Thelema Every Day
I was listening to a Thelemic podcast recently and I heard a comment that I found surprising. It was that a lot of people join Thelemic organisations to escape real life and the judgment of others. This strikes me a rather unthelemic. Surely a Thelemite should be spending his or her energy on creating a life that they don't want to escape?
When I first discovered Thelema, I thought I'd found what every successful CEO was reading. I knew the values I had been taught in school hadn't equipped me to be successful. I was given the usual, 'follow-my-leader' and 'it's the taking part that counts' philosophy. So to find something so different, with so many possibilities, where the power to control your life is within you, was wonderful. I can see the comfort in blaming God/Fate/The Stars when things go wrong, but for me, Thelema is having the buck stop with me. Which is more than worth the knowledge that my possibilities are as endless as I make them.
Not everyone wants to be a CEO. Some people may prefer to be an artist or a really good parent. My point is, when I first found Thelema, I thought I'd found what most people, who excel at what they've devoted their life to, were using as a reference. Unfortunately, I've yet to see any evidence of that and the podcast seems to suggest that contrary may be true.
It can be difficult to understand one's true will, but leaving one's self in an unpleasant situation while working to understand that seems a strange choice. Not everyone can get themselves into a great situation, and that there are some things that stop life being wonderful, but I don't see how Thelema works as an escape from that. Is Thelema not telling you to go and look for other ways of resolving whatever is standing in the way of your will?
When I first discovered Thelema, I thought I'd found what every successful CEO was reading. I knew the values I had been taught in school hadn't equipped me to be successful. I was given the usual, 'follow-my-leader' and 'it's the taking part that counts' philosophy. So to find something so different, with so many possibilities, where the power to control your life is within you, was wonderful. I can see the comfort in blaming God/Fate/The Stars when things go wrong, but for me, Thelema is having the buck stop with me. Which is more than worth the knowledge that my possibilities are as endless as I make them.
Not everyone wants to be a CEO. Some people may prefer to be an artist or a really good parent. My point is, when I first found Thelema, I thought I'd found what most people, who excel at what they've devoted their life to, were using as a reference. Unfortunately, I've yet to see any evidence of that and the podcast seems to suggest that contrary may be true.
It can be difficult to understand one's true will, but leaving one's self in an unpleasant situation while working to understand that seems a strange choice. Not everyone can get themselves into a great situation, and that there are some things that stop life being wonderful, but I don't see how Thelema works as an escape from that. Is Thelema not telling you to go and look for other ways of resolving whatever is standing in the way of your will?
posted by the blog owner | 9:05 pm
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