Individual Limitations of the Inner Potential

Convictions, morals, other societies and religions.
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Smaragd
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Individual Limitations of the Inner Potential

Post by Smaragd »

We have some topics very close to this one already, Suljetut polut (Closed Paths) and Sharing Your Religion to name a few, but I felt like starting one with slightly different emphasis, one focusing more on the inner polarities and questioning the actual limitations we have drawn to ourselves or made the conscious or unconscious choice to hold on to.

The convictions of individual limitations seem to at least partly connect to challenges of uniting the Left and the Right Hand Paths, or perhaps we could also say the feminine chaos and masculine order. The classical theme of the nightingale refusing to sing when caged is descriptive of one aspect of possible friction in the uniting work. When the nightingale is released and it flies to its partner (to its naturally vital point in life) it immediately bursts in to a birdsong.

For example there was recently a discussion on the forums how people found meaning very differently outside of disciplined order and within it, so I wonder to what extent do you see yourself capable, or recognize the potential within yourself to seek the meaning from those practices not inherently ”yours”? Where do you draw the line? Beyond temperaments, do you think it is possible to discern some natural law of mutually supporting union of discipline and freedom, to act upon in the overcoming of individual restrictions for example towards the left or the right hand path? Or are the dharmic laws, that determine when and where the nightingale sings, deterministically closing some paths or levels of integration between these polar opposites of left-right or feminine-masculine?

On my behalf, I’ll delve a bit further in to the topic and the nightingale symbolism with the help of art. I was partly inspired to start this topic by our discussion on Twin Peaks, and especially obnoxion’s post on Max Ernst’s influence on the series. ”Ernst did some wonderfully sinister works on birds, one of my favourite being "Two children are thteatend by nightingale" (and David Holcomb's "Triumph of the Nightingale" is a great workd on the same theme).”
My take on the first mentioned painting[/url] is that the threatening nightingale, the mother is trying to banish waving with a sharp tool, is this sort of Left-Hand Path empowerment easily borderlining with madness. It seems the fantastic singing of the bird has caused one of the children to jump from the roof, supposedly lured in to this phantastical idea of being able to fly. Children and birds in flight are somewhat synonymous or different aspect of the same thing and thus they communicate and have the tendency or attempt to morph in to each others. This is also the point of danger and threat – a challenge. The parents are not under threat because they present the forgotten ability of being childlike and able to fly. The gate to the painted yard is open emphasising the unrestrained rule of the flight and the madness have over the scene. On Holcomb’s take on the theme there is also a body on the ground, but the gate is closed and the feather has landed. It’s as if the danger is still there in the thorns the bird is situated at, and the past – the unanimated body – lies on the ground as if a warning sign from ”what happened last time”. Ernst’s ”strangely static landscape” (quoting Holcomb) is mad for while the background details brings static tension, the foreground is very active as the threatening situation is very much going on. On Holcomb’s study this streching of the perspective and thus the polarities far from each other is in the past. The madness of Ernst’s work brings me back to what we have talked earlier on the forum about Hammershoi paintings. I connect it to the terrible fevered deliriums of childhood. There the astral content is forced on you and the flight of the bird is far from enlightening, by which I mean there is no grounded meaning to be found and strong intuitive connections made, only feeble ones amidst the madness and flight of panic. The homely nest like quality of Holcomb’s painting on the other hand seems to bring the opposites near to each other, and to me it seems an image where the left and right, as any opposites, are brought together. Althought there is no egg or actual nest visible in the artwork (only the moon becoming visible from the window to the night sky, which by the way acknowledges the polarities by pointing to the day and night amidst ”the nest”) the esoteric idea of the monadic egg seems to me something that is prognosticated towards. I think here is a universal key hidden that allows the right and left hand path problematics to find their answers. Holcomb’s image suggests to me the engaging, attaching and pledging to a both the masculine order and the feminine night sky appearing on its own rights.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Nefastos
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Re: Individual Limitations of the Inner Potential

Post by Nefastos »

Thanks for the topic. Just a few days ago I mentioned to a brother the present sad situation where our forum no longer has discussions about art since all of our members & guests who participated in those discussions are gone now. For even though I am not personally as interested in those topics (I have pretty much stuck with just a few graphic artists I like) it is great diversity to have that kind of talk here too.

