Friday, July 24, 2009

Know Thyself - Nothing is outside that is not in you.



"Dreamtime" is the name given by the Australian Aborigines to describe a period that is often referred to as the 'time before time'. I have dreamed about this primeval dimension of existence - a swirling compressed sea of infinite thought forms - that are in no way restricted or measured by the confines of our space-time perceptions of reality.

It is the period of time when thought forms animating energy emerged out of the primeval, prephysical forms that were the patterns for later developments. Because the Aborigines used no writing, their amazingly accurate insights into the operation of nature were transmitted orally through myths. They envisaged creation as an ongoing process not limited to a one-time event that occurred long ago. They had no words for past or future, but thought only of an ever-present now. What we conceive as evolution, they thought of as fresh unfoldments of faculties emerging out of dormancy within all beings. They viewed all the inhabitants of our planet as linked together in the vast chain of entities that comprise the globe.

Excerpt Out of the Dreamtime
By I. M. Oderberg


All humans share certain innate unconscious psychological forces, which are called archetypes. These universal archetypes express themselves in the similarities between the myths of different cultures around the world. I believe it is through these Archetypes God has structured both the cosmos and the human mind - they are the foundation and building blocks of creation and the constituents of human character.

ANANKE (or Anance) was the Protogenos (primeval goddess) of inevitability, compulsion and NECESSITY. She emerged from the primeval ocean ( Dreamtime ) self-formed at the very beginning of time--an incorporeal, serpentine being whose outstretched arms encompassed the breadth of the universe. From the time she first appeared Ananke was entwined in the serpentine coils of her mate, the time-god Khronos. Together they surrounded the primal egg of solid matter in their constricting coils and split it into its constituent parts (earth, heaven and sea) and so brought about the creation of the ordered universe.

Ananke and Khronos remained entwined as the cosmic-circling forces of fate and time--driving the rotation of the heavens and the neverending passage of time. They were far beyond the reach of the younger gods whose fates they were sometimes said to control.




In Athens, Aphrodite or Urania was also known as "the oldest of the Fates." She was the Goddess of DESIRE who rose naked from Chaos and danced on the surface of the sea. ( All things are born or manifest from the SEED OF DESIRE / NECESSITY - which are both precursors to evolution. )

1 . ( Hunger )--------( Necessity / Needs )--- ( Feeling )
2 . ( Food )----------( Desire ) -----------------( Emotion )
3 . ( Plan )---------- ( Thought ) --------------( Intellect )
4 . ( Action )------- ( Action )------------------( Physical )

Everything in life is driven by these four functions. For example during The Silurian period, some plants and animals left the water and colonized the land for the first time - probably the result of competition in the marine ecosystems, escaping predators and the availability of new land-based environments ( NECESSITY ) living on land would of required new strategies for survival, such as obtaining nutrients and water, avoiding desiccation, and reproduction. In 2006, a team of scientists unveiled the discovery of Tiktaalik roseae, a fossil fish unearthed in the Canadian Arctic , the new fossil boasts leglike fins. The creature is being hailed as a crucial missing link between fish and land animals—including the prehistoric ancestors of humans. Researchers say the fish shows how fins on freshwater species first began transforming into limbs some 380 million years ago - It likely used its fins to prop its body, much like we do when we do a push-up. The change was a huge evolutionary step that opened the way for vertebrates—animals with backbones—to emerge from the water.

Necessity and Desire are the CATALYSTS for change and metamorphisis - the seeds of creation are always self - perpetuating.



It was pointed out to me recently that all living creatures are a slave to neccessity - I found this thought extremely depressing. Ananke is a powerful deity that rules compulsion, restraint, and presides over all forms of slavery and bonds, starting with the basic necessities of life.

In life there is little difference between prisoner and warden, or between slave and master, since Ananke's bond appears to tie them both. This is why Hephaestus, while chaining Prometheus 1, complained before Cratos (Power):

Hephaestus: Oh handicraft that I hate so much!
Cratos: Why hate it? Since in truth your craft is in no way to blame for these present troubles.
Hephaestus: Nevertheless, I wish it had fallen to another's lot!
Cratos: Every job is troublesome except to be the commander of gods; no one is free except Zeus.
Hephaestus: I know it by this task; I cannot deny it. (Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 45ff.).



So now I find myself pondering life ? Is this what all my dreams and hopes are reduced too ? Is this why some regard the body as 'the prison of the soul', because it is bound to its own functions and needs, which inevitably lead to want and later death ? At this point I feel my soul descending into a great abyss of despair - a world dark and devoid of all hope but not for long :) Thank God for my eternally optimistic spirit and an imagination that allows me to soar high above the lower echelons of thought and negativity :) in the realisation that if we are aligned with spirit we are working towards one common goal - instead of trying to swim against the current we are actually swimming with it - this is our Soul intended purpose - our destiny.

