Current Lesson

What does “Do what thou wilt” mean?

Reference : “The Law Is For All” Written by Aleister Crowley and Edited by Isreal Regardie.

This seemed to me, to be a good place to begin our study; since it seems to be the major tenant of the Thelemic belief system.

I sifted through this work and have taken some notes I thought pertinent to our immediate discussion, and added some of my own thoughts about the current discussion topic:

Reference pg. 97-98 “Do what thou wilt” is not a literal license to do whatever you want..

As in all law, there are limits that we must operate under.

The phrase, “Love is the law, Love under will” set these limits.

Vs. 41 Liber AL “The word of sin is restriction”Anything that hinders, binds or diverts us from doing our will, is sin. So also, to interfere with the will of another is “The Great Sin”I think this statement says that any action we take.. out of malice, to hinder or harm another, not only diverts them from their natural coarse but ultimately diverts us also. And does nothing, but cause pain and sorrow for all concerned.

This law, “Do what thou wilt” simply stated means that we must follow our own coarse, and our own inherent nature.

Reference pg. 102 When our thoughts and actions are in harmony, we are then, “Doing what thou wilt.”

Vs.43 Liber AL “Do that and no other shall say nay”   The power of our will is so great, that by asserting our rights as free people with purpose, and acting according to our own individual coarse, our own nature, that will, would not go challenged for long.

I am not sure I agree with the above statement fully. We are all faced with challenge each day, to choose between our own nature and the many diversities of this universe. Hopefully, we learn from these daily challenges and press on despite them.

By asserting our will, our right, we appeal to The Law.

vs. 44 Liber AL “For pure will unassuaged of purpose delivered from the lust of result is in every way perfect.”                                                                                These two verses, define pure will as the true expression of our own nature.

The comment on this word (unassuaged) says something like…not to be dulled or blunted.

I take this to mean.. as I have read elsewhere, That our thoughts and actions must be one pointed and with the same purpose.

This is not to say that the journey will always be easy or care free. We are always challenged with diversity and the strong opinions of others. We are all entitled to our own thoughts, and opinions; but ultimately we must decide for our selves what is for the best good; what is our Will; and act accordingly.

Reference: Sylvia Brown's If You Could See What I See....tenent vii                                                                     Know that each life is a path winding toward perfection. It is the step after step that is hard, not the whole of the journey.

Reference pg. 103                                                             People who are ready to defend their right, to do and be what they will, are respected and left alone.

While on the contrary, the slave spirit invites oppression.

And oppression comes easy when our thoughts and actions are in conflict.

For instance; when you know good and well what is right, and then do the contrary; you invite conflict.

When our thoughts are divided between duty and our own nature, we have not found balance, and this is the beginning of conflict.

For instance; when you have loved ones who depend on you; You must balance between responsibility to them and the things that separate you from them.

The pure student is not concerned with lust of result. He is concerned with the task at hand; his own journey of self awareness, self expression, and discovering the universe around him. His purpose is one pointed.

Each of us must follow our own coarse.

To seek to swerve our coarse is to interfere with another.

Reference Pg. 167                                                             Sorrow appears as the result of any unsuccessful, ill judged struggle.

Acquiescence in the order of nature is the ultimate wisdom.

Again, we must live according to our own nature or suffer.

Reference Pg.176                                                                   The sole test of one’s Lordship is to know what our true will is, and to do it.

Beauty and strength, come from doing one’s will.

Reference Pg.198-215                                                           We must become aware of our true selves.

If we give up our own authority as absolute individuals, we are liable to submit to the laws of others, and feel ourselves as puppets and suffer the agonies of impotence.

Vs. 42 Liber AL                                                                       “Let it be that state of manyhood bound and loathing. So with thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy will.”The process of self analysis involves certain risks.

vs. 46 Liber AL                                                                      “Dost thou fail? Art thou sorry? Is fear in thine heart?”

Reference pg 214                                                           When you have the right understanding of the universe, and know yourself free, immortal, boundless, infinite force and fire; then may you will and dare.

For fear, sorrow and failure will be but shadows.

You must chase away the shadows with lightening and fire.

Fire is, “Do what thou wilt!”

To summarize this lesson, as I understand it;

The premise of “ Do what thou wilt” is to do and act. It does not mean to sit still waiting for the universe to come around and be what we think it should be.

If we desire a certain outcome we must act in a way that will produce the outcome we desire.

We all, weather we recognize it or not are connected, and so, our thoughts and actions have an effect on everything, and every one.

We can easily visualize the ripple effect of tossing a pebble into a pool water. The most obvious changes occur near where the pebble made it’s splash down. The ripple effect continues to move outward effecting the movement of the water farther and farther out.