You mentioned birds. To me, they are the holiest of animals. For some reason, I especially love birds with straight, pointed beaks (insectivores). And the ability to fly is one of the things "The Gospel of Lucifer" particularly asks the Master to grant. In case one asks whether this is symbolic or magical already misses the point – and thus the possibility – of flying.

About your actual question, my answer is that as a Taurus I would prefer following a system, but am at the same time very stubborn when it comes to my own heart felt aspirations, whether I like that or not. These two together mean that I try to follow the Right Hand Path (the masculine order) of a system I've chosen as much as I can, but when there comes the point when that is no longer possible, the direction for the thus taken Left Hand Path step (the feminine wandering, or rather, dance or flight) is thus already evident.

I mean: when there is so much pressure that the system of order has to burst open, one does not ask where the energy of explosion goes; it goes in the precise direction which has called its necessary bursting out to being. The pressure itself makes the choice. In this way it is the masculine prohibition or system which gives the great vigor for the feminine systemlessness, or fruitful deviation. In turn this deviation gets assimilated into the system (the order expands into a new, wider form), and once again the order prevails, waiting for the next time it is necessary to change the path once again. I take that this is the growth process of a tree; it grows its trunk, branches & roots according to both plan & need. Its development is both utilitarian & unique, because it does not follow whims but actual, natural, beautiful need.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Aquila
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Re: Individual Limitations of the Inner Potential

Post by Aquila »

There's definitely some large variety how limitations form and how people come over them but I'll try to answer briefly from my point of view. I used to have a problem that my concentration was going all-around. I could not choose one or two things that I would aim to specialize into so I took ideas from everywhere, tried to be everywhere, gain experience from various fields etc. My energy was shattered on a scale too vast. Years later I started to concentrate on just one or two works (whatever they are, "inner potential" can be targeted at anything that is fitting to ones skills basically) at a time which has greatly advanced my understanding and the feeling of being able to use some of the potential that I have and it has brought a lot of positive experiences in my life lately.

It sounds quite simplified to say that I had trouble in balancing between chaos and order, and I was more on the chaotic side. Now I only have problems with having too much order, because I just have to get certain things done, whether I feel like doing them or not. Yet at the moment I find myself stressed and unable to relax at all, which probably has once again limited the inner potential. But of course I don't think this inner potential is something absolute that you either express 100% or 0%. You just try to to use the energy that you have as efficiently as possible and try to use it to something generally beneficial.

I don't know. Maybe the idea of inner potential feels somehow false. It has much to with finding balance and the optimal way of doing things which sounds quite sketchy.
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Re: Individual Limitations of the Inner Potential

Post by Soror O »

Smaragd wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 6:45 pm For example there was recently a discussion on the forums how people found meaning very differently outside of disciplined order and within it, so I wonder to what extent do you see yourself capable, or recognize the potential within yourself to seek the meaning from those practices not inherently ”yours”?
As aloof, and chaotic I let myself be nowadays, I once was a quite disciplined and orderly being. As a child I loved drawing straight lines with my ruler. As I wrote I erased letters which weren't harmonic to my eye. I loved rules, just for the sake of them. I got things done dutifully, always finishing what I started. I'm quite happy that I befriended with the lawful side of existence back then. One cannot truly indulge in chaos, not knowing the law.

But by the time I was in my twenies I had become something that was described being as a robot. Well, things started to fall apart then, and the pendulum swinged towards chaos.

Now I'm studying lawful chaos and chaotic law. I live quite intuitively, being amazed that I get anything done at all, having no rules or structures. I just have aspirations. I don't do stuff, the stuff does me. Sometimes there is friction, usually it is relating to the mundane responsibilities that make no sense to me, then I have to use some force (and/or adjust my perspective). But like living not using force.

But yes, it a good question whether one is hindering her potential by sticking up the familiar(?) ground. In "brain hacking" people highlight the fact that human brain is wired for short term pleasure/safety. But if one really wants to unleash the potential, one has to do stuff regardless what feels "good" (that is: safe and familiar). That's why suffering is so useful: in the painful status quo the brain does not feel safe so adjustments became mandatory. But the perspective in brain hacking is quite narrow, for we are more than mere brains...