"If a man endeavours to ... persuade himself to accept of his own accord what needs must befall him, he will have a very reasonable and harmonious life." (Arrian's discourses of Epictetus, Fragment 8).


A similar thought occurred to rebellious Prometheus 1 when he was chained in Caucasus:

"I must bear my allotted doom as lightly as I can, knowing that the might of Necessity permits no resistance." (Prometheus 1. Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 104).


Real freedom can only be conquered within:

"For what purpose, then, did I receive these gifts?"
"To use them."
"How long?"
"For as long as He who lent them to you wills."
"But what if they are necessary to me?"
"Do not set your heart upon them, and they will not be necessary to you. Do not say to yourself that they are necessary, and they will not be." (Epictetus 4.1.110).



Victor Frankl, in speaking of his experiences in the concentration camps, even said that he learned the great lesson that while the Nazis could control his body they had no control over his mind, and as such his fate, in an important sense, remained within his own hands.(48) The wisdom of Chochmah is not, of course, to be complacent in the face of evil, but rather to recognize how much control our own psyche affords us in relation to the major and minor calamities that befall us, and to exercise control over the interpretations we place upon the events in our lives.


BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND ALL THAT YOU ARE.
KNOW THAT THERE IS SOMETHING INSIDE YOU
THAT IS FAR GREATER THAN ANY OBSTACLE.

7 comments:

  1. Hey just saw this, will come back and have a read tomorrow am!

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  2. Sounds like you have been thinking deeply! I like the way you move in and out of myth. I haven't studied the old archetypes in ages. Did you actually perceive Dreamtime? I would imagine one would have to be in OZ to do so, but I would love to enter that experience through their 'eye' or large fabric.

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  3. Yes my thoughts were coming from a deep place -a debate I got embroiled in which ran very much along the lines of a discussion we both had sometime ago about patriarchal societies and thought patterns. I was watching a documentary sometime back on evolution and the Ichthyostega which got me wondering what the " catalyst / spark " is that ignites change. As we both know " catalysts " for change can occur on a much smaller scale ( on an individual level ) in the present tense but I wonder if on a more subtle level we invoke changes that do not affect us directly but affect future generations ?

    In my dream I moved through a sea of images which I perceived to be thoughts ( ghostlike forms )and as I passed through each thought form I felt and sensed emotions - anger - love - curiosity . It was like a wellspring

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  4. Hey Destiny, 'slave to necessity' is only depressing to us because all of our necessities come wrapped in cellophane in a supermarket and we thus have no skills for the real world. Have you ever seen the flick Himalaya? It's fantastic. All the actions by the people in that flick are driven by 'survival' and yet this merely translates as 'that which must be done'. Or that's what I reckon anyway. And no one was depressed, or fearful, or any other thing. I wrote a thing on it if you're interested.

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  5. "I wonder if on a more subtle level we invoke changes that do not affect us directly but affect future generations?"

    Of course, don't you think this is partly what our beloved artists, authors and musicians of the past did in creating? Where would we be without the energy they put into form? I know I think differently because of them.

    Nice description of 'dreamtime' I imagine that place is locked into the land and all the paths are there. Are there places in OZ that actually are stronger dreaming places? I know this is the case in the SW of America, for example as I have experienced it.

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  6. To Nobody - I will definitely have to try and get my hands on that movie the review was wonderful - you have definitely piqued my interest - I really love inspirational movies like that. With regards to my depression I know it sounds ridiculous and extremely naive but I have never ever viewed life in the context of being a " slave " until it was pointed out to me lol I suppose its all about perspective ? I am an escapist by nature - I always have been - so even when I find myself doing something I really don't enjoy - I just imagine the negativity away ;) Seen in the right light I don't mind being a " slave to necessity " because at the end of the day I think that is exactly what each and everyone of us " Signed up for " our SOUL purpose is to experience life in its entirety.

    "All the actions by the people in that flick are driven by 'survival' and yet this merely translates as 'that which must be done'."

    I loved that and I absolutely agree with you 100 percent we do what we have to.

    String : The aborigines definitely believe some places are more sacred than others. They also talk about songlines or dreaming tracks which I think work on the same principle as ley lines. The Aborigines used to call the area I live in - a " meeting place " and ironically that is exactly what it has become.

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  7. Thanks you two for popping in to the cinema. And yeah, it's a flick worth catching. The ending is heart breakingly beautiful.

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