Difference between will and desire?

[Menxeperset]

Hi lgdvl73
I have read several blurbs lately that hint at the importance of discovering one's True Will, but I was wondering if you can point me to a resource where I can read more in-depth about this concept. Thanks in advance.

Mxs delivers. You are welcome in advance.
http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/True_Will

Thank you...the problem I have with his view, is that if you follow it through to logical conclusion, there is no point in performing a magickal act, as unless your spell conforms to his meaning of true will, it will not work, as it is not your true destiny?....think about what he has said...of course, just me personal view.
K

Well, yes, there may be a deterministic component to this. However, recall Crowley's definition of magic as causing change in accordance with will (here "will" = desire as opposed to "True Will"). For him, everything is magical--every change, whether by virtue of a physical or metaphysical process, is in accordance with will. Whether "will" is in line with "True Will" is another thing altogether.

Rodney Orpheus does a good job of explaining this distinction here: http://books.google.com/books?id=87yNgPJaBscC&dq=%22rodney+orpheus%22&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=V645EP-hXq&sig=x8kXDX2LPZx6dOP8BzqN4d2CfaY&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

[IronOrchid]

Thank you...the problem I have with his view, is that if you follow it through to logical conclusion, there is no point in performing a magickal act, as unless your spell conforms to his meaning of true will, it will not work, as it is not your true destiny?....

But that would explain why so many people don't succeed in winning the lottery on their first endeavour, because to do so would utterly derail their lives a lot of the time.

Most spiritual beings are happy to deliver 24/7 on requests for enlightenment, knowledge, and guidance, but it's rarer for people to get everything material they ask for, especially where they want something that could potentially harm them, eg multi-million lottery wins that would turn them into raging ego-maniacs. I am as stated not against people working for material things, by the way. As a general rule if I work towards acquiring some new ritual object important in my work, I get it at a fairly early point: this would not be so true if I was after finding a bag stuffed with gold coins, even though magickally, there shouldn't be any difference between the two since the spirit world doesn't revolve around monetary value.

JMO.

Also agree with Mxs post above.

IOx

[oldpainless777]

Thank you all....I truly am in good company.

I guess, my issue is, that an act of magick, by it's very definition, is an act of defiance of this balance, e.g., a person/soul etc, wanting to effect a change (mental/physical/spiritual)....so, it seems to me, that our of act/will...is to break through these barriers?

The reason for all of my questions, is this - if you can manifest £10, you can, in theory manifest £100million, if you can move a feather, you can move a world.......and yet....something stands in the way - is not the true goal of an adept to be rid of all barriers?

K

[IronOrchid]

I guess, my issue is, that an act of magick, by it's very definition, is an act of defiance of this balance, e.g., a person/soul etc, wanting to effect a change (mental/physical/spiritual)....

Very true - although actually everything from building a house to a doctor saving a patient's life, is an act of changing reality from the course it would have taken. Even animals do it - beavers dam rivers, wasps make nests. Every living being tries to change external reality to further its own goals.

is not the true goal of an adept to be rid of all barriers?

That's why self-mastery and self-knowledge can be valuable - if you're someone who won't lose the plot from getting that £10m, then you're a lot more likely to remove restrictions (be they imposed or self-created) and actually succeed. There's a very real fear of success in most people, and I don't mean just magickally but in their careers, even their love lives, and that kind of junk needs to be cleared out, or at least acknowledged, first.

Again JMO and I come from a background of studying personal development, psychology, positive thinking, NLP and all that stuff, aside from magick, so it very much informs my worldview. I don't believe those are the only ways to Know Thyself, but I do think it's important to find ones that work for you.

The greatest enemy most people face is themselves, because to every event that impinges on our lives there are two levels - the actual event, which we may not be able to always control, and what we make it mean - about us or the nature of the world. That's the part we CAN control, and if we don't nake the effort then it usually comes from unexamined assumptions we hold: eg in the case of lottery winners, we've all seen the stories of people for whom the win ruined their lives, because they started out from a very bad place and with the money at their disposal, plus the changes it created in their relationships, went completely off the rails.

Delving into True Will and occult levels like astrology (with one's birth chart and so on) is a means of knowing and mastering those tendencies which would otherwise trip us up.

