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# Re: What does it mean to become noble concerning passions?

#### Message 03509 of 3835

- To: BardonPraxis@yahoogroups.com
- Subject: Re: What does it mean to become noble concerning passions?
- From: "Ravi Mohan" <magesmail@...>
- Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 07:49:07 -0000
- In-reply-to: <000d01c5001c$5c566fa0$2cb53542@ownerbqacdlzy6>
- User-agent: eGroups-EW/0.82

    Rawn,
    Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
    I have been thinking about my question a bit more deeply and in
    retrospect, i could have phrased the question more clearly.If ata
    nytime you feel i am belaoring a fairly obvious point , please feel
    free to say so.

    > Dear Ravi,
    >
    > One thing I was trying to get across in my last reply to Patrik is that
    > when we get down with our radical self-honesty to that voice of the
    > conscience which informs us of how *we* truly feel about something, we
    > are being informed by our Greater Self, through our Individual Self.
    > *That* voice is not colored by *personal* concerns even though it is
    > made relevant *to* our personal concerns as it is filtered by the
    > Individual Self. In other words, the level of Self that the quality and
    > depth of introspection we're talking about *here* reveals to our
    > *conscious awareness*, is not the level of Self at which the trappings
    > of egotistical self-interest exists or is manifest. Those things are
    > aspects of the *personality*.
    >
    > In the end, your question is moot since by definition some one who would
    > think that such actions and attitudes would be positive has not reached
    > down within themselves very deeply at all. They have not reached down
    > deeply enough to reveal their essential self.

    and
    > True balance "fits" into the culture into which the Individual has
    > incarnated, but the Equilibrium itself is not *dependent* upon the
    > culture.

    Fair Enough .If I hear you right what you are saying is that the real
    "inner voice" would *never* say "Kill" or "Dominate Others ".

    Underlying this there seems to be an assumption that there is a
    *Universal* system of values (and consequently "rights" and
    "wrongs"),irrespective of place ,time and situation.

    Now purely intelllectually I can understand such a vlue system but in
    a practial sense I feel this creates immense difficulties .

    a)the 'cultural difficulty' problem.
    I am an avid student of history.Consequently I am aware of how much of
    our "value system" is dependent on the cultural milieu in which we
    grow up.

    In the twentieth century western world war is a "dirty " business, to
    be avoided as much as possible.In many cultures however , war was an
    honorable and even necessary part of life . For example in the Mongol
    culture *every* able bodied man was drafted into the army and since
    there was an almost constant state of warfare , ranging from tribal
    skirmishes to massive invasions practically every man would find
    himself obliged to fight and kill .Assuming an individual in this or
    a similair culture would listen to a voice that said "do not kill" (or
    to generalise , "do (not do) X ", he would find himself at odds with
    his whole society and culture .
    Now if we assume that a Greater Self's voice would *always* say "Do
    not kill" we are forced to assume that of the millions of Mongol
    warriors(replace warriors with "men" because as I said,almost all men
    were warriors ) not *one* was/could be balanced ?To extend that
    thought further , is it right to say that an balanced person would
    always be a teacher/healer/doctor etc .. (professions we have
    *learned* to think of as positive and never a (wartime)
    soldier/politician/hunter/butcher (professions we have learned to
    think of as negative)?
    As yet another example , if my family or country were attacked and
    there was a weapon next to hand , i would pick it up and fight back,
    not because i liked killing and bloodshed but because it is "the right
    thing to do ". How would this fit in with "do not kill" ?

    b)the 'real world effectiveness' problem
    this is more a personal "mode of thought" issue. I have always been
    very suspicious of any school of thought that denied the reality of
    THIS world and focussed *exclusively* on the next . I can understand
    and appreciate a school of thought that says "there are more worlds
    than this and this world is not everything " but in *my* view this
    world is also real and is also one in which an aspirant ought to be
    effective in .
    In other words i have very little sympathy for the "fluffy bunny "
    philosophies of most schools of occultism and one of the most
    refreshing parts of bardonian hermetics is that it is refreshingly
    free of any fluffy philosophy and IIH at least is not tied to any
    particular creed or religion and it just lays out what needs to be
    done , with highly objective success criteria .so i would expect that
    a person who undertakes bardonian hermetics would become MORE
    effective, not less, at anything he chooses to do .Now this choice
    *may* be to withdraw from society but i would be very surprised if
    *every* single initiate did this .

    c)the "what do i do in practice" problem
    I think *in practice" at step one , one could probably not
    distinguish between the "Great Self"'s voice and what one normally
    thinks of as "conscience" even though the latter is probably heavily
    filtered through cultural norms of "right and wrong " . I was
    thinking about this last night and i came to the conclusion that if
    one does the maximum honest introspection they can , clarify as much
    as possible any cultural/social influences and decide what is "right"
    or "wrong" and then stick to the "right " and *also*(this is key)
    listen to how the Universe responds to that action and remain willing
    to change/ relook at one's decisions , that should be good enough .As
    long as there is a "feedback loop" built into "how the world works"
    this attitude ought to be sufficient.

    Thank you for indulging me . This exercise of writing down my thoughts
    has helped tremendously to clarify them and I thank the folks who
    responded , in particular Rawn wh as lways remains a source of gentle
    wisdom .

    Regds,
    Ravi

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