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

["Ravi Mohan" <magesmail@...>]

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