If you discovered your True Will is to, say, heal people (to take an inoffensive example) you'd be better off working magickally to be the highest paid medic in the country, maybe asking the spirits for new techniques, hidden knowledge and so on, than trying to manifest a bag full of diamonds that might mean you never do a day's work again - thus thwarting effective operation of your own Will on the world.

IOx

[Menxeperset]

If you discovered your True Will is to, say, heal people (to take an inoffensive example) you'd be better off working magickally to be the highest paid medic in the country, maybe asking the spirits for new techniques, hidden knowledge and so on, than trying to manifest a bag full of diamonds that might mean you never do a day's work again - thus thwarting effective operation of your own Will on the world.
IOx

I have found this to be very true in my life. Often, I have blessed my magical "failures," recognizing that, in my ignorance and blindness, I could not see what was best. A failure in this sense is ultimately a benefit, a gift from Self to self. Or, if you prefer, a clearer realization of True WIll.

Mxs

[lgdvl73]

Just to add more to the discussion, I think it is important to point out that making logical conclusions about the implications of the concept of True Will is an absurdity at best. It is categorically beyond logical comprehension and definition. Its like trying to fit the ocean into a box ... the ocean is huge. When dealing with transcendentalism or Gnosis of any kind, you can't ever try to wrap cognitive understandings around it.

You may even come to strong conclusions about your deepest purpose, and what it means to be offering your deepest hearts gifts to the world. This is NOT, I repeat, NOT True Will. It can be an extremely correct deduction that sets you off in 'The Way' of your True Will, but you can never, and I mean never, understand your True Will, Your Deepest Purpose, or Your Destiny in your mind.

To try and wrap logical conclusions around the concept is to literally miss the point altogether.

As far as an act of Magick defying the balance of the universe ... this is quite literally impossible. There are really only two types of acts SOEVER, and both have the same ultimate result. There is acting like a machine that was born and brought up by Nature, and there is nothing wrong with this because Nature is participating in a Magick of her own, and following out her True Will (and this isn't nature as biological earth life, but rather the Universal Nature of all things). So in a sense, following desire and egoic will is fine, and no one can tell you a damn about it, and it is quite possible that your True Will IS to follow your base desires, etc.

The other kind of Act simply compresses Natures own movement, by becoming free of the stumblings, trappings, and ignorance of desire and lusting after fruits. It doesn't mean you stop having sex, doing drugs, exercising, or being a successful business person ... not at all. But rather, you no longer engage in life as a consequence of the habits your inherited human patterns, inherited personality habits, and the pressure of the culture you are embedded in dictate for you. An act of results magick, to get what you want (sorcery) is a completely sensationalized thing. Just because it works doesn't mean it 'upsets some kind of balance'. In truth an act of sorcery is no different than achieving the same ends by any other means.

An act of Magick does the work of Nature in a compressed fashion, and demonstrates by virtue of its results the character of realization in the operator of the Magick, and whether or not the operator is connected to True Will.

T

[IronOrchid]

Just to add more to the discussion, I think it is important to point out that making logical conclusions about the implications of the concept of True Will is an absurdity at best. It is categorically beyond logical comprehension and definition. Its like trying to fit the ocean into a box ... the ocean is huge.

...It can be an extremely correct deduction that sets you off in 'The Way' of your True Will, but you can never, and I mean never, understand your True Will, Your Deepest Purpose, or Your Destiny in your mind.

Very true, although I do think we can (like the blind men with the elephant) try to delineate the part of it that's presented to us at any one point, and also use all kinds of means to prevent that expression from being blocked.

There was a time when it was absolutely true and correct for me to sing in rock bands (!) and when I followed that everything fell into place, luck was on my side, all kinds of mini-miracles happened. Then that time ended and I moved on, to working shamanically in my case.

To say that either of those is a full expression of all my entire essence would be absurdly limiting - so yes I agree that big-picture wise it's outside our grasp, but I think it's legit to look to how it's expressing at any one point, and I believe that serious astrology (eg detailed birth charts) can show what powers and influences are destined us for in our current life.

Full disclosure - I think the entire universe is completely devoid of any meaning, since to me meaning is external, and nothing can be external to it: so each value we hold and each belief we have is necessarily relative & transient, rather than absolute. Obviously someone with a different worldview may feel very differently across the board, and my own is a work in progress.

IOx