess we come in conflict with other people and their wishes, and therefore fighting them for happiness. In case of failure we feel emptiness, and in case of success, wish coming true, we only create more and more wishes.
However, russian magic tradition shows one more unique feature of ancient attitude and place of a human within Universe. In spells that seem christian on the first sight, there is a standard introductory part – “In the name of Father and Son and the Holy Spirit”. If we look at this aspect from a perspective of an ancient whip sect, that was very common on the banks of Volga, we will observe a surprising concept. Father – is Supreme and Primordial God, “sky father”. Son is a human, carrying the divine spark and embodying Gon on earth. And the Holy Spirit – a prayer, a connection between the Human-Son and God-Father. If one looks at spell introduction this way, the a lot becomes clearer. Also christian motives become not as confusing when used in pagan spells.
Human carries the divine spark and therefore cannot be evil or good, because his every characteristic in primordial. However a person, not the God, has to live with his qualities, therefore creating a balance of light and darkness is a personal matter of every human being. It might seem peculiar, but godly spark is present in your neighbour as well as that annoying colleague and even in your enemy. Keep this in mind!
Esoteric marketplace
Every person is a part of some system, adept of some god from many handed Shiva to a briefcase with a million in it, that will magically appear around the corner personally for you. The system governs thoughts, desires, actions, and therefore life, your life in particular. You are an ant on the boot of the Titan, that will never see you there. And where is that leg headed?
Esoterics is a Marketplace, sometimes it is civilised, with boutiques and smiling pretty salespeople, but more often it is a bazaar in Cairo, with brightly dressed men loudly crying in arabic, but it is always a Marketplace. The Truth is sold here. You are the buyer and here are the sellers. Everything is fair, you wondered here yourself. You can buy silver utensils or chinese foil spoons – the choice is enormous. But do you need anything on this Market? Maybe, beyond the boundaries of this metaphysical trading centre or spiritual chinese shop, there are couple of traders with an exclusive offering delivered just for you?
Magic provides the person with one essential thing. A promise that his or her life will change forever. Next day will never be as yesterday. If you come into Magic, the system crumbles within you. You never know what your next turn will be, rise or fall. You plan your life for yourself. The feature of a Mage is that he or she lives his or her live according to his or her will, and not the tradition, that has been obsolete for centuries. There are exceptions, but the basis remains the same – Mage is a master of fate.
The way of a mage is very well depicted in Major Arcana of tarot. First he has to take a chance, become a Fool, and therefore enter the Nagual, the unknown, break away from the old world and gain a new one inside. He or she is yet to become a Master-Emperor, concur the Devil within, find true Love, remove Fears-Moons and become one with the World through Temperance in the final shaman dedication-revelation. On this way there will be Death of the old System inside of you and the Triumph of achieving the goal. The way of the Mage is a System apart from Systems, where the main criterion of truth is a personal experience of the Mage and gradually Mage becomes a God.
Let us get back to our market. Candles of different forms, bells, incense sticks, collars with different charms, idols for every taste, colour and budget. But where are you in this pawn shop?
This market in unique in a way that the goods are always secondary and never unique. No one will stock up on something new, when several long lasting bubble gums are well sold even now. Only packaging ever changes, where tan eastern beauties with the red dot on their forehead are interchanged with timid french nuns or the likes of Harry Potter.
Mage is the one who make his life by himself. Even now many practitioners make their own candles, rather than buying ready ones as not to include themselves in systems that are foreign to them. Herb gathering, amulet crafting, healing and his or her life Mage entrust only to him or herself. Mage is not a buyer. Mage is a producer, not a consumer.
In reality, if you look closely to this article, this is a also a System just a little bit different one. The difference is that Our System is aimed at those who travel the Mage’s path to gain a state out of System, find his or her face, his or her life and place in this Universe. And the ancient mage Tradition provides this freedom to everyone willing to take the risk and step beyond the horizon.
Titans of a New Age
So what is the current “spiritual” supply? What is trending?