Never before I have felt this stable and "good" in my life. I see that this might become a problem, for I just feel already good without meditating three times a day and exercising four times a week. I'm a content animal now. I don't need to constantly rescue myself from the horror of existing. At least I have my trauma related nightly terrors still, so no worries! But being so "well off" I sense that I ought to rise to the next level. But I'm used to leved up through intense suffering. I have been asking myself: is surviving life good enough for me, or do I really want to thrive (reach my highest potential)? Who I really want to be? There are new challenges ahead for I'm supposed to start working full time next spring. The whole concept of work is odd to me. Bridging the gap between the "real", mundane world and my inner quest is a huge challenge.
If you want to reborn, let yourself die.
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Soror O
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Re: Individual Limitations of the Inner Potential

Post by Soror O »

I have to add that...

I feel that there might be a time to introduce a more orderly way of relating to my life. But I do dislike the connotations and suggestions that come with the word 'order'. Order meaning boring, being stagnated. Order meaning not me, the other. So am I having resistance towards order? Maybe I should shift my perspective on order... order being the divine order, the divine sword. But I'd love to stick with my chaos, I'd love the sword piercing me. I'd rather let God hold the sword, I rather submit. I've come so far being like this (have I come far, at all?) I do not have aversion towards order, per se. I'm just relating to it as its subject. I just realized: this is stagnation. My own, unholy, lazy order of chaos and submission.

Do I really have to hold the sword in order to level up... Yes, yes. But I feel I don't know how! I fear I might cut the precious crop that has grown in the bed of chaos. Last time I tried to hold the sword it was horrible. I cut, cut and cut all, until nothing dared to blossom.

Yes, the last time was saddening. But this not the last time. This time is this, now. And who I want to be?
If you want to reborn, let yourself die.
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Re: Individual Limitations of the Inner Potential

Post by Kavi »

Smaragd wrote: Fri Nov 27, 2020 6:45 pm We have some topics very close to this one already, Suljetut polut (Closed Paths) and Sharing Your Religion to name a few, but I felt like starting one with slightly different emphasis, one focusing more on the inner polarities and questioning the actual limitations we have drawn to ourselves or made the conscious or unconscious choice to hold on to.

The convictions of individual limitations seem to at least partly connect to challenges of uniting the Left and the Right Hand Paths, or perhaps we could also say the feminine chaos and masculine order. The classical theme of the nightingale refusing to sing when caged is descriptive of one aspect of possible friction in the uniting work. When the nightingale is released and it flies to its partner (to its naturally vital point in life) it immediately bursts in to a birdsong.
I really have tried to answer this topic for many times during the weeks now but I couldn't find the catch.
I'd like to always suggest to switch the inner polarities. The way I see it, is that feminine is actually having order.
You might remember pictures of Finnish women holding a key in their dresses which is the key for food.
In this way also rose and nightingale or candle and moth somehow become either or/or both while the need for rose and vanishing into flame is attained. What seemed like an closed path or limitation of individual becomes a huge resource. What seems like to be Individual is found in Other/s. I don't think of highly about "ego-death" but some sort of selfless attitude opens so many other ways to view things. And even then it's not the end. It's a dance.
The heartless nightingale needs to migrate and maybe it ends up being imprisoned?
Maybe the Spring will give the Rose a new dawn to wait for the bird once again?
Isn't it the separation that gives all the water for clouds and rivers?
Isn't it what makes nightingale to sing and return eventually?
Continual union is not possible. Idea of union is more that of a dance I'd say.

I don't know much but this is what I wanted to say.

Birds are quite holy symbols too and I started to wonder how beautiful both of them appeared. Bird can be seen as a symbol for freedom but it's interesting to see hand ( which can be seen as a symbol for autonomy) next to feather. Is it some sort of paradox itself? (David Holcomb's "Triumph of the Nightingale")
From Freudian point of view, could the bird be seen as superego, while house ego and groundlevel id? (Two children are threatened by nightingale")
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Re: Individual Limitations of the Inner Potential

Post by Nefastos »

Kavi wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 3:00 pmI'd like to always suggest to switch the inner polarities. The way I see it, is that feminine is actually having order.

