How to keep the Flame alive?

[Nefastos]

I think there are some people who are like constantly ablaze, and who could not forfeit the occult/spiritual work even if they wanted. That is a painful way of life, drawing many such pepole outside the everyday way of life, to live the life of outcasts. And needless to say, most of these people perish in their Flame, unable to unite the inner spiritual feeling with the demands of the mundane world.

But luckily, there are many for whom occultism is a choice. They suffer little less, but for them a different kind of problem presents itself, namely that of dropping off.

How do you see this problem? How do you manage to unite the often hard & unrewarding spiritual striving to the everyday life, without losing either or both? Any advice for the brothers & sisters feeling the Work itself isn't motivating enough?

[wayfareangel]

I've always been very open to a variety of influences from the Universe. Things just sort of come to me, and and I find myself interacting with them without even knowing it sometimes. I think the key to living when the fantastic is drawn to you, is to remember that you live in the here and now. You cannot fully be a part of any other world, for the moment, so getting too caught up in other worlds is dangerous at the very least.

So I guess to sum it up, try to remain grounded in this reality. Wander and look about, but remember where home is.

[Insanus]

Well, well...I've often times referred to myself as a "walking cliché" or as someone with absolutely no life. I've never dared to call it pure dedication, but maybe it's been also wise & saved me from the most fundamentalist ways of thought if nothing else.

I'm more like the opposite of wayfareangel. Burn, burn out & then burn some more.
I tried to "extinguish it with force", but managed to only kill my emotions and just made everything worse. Needless to say, "to live the life of outcasts", to which I formed a very strong decay-romantic relationship to the point of just wallowing in decadence & filth with passionate disgust towards pretty much anything. A lot of people, almost everyone I know tried to tell me to have a rest once, to "remain grounded in this reality", "get a life" &c. but it was not a possibility. Or, if it was, I rejected that possibility with loathing & egoistical pride. Yup, I've been very egoistical, foolish & even completely idiotic to some extent, there's no denying that

I never thought or felt I "sacrificed my well-being" or anything like that, more like that there is no other way to "be well" or maybe more like that the whole concept of "being well" has no value without a solid basis. And of course not until the problem was formulated in my mind as the need to harmonize with undeveloped aspects of myself, I started to "care about mundane life" again.
It sounds pretty funny now that I think of it. :p

But back to the point. I'm living a pretty ok mundane life without sacrificing my spiritual workings & that's great & if I'd find some more empathy & caring about others from myself, everything would be just perfect. So I'm doing pretty well with the mentioned uniting of everyday & spiritual life, at least at the moment.
I'm having adjustment problems in my life, namely adjusting to being well & somewhat balanced.
It's like I'd have an addiction to the overall negativity & strife & tolerating torture which I can't easily leave behind. It's not that I'd love feeling like shit, but melting the illusion of being in control & letting go of "formless thoughts" so to speak, is tough. The attachment is not all that strong anymore, but it is there and I think about ways to get rid of it.

Advice for people who don't feel the Work as motivating enough? Hmm.
Well, doing the Work is essentially being true to yourself. Some people might feel like "brutal honesty towards self is no fun", but they are simply wrong. It's nothing but pure joy: the pain involved is nothing but a result of your own inability to be completely honest & even then it's but a temporary shadow, which can be viewed as joy also if one has the will to do so. Whatever you view as "being happy" or being complete, it's but one facet of a diamond and there's so much more to find if you just have the will to seek & keep it with you. Boredom is but a symptom from unwillingness = dishonesty towards one's own heart.

[Jiva]

It's like I'd have an addiction to the overall negativity & strife & tolerating torture which I can't easily leave behind. It's not that I'd love feeling like shit, but melting the illusion of being in control & letting go of "formless thoughts" so to speak, is tough. The attachment is not all that strong anymore, but it is there and I think about ways to get rid of it.

I actually went through something like this when I was about 16, to the point where I'd force myself to stay awake for days on end while exercising constantly to punish myself for breaking the cycle of negativity I was on. I think the hardest thing for me were thoughts that attached me to life and living as a normal person. Prior to this I spent about a year refusing to speak to anybody (parents, friends, teachers etc.) unless absolutely necessary as an attempt to completely remove myself from society.

I'd been thinking about creating a topic on how to overcome boredom with the more mundane things in life, which in my case is the boring and easy office job I spend the majority of my waking hours at. It's quite easy to say "amor fati" and intend to treat every aspect of one's life as a ritual, but harder in practice.

Related to this