Maybe it is unfortunate, that nothing new surfaced in esoteric world for the last fifty years. There are endless compilations, interpretations, transcriptions, paraphrases and other reimaginings, but there are no teachings that would be at the same level as Buddha’s of even Osho’s. The boom of fifties and sixties, during the epoque of sexual revolution, rock music and alternative philosophy is over. Now everything fades like embers in a bonfire before dawn. Let us look into the teaching of the most trending new age gurus. Whom do we pick first?
Osho is remarkable in terms of his book circulation. Taking into account that he never wrote a book in his life and all those materials are recordings and compilations of his lectures, six hundred book doesn’t seem very impressive. This indian guru is fascinating in the way that he always says what you want to hear. “All is good”, “everything is permitted”, “you are always right” are the kind of motto that will appeal to every heart. And it is okay that ideology is ever shifting and the guru is very sick and has trouble walking, the main thing is that the books are convincing and flatter you. Osho is undoubtedly a clever man and had very good point in criticizing drawbacks in religions, however upon criticism alone you can’t build a paradise neither inside nor outside.
Carlos Castaneda discovered a new world. Thanks to his books many junkies found greater calling in their pastime and became adepts of new religion. Honestly saying Carlos described a wonderful system of magic, with only one flaw to it. This flaw is conceptual and global one – all of his magic is meant for another reality, for another side of infinity, for second attention, however the ordinary, material, human life lacks magic. I don’t understand the followers of Castaneda. Knowing that god is only a template and that human life is just food for a giant eagle doesn’t strike me as very positive.
Sigmund Freud, Ron Hubbard and most of psychology (apart from Jung and other exceptional minds) are aimed at finding problems in the past, and the deeper it is hidden, the more important it is. Endless self scrutenings, self analysis, trainings and processings, seminars, maybe have positive impact, but this constant looking back is making the current moment, valuable now, seem less important.
Therefore what can we observe in truth seeking today? First concept is “Do whatever you please, it’s okay, you’re right”. The second is “Get away from reality as far as you can, preferably forever”. Third is “All problems lie in the past. Live it”. There is also more extreme options like “Renounce everything for the sake of your future afterlife”. Impressive? But how to live if not everything is well and you want to appreciate this moment in place in time? You can do yoga in search of enlightenment, but do you believe that elaborate poses will help?
Russian philosopher Chernyshevsky used to say “What to do?”. Where to run?
Overcoming crisis
We live in an artificial environment. Usually it is brick or concrete box with several floors, small compartment like rooms, in cities with bad roads and traffic jams. Often we live next to environmental pollutants, that poison us. We go by straight routes home-work-mall-home rarely going out to forget about the routine. We drink Earl Grey tea with chlorine. We smoke, and if not, breathe the fumes of cigarettes of other’s.
It is hard to believe, but this artificial environment is not suitable for life, it is alien. Hospital-kindergarden-school-college or university-job-job-job-job one more time and pension. Running in such a hurry. There is no time to even look up at the sky … By the way. You should try it sometime. Stop on the street and look into the night starry sky upon the infinity of space. You’ll feel more calm. Now look around you. Yes, someone also stops and wonders what is it that you see … But you do see?
It is good practice for a mage to look upon the sky, the trees, the Sun and the world around. It is wonderful! There the birds fly low, soon it’ll rain … And there is a rainbow, and its double! How cool is that? Go to the place where there’s nature, even to the zoo, or take a break and go fishing or cycle in the forest.
The second step is Awareness of Life. Take a seat in place pleasant for you and feel how the Universe is filled with life: feel the grass grow, the birds take flight, your breathing. It will take time to get used to, but it will bring joy and pleasure.
The third step is Awareness of the Universe. Experience the abyss of infinite time and space and yourself sitting there on the grass near your home. Do you see how people go in and out never looking around themselves … and you are almost a mage.
Be Aware of God. Not in space, in a bird or in abstract manner, but within. Look within in your very soul. And then try to look for God in others. Yes, every human carries a spark and everyone is a potential creator, but the difference is that you know about it and they don’t. Go and create! Magic and your life!
It seems i haven’t said anything revelational. Everyone knows it, but never does it. We’re all busy going in straight routes, living in concrete or brick boxes observing other boxes. From left and right you can choose up! The Magic of Life!