It is fascinating to notice how these polarities swap culturally, according to time, and by temperament. For example, it seems that the Hindu symbolism is in some fundamental ways the reversed version of our Western symbology (the White Lord & the Red Lady, and so on), and the qabbalistic symbolism stands in the middle between these two: the Jewish mysticism is mostly similar to ours, but there are points where the polarities have swapped.

Of course, the line goes actually the opposite way: we have been first gone through partial reversion in [Near] East, and then the whole reversal in the later Western culture. And this has actually gone so far now, that we are finally once again starting to come back to our point of origin. There are first signs in the air that at one point, the cycle will once again come to the center in femininity. It will take quite some time yet, though!
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Re: Individual Limitations of the Inner Potential

Post by Smaragd »

Aquila wrote: Mon Nov 30, 2020 12:34 pm I don't know. Maybe the idea of inner potential feels somehow false.
When it comes to the potential one carries for the multitude of things in the horizontal axis, the term inner potential certainly seems a bit off, and like you pointed, it’s maybe better to speak of just energy for these things. Perhaps inner potential as a term might be more relevant when talking about matters of the vertical axis. For example realizing the individual connection and path to some spiritual practice that one has not seen before relevant, but suddenly for example by reverence towards ones brothers work realizes a truly living and soulful individual connection to it. Like remembering again something sacred from the childhood and knowing how to approach it and apply that in some current ”lateral” area where there’s no clear air in the fusty atmosphere, or there is indeed a cage the nightingale can not find the way out. It could be also like finding the resonance of the cage something to reflect the birdsong from that leads in to breaking the cage.

Ave wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 1:10 pm Yes, the last time was saddening. But this not the last time. This time is this, now. And who I want to be?
Indeed, this fear of ”the last time” I have also observed to be often the bars in the cage not giving space for the flight to be any different. (Here the bars are revealed to be inside ones own head and thus perhaps a method of transforming them is more readily available). When the king of the world slaps us for using the sword in a slightly wrong way we are so eager to drop the whole thing. And I’m sure it can be part of the process to drop the sword to listen to the shock wave a harmful way of wielding has caused, to really understand how to do it and not just play around. How multilateral the process really is if we allow ourselves to take all the archetypal forces in to account! If the sword and the cup are the basic polarities, then these different energetical facets of the uniting work is like the five points of the pentacle turning the whole thing in the living moment. Then it is like Nefastos wrote of a tree brancing, and how Kavi wrote about dance. This sort of by accident came to remind me of the Hieroglyphic Key, but as we are speaking about more about the dynamic and meaningfully active part of the problem there’s pentagrams and wheels turning, and Kavi mentioning the rose – we are focusing on the center area instead of the triangles for change. The idea of the odd number 5 being more ”active” or volatile while even numbers (thinking here the six powers around the seventh point where the five petaled flower is situated) are based and stable...
Kavi wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 3:00 pm I'd like to always suggest to switch the inner polarities.
I on the otherhand have often this quite stubborn way of not changing polarities (although I don’t have that much outer limitations, it being quite easy for me to act according to feminine virtues and cultural forms). This I’m willing to hold on to for quite far, because it seems like this way it is easier to take further on the other archetypal forces in to account when the whole thing gets more complicated. It’s like the basic polarity is on a sound basis, which helps ”turning the key” and more on taking the larger context of the archetypal forces in the two triangles (on each pole) in to the heart of the moment. It’s like acknowledging the cage and ”serving the sentence” in more or less deep meditation until the bars are turning to gold or magically disappearing as the spirit – the bird can no longer be hold by them. But this is only one way I guess and perhaps one of the reasons I’ve been going bald since highschool. :roll: But switching the polarities can also mean so many things and happen on so many levels that we might be talking about slightly different things. Drawing a pentagram in one continuous movement is what I mean. It’s going from one power to another and continuing doing that in the delicate process creating the perfect wield of the sword and I feel like switcing polarities would mean, to me, hesitation and going backwards to fix some corner in the middle of all instead of keep drawing the line and doing that specific angle better when the circle has turned to that angle again. This is actually quite relevant notion to myself, so maybe I’m turning the polarity you were talking about quite often too.

Kavi wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 3:00 pm Bird can be seen as a symbol for freedom but it's interesting to see hand ( which can be seen as a symbol for autonomy) next to feather. Is it some sort of paradox itself? (David Holcomb's "Triumph of the Nightingale")
Good point. It’s like the feather is that which is in a delicate free fall and the hand as a symbol of autonomy easily goes through by force. To find the upward moving autonomy that is at the same time delicate fall is the true freedom that is never-the-less chained, or rather crucified. I see we are again coming to the idea of Lucifer-Christos by these two symbols.

We’ve gone through a huge number of symbols and metaphors here which is a bit messy, but I think each of us seeing the same thing in the symbols our own inner eye needs to see it through is enriching and revealing multiple facets and angles from which to approach and look at the problem. I feel like it will take some time to digest all this.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Re: Individual Limitations of the Inner Potential

Post by Kavi »

Just a light comment for fra Smaragd:

I am not sure if I am having a some kind of trickster irrationalist mentality, but for me sometimes what seems to be self-evidently about masculine I think how could I see feminine in it. Maybe suggestion to change polarities as an imperative is too strong word to use but instead playing with them. Maybe there is some kind of chaotic nature in this and in midst you can hear Satan's laughter which might not be for everyone of course. I wanted just to express my maybe-not-ripe-enough thoughts about this. :D

Edit.P.S but maybe this is just a method when there is too much of friction and tension to be found. How I interpreted this "drawing of pentagram" is that there is actually somekind of dynamism going on and not necessarily fixed tension. Anyway this kind of humorous way of looking at knight Saint George fighting against dragon of chaos and once Dragon is defeated he lifts of his helmet and you find out he is no man. (I am not sure if this idea is played in LoTR. I don't remember much of the book anymore.)
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Re: Individual Limitations of the Inner Potential

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Ave wrote: Tue Dec 01, 2020 12:30 pm Never before I have felt this stable and "good" in my life. I see that this might become a problem, for I just feel already good without meditating three times a day and exercising four times a week. I'm a content animal now. I don't need to constantly rescue myself from the horror of existing. At least I have my trauma related nightly terrors still, so no worries! But being so "well off" I sense that I ought to rise to the next level. But I'm used to leved up through intense suffering. I have been asking myself: is surviving life good enough for me, or do I really want to thrive (reach my highest potential)? Who I really want to be? There are new challenges ahead for I'm supposed to start working full time next spring. The whole concept of work is odd to me. Bridging the gap between the "real", mundane world and my inner quest is a huge challenge.
That gap seems almost impossible some days. I, too, have just loosened some bounds on myself that lift the existential dread of mundane life. Or I suppose the bounds were loosed on me, since the action was forced lock down from our government due to rising covid cases. At work we now have to work completely isolated, so my usual 9-5 structure is now much more free and flowing as of today. And as of today, for the first time in a long time, I woke up easily and with a smile on my face. Being allowed to work to my own rhythm appears to be an absolute necessity for my well-being and happiness. However, in other ways I'm still quite orderly. If life pulls me away from my altar or my day yoga and meditation, I crumble. So this lock down is a blessing since I can ensure my practices before immersing myself in the mundanity and that balance wards off my existential dread. I think for me the comes from knowing how far the other way that pendulum can swing into disorder and chaos, and afraid of becoming that person once again. My life is so different now from those days, and it feels like almost a nightmarish lifetime ago, but when that chaotic dark creeps in, it's the same feeling from all those years ago and being able to keep my self-discipline going is the only way to keep me from feeling like I'm drowning.

Kavi wrote: Sun Dec 06, 2020 3:00 pm What seemed like an closed path or limitation of individual becomes a huge resource. What seems like to be Individual is found in Other/s. I don't think of highly about "ego-death" but some sort of selfless attitude opens so many other ways to view things. And even then it's not the end. It's a dance.
The heartless nightingale needs to migrate and maybe it ends up being imprisoned?
Maybe the Spring will give the Rose a new dawn to wait for the bird once again?
Isn't it the separation that gives all the water for clouds and rivers?
Isn't it what makes nightingale to sing and return eventually?
Continual union is not possible. Idea of union is more that of a dance I'd say.
How beautiful and soul soothing. It's for this exact reason I try to be gentle on myself when I perceive a limitation in myself. Something always comes and breathes life into my Work, exactly like a dance.
"Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself." -Kahlil Gibran
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