And so it goes in life, that same ripple effect our actions have on the people around us and in the universe as a whole, reaching father and farther outward."So with thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy will.”

and "For pure will unassuaged of purpose delivered from the lust of result is in every way perfect.”I take these two phrases to mean, that if we are following our will, we are doing what comes naturally to us. We have passion about the doing and are driven by this passion. We may not ever see the result of our actions in this life time, but we can have a certain confidence that these passionate efforts have had a rippling effect that continues to move outward.

Martin Luther King, for an example, was passionate about what he believed. And although he did not live to see the result of his efforts fully recognized, he has non the less had a profound effect on the world today.

We must act in order of our own nature, for the best good. “Love under will”

We are all servants of life, and we serve life best when we know what our Will is. Our task is to discover what our Will is, so that we may do it.

This requires specific Action.

If you want friendship, you must learn how to be a friend, and act like a friend.

If you want love, you must qualify yourself for this experience.

If you want to win the lottery you must buy a ticket.

Aleister Crowley tells us that when we do and act contrary to our own True Will, there will be obstacles, and when we are truly following our Will, we are on our appointed path, as a star in the heavens, without interference, and in every way perfect. He also tells us that our Will must have Purpose.

TUNE IN TO YOURSELF                                                  Each time we ignore our inner voice, we shrink a little inside ourselves. And the more we second guess that voice, the more we fear that if we rise up to our full height and declare our truth, we'll be rejected, reviled, abandoned, unloved. But the opposite is true .

The good news is our trust muscle can be built  up; we just need to tap into our inner wisdom. Each day offers a thousand opportunities for us to practice. As with building—and maintaining—any muscle, repetition is the key. The more you trust yourself, the stronger and more confident you will become.

What interest, passion or desire are you most afraid of admitting to yourself and others?

What do you love about yourself? What do you dislike about yourself?

How could you make the world a better place for yourself and others?

What's stopping you from moving forward with exploring your passion?

It’s fine to ask what we want for our self ; A more powerful question would be, “What does life want from me?”

Tolle says, The answer may not immediately come. A very important part of asking life so that you can be ready to receive the answer is to practice inviting moments of stillness into your life so that you're not continuously absorbed in the incessant mental noise that we call thinking. Most of which is unnecessary and repetitive. Many people are so trapped in continuous mental noise that absorbs their whole attention all the time. Every thought absorbs the stream of thinking. They don't see that the world around them is vitally alive.

My dictionary defines the word postulate as; 1. To assume without proof as self evident 2. To assume the truth of, esp as a basis for reasoning or arguing

The magick of True Will heads you in the right direction. It regulates the exercise of all your powers. It brings your life into harmony with the universal order. It prepares you for success, because the literal meaning of success is, getting things and events to follow one another in the correct sequence.

The most important concept in occultism , and Thelema, is Know Thyself. Eliphas Levi says that, "Only as we become evermore aware of this instant can we begin to see how our mental-emotional life of yesterday has fashioned today."

The present moment is the point of power to enter the state of consciousness. So we need to lean how to find it in our daily life, as often as possible. Because if we don't, we get continuously dragged along by the old conditioning of the mind, all the old thought processes, and all the old reactions.

No matter how good your intentions are, when you're trapped in the ego, it will always take you into conflict eventually.

"Spiritual enlightenment" is a final goal for all. But, unless we learn how to bring our Will under more conscious self direction, we are not qualifying ourselves for this experience. We must learn how to live and act in the here and now. To do it correctly, we must decide on something for which and toward which we can begin to act.

Finding a place of stillness is vital if you want to get to the place where the answers are potentially. A good way to do this is to observe nature. Allow yourself to be still with a flower, or a crystal, or a bird, or really anything of nature. Be there fully present.

Sense the majesty, power, and strength, nature represents. Sense your connection within nature and the universe.

These flowers are not anxious, they are not concerned about tomorrow, see how beautiful they are? You can live like that also.

The welfare of humanity as a whole depends on the wellbeing of each individual of our social order. There is a ripple effect. Our state of being, our actions and words effects others.

When you are happy, your daily living will add to the totality of human effectiveness and fulfillment. True health is contagious. When you express it, your mere presence will heal. A free, cheerful spirit showers blessings on all who enter it’s presence. Be full of joy and you will make your neighbor happy also.

Failure only occurs when we stop trying. Every time we fail we learn something. This is how we refine the process of success. If you don’t believe this, just watch as a toddler learns to walk. At first he will cling to walls, furniture, and nearby loved ones. Soon he finds his balance and is off to the races, sort of speak.