tsuki

Hey, I'm not saying that the books are right because they are books. It is all my experience too, I just use the knowledge to systematize this. Some things are beautiful because they are raw, and some are beautiful because they are symmetrical. Alchemy is something that shows the underlying symmetry of how the world works. It's the symmetry of the raw. I brought Pythagoreans up because they use the pentacle to show what you are saying. The original 4 elements are within the square of opposition (it is counterclockwise here): Earth, Water, Air, Fire. The fifth element, here called Spirit, is above, connected to all of the rest elements. It is not really a pentacle, it is a pyramid. In the original image, Spirit is the observer, the one that reads the image. I think that the fifth element is best left outside of the picture because it is mystical, esoteric. It is equally made of Fire and Water, as it is made of Earth and Air. It symbolizes the ascent, increase in dimensionality, the Quintessence, reconciliation of the opposites in harmony.

@now is forever Does the picture show the canonical order of elements in Ayurveda? Pythagoreans also had a five-element system, but I find the four-element one to be more appropriate. Aether is subtle and it is perfect for it to be left undefined, as an upward movement through the spiral of creation. When it comes to the Earth element, here are a few links if you want to chew on it some more: http://opsopaus.com/OM/BA/AGEDE/Earth.html https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hera

Those are some impressive muscles. Really creative way of showing how they interact.

My muscles are wonderfully sore today. It feels good to do nothing, but I'm gonna stretch. I need to study the general outline of what muscles I have.

The difference between Maximus and Commodus is not that one gave in to emotions and the other controlled them. The difference is that Maximus is internally firm and integrated, while Commodus needs external validation from women and the crowd to feel empowered. Maximus is a complete man that seeks no trouble. He protects his home for the best of his abilities, and his abilities are great. He is a general that leads armies of Marcus Aurelius. When his family dies, he does not 'give in' to grief because there is no point to withhold it. He gives in, because he is overwhelmed. He knows that he has no reason to live, but he continues because he is furious. His wounded animal does not let him kill himself because it seeks blood. This is what is right. Commodus on the other hand is blind to his wounded emotions and tires to act like a man. He is wounded because of his busy father's neglect and is pressured to act because of expectations that are placed upon him. He yearns for his father's approval, women's approval, crowd's approval. He unconsciously tries to rule the same way he sees others have control over him. Through fear, manipulation and intimidation. Through emotional wounding. He does not see that he spreads his incompleteness like cancer and in doing so, makes the state unstable, paranoid. He tries to distract it with violent games, but it only hastens his demise. A perfected mind does not know what to think. It is able to hold any thought, no matter how cruel, blasphemous or revolting it is. The mind does not discern what is right or wrong. Emotions do. A man is a mediator between what he feels and what he thinks. Thoughts are the raw material that he uses to create. This is why Maximus always knew what to do and this is why the crowd and his armies loved him. There are moments when the animal nature takes over and this is when a man knows that something is important. Sometimes, what's important is tending to the frightened animal's wounds but a mind cannot know that. Maximus knew that his fury is right because he was hurt unjustly. There is no reason in the world to kill a man's family out of revenge. That is a sign of weakness and the state that has been entrusted to him cannot have a weak ruler. His fury is righteous. Stoics are not bloodless husks that feel nothing. They only feel what's necessary and wise. This is why Marcus Aurelius chose Maximus over his son (at least in the movie).

Don't worry, time is tricky. Confusion is just a clever way of saying that you're exploring the territory until you get the hang of it. You cannot fight your way into presence, the only way is to relax into it. The mind needs to become like water, accept everything, retain nothing. The primary error you seem to be making is that you cannot do anything in order to be present. You cannot plan the steps, or start a practice. That is because any intent puts you in the future and that is exactly the opposite of what you're trying to do. You cannot still a pond with a stick. One thing that stills the mind is simply giving up on life. It does not mean to throw it away and kill yourself, or be miserable, it just means that you accept wherever the tide takes you. You treat every day, every pain as a lesson and change in response, harmoniously. Find solace in death, treat it as a friend. It does not matter why a mind is wired to seek future. It is enough that it does and you don't want it that way. You need a why only if you have a plan to do something and that does not help with presence.

No, I actually look completely ridiculous dressed up like that all the time. It's preference.

It is impossible to create rules for solving conflicts of perspectives. That is because: Rules can only be enforced through conflict Rules are perspective-dependent I imagine that your true underlying assumption that creates such a disturbance is that a guru, or a student are somehow different and that teaching is one-directional. You don't need to prove anything to anybody. What you experience is nobody's business, even if you fly to work every morning.

My hoodie. I only have one because I don't sport sportswear. I need it occasionally, just for exercise. Actually I share it with my wife . I prefer when you draw them spontaneously, without asking me. If I wanted to divine, I have my I-Ching.

I just came up with a way to describe Alchemy in terms of itself. There are four factors in the process: Earth: The Stone Water: Logic Air: The Creator Fire: Creativity The Stone is the subject matter of the process. For a mason, it is a gross stone. For a painter, it is the canvas and paint. For a writer, it is a story. For a programmer it is code. Its primary characteristic is that it is Dry. It has a firm structure that does not yield easily so it requires effort to conquer. It is resistant, but loyal and therefore, stable. Secondarily, it is Cold. It has a tendency to absorb into itself and does not mix easily. Logic is the relative interconnectedness of things. It is like Water, because it is Cold and Moist. Coldness of Water comes from its ability to absorb things. To make something out of stuff that is of different kinds. With Water, you can make a soup from vegetables. It makes fish, grass, trees and stone into a lake. Water in itself, however is nothing. It is Moist and it has no substance of its own. It is relative, it can only form connections, dilute, but there has to be something that needs to be connected. You can mix various kinds of water together and you still get water. You can combine Earth and Water through the principle of Salt. The end result is the Primal Mud. If you take a small rock and throw it into a pond, it goes "splush". You won't be able to find it. If you take a glass of lemonade and splush it on someone's face, he's still there and Water is gone. You need the right combination of Logic and Stone to form Soma. The Mud needs to be sticky, but firm. The last element is Fire, the Creativity. It is Hot and Dry, for it is discerning and obeys its own rules. The Fire is Hot. It separates the undifferentiated Mud into various kinds. It is also Dry. It is uncontrollable. It comes on its own and obeys its own rules. Flame destroys and creates. It does so by taking something and making it different. If you give it a piece of paper, it is no longer a piece of paper. It turns it to ash and it will burn it until it's done. It is difficult to spark a flame, but once it happens, it will spread on its own. There is no such thing as Fire without something burning. Fire is subtle, but there is Sulfur, inspiration. The Mud on its own will not burn and if it will, it will turn it to ash. There is also the third element, Air. The Creator is Air, for s/he is the Mediator. S/he is Moist, and Hot. Moisture is flexibility. It is the possibility to adapt, to yield effortlessly. This is how The Creator is similar to Water, but unlike Water, s/he is Hot. Hotness, on the other hand is how s/he is similar to Fire, but s/he is Hot only secondarily. S/he is also Moist. Therefore, The Creator is the Messenger that is Moist to Fire and Hot to Water. S/he yields to the Creative, and discerns from the Primal Mud. If the process gets out of hand, the Creator has the possibility to reverse the flow, to yield to Water and cool the Fire. S/he is the Mercurial principle, the activity of reconciling the irreconcilable. The creation comes from selective, directionless, destruction. This destruction is not random. The Creator is the Air, invisible, directionless. It moves, but there is no mover. It reveals by dropping the curtain. It goes, Earth > Water > Air > Fire > Earth > Water > Air > Fire > ... Stone > Logic > Creator > Creativity > Stone > Logic > Creator > Creativity > ... Each cycle turns the Stone closer to the Philosopher's stone. Logical Creativity, the Stone that is the Creator.

@Codrina Sorry, but I can't seem to see what is your problem. Can you please state it clearly? Is it about the fact that you snapped in February? Or is it about the fact that you feel lonely?

@Zigzag Idiot

You cannot experience death. Death is like a dream you never had, a memory that you forgot. After the physical body dies lies exactly the same thing that was before it was born. While you are looking for answers, your precious existence is chipped away. Second, by second. Tic tock tick tock tick tock tick tock... Why look over there, what lies beyond, if you're gonna find out eventually anyways? This thing, all of it, is only once and just for you. Stop wasting it and wake up.

My blouse did not dry up, so I couldn't go running. Instead, I did alternating series of pushups, situps and crunches until my muscles gave in. Tomorrow is going to be so much fun .

From a gross point of view - yes, it is disempowering for men to yearn for a woman that much. On a more subtle level though, it is precisely the point. The masculine fantasy is to have so much power that you can give it off freely. Strip clubs are a monstrosity not because they are disempowering for anybody. It is because it is a place where men that dedicate their lives for amassing power meet with women that dedicate their lives to be perfectly deceitful. Yes, men are in power because they have money and status, and yes - they are disempowered because of their animal instincts. It is, however symmetrical for women. They have the power over the animal instinct, but they are powerless because of lack of money and opportunities. Frankly, I find strip clubs beautiful in a grotesque way.

http://opsopaus.com/OM/BA/JO-TEP.html http://opsopaus.com/OM/BA/PP/index.html http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeVI/Dao.htm

@now is forever You're right. Do you have any good resources (preferably online) to study Ayurveda?

You're hearing only one side of the story. Alchemy is not about being mechanical. It's about how dichotomies such as mechanical/creative are harmonious. How something can be both and neither at the same time. It's about transcendence. How Water (Persephone) and Fire (Hades), or Air (Zeus) and Earth (Hera) can be a marriage. Ayurveda is a three-element structure, it has no dichotomies. It's more like body-soul-spirit. There are no opposites in a triangle, there is only a cycle.

In relation to my previous post: http://opsopaus.com/OM/BA/RE.html

My wife asked me today what do I get out of studying alchemy. She was surprised that I suddenly became interested in the Humanities. I was just thinking about how would I rationally explain this, and here's what I told her. The quest of science is to see the connections between entities and express them in precise, verifiable theories. The point of these theories is simple - once you identify the entities that are described, you can solve problems mechanically, without creative thought. Creative thought, on the other hand is vague and open. When you're trying to express something, there is always this vast, nauseating feeling of directionlessness. Even if you interpret art, the code is always messy, convoluted and incomplete. Broken. You can always tell when a piece of art wants to say something, it draws you in, but it is not always clear what the message is. You have to contemplate it and relate it to yourself. Alchemy is a marriage of the two. It uses mathematics to show relationships between entities. These entities, however, are ambiguous symbols that can be fit in various places to show hidden connections, or establish new ones. One gets science out of Alchemy by pretending that entites are not symbolic, ambiguous. One gets art, when the structure is too loose, or nonexistent. The point of studying Alchemy is, of course, the Philosopher's stone: mechanical creativity.

Yes, exactly. The alchemical process is only convergent. It never arrives at its goal. The closest one can get is to see the strangeloop, that there is no middle Matryoshka. The next step is the Void, but that cannot be seen.

Of course we can forget it. I'm not mad at you, I just thought that you need some time and space. These two always come free with me. It was not a disc prolapse. I probably constricted an artery that supplies brain with oxygen while stretching my neck. I got a series of stretch exercises from the physiotherapist and they work wonders. Even my morning neck/head ache is almost gone. For now I'm studying a lot as you can see, so I probably won't have much to say about current affairs. I would like to keep this particular journal focused on chaos magic study/practice. I think I will start a parallel one as a pensieve. You're invited, obviously.

When it comes to my recent practices, I stopped flamegazing for a while and a few short sessions arose spontaneously. Yesterday I had a two sittings in a dragon posture in front of a mirror, eyegazing. I completely misunderstood the posture, according to this video. I was stilling myself in response to pain instead of channeling it to fuel my passion. Two days ago I had a spontaneous eyegazing session with my wife. It was very peaceful for me. She said that she altered between perceiving my smile and confusion. I couldn't help but notice that she blinks A LOT. She's like a butterfly. It connected with what I heard that the eye movements and blinking are related to intensity of brain activity. In both cases (Dragon posture and eyegazing), I was entering the colorless (white=black) space very rapidly.

As I'm rehersing the elements, I still have a hard time seeing Water for what it is, but I guess that is perfect. It finally clicked with me what are the three alchemical principles, their relationship with the elements and with the Quintessence. Basically, it goes like this: Salt is the principle that connects Earth with Water to form the Primal Mud. It corresponds with the gross body and it is not alive on its own. It is Soma. Sulfur is the principle of Fire. It is distinct from Fire itself in that it symbolizes the incarnation of it, the "Fire body", the Soul. It is the intelligence, intellect, intuition, the creative and also the discursive thought. It is the Higher Mind. Mercury is the the principle of Air. It is the Spirit, the messenger between the inreconcilable: Soma and Soul. It is the incarnation of that, which is Hot like Fire, but Moist like Water. It is flexible, yet separating. It is the indirect connection between Fire and Earth that closes the cycle. The Quintessence, Gold, is the embodiment of contradiction. It is Fiery (color) but Cold, Dry (rigid), but Moist (Flexible, Fusable). It is at the same time: the alchemical laboratory, the Alchemist and the Philosopher's Stone. On the square of opposition it corresponds with the increase in dimensionality. It is the incarnation of the tripartite human nature, us, nonduality. From here, I could return to the Alphabet of Desire and try to explicate some of the hidden connections.

Huh, someone deleted their journal again... Fickle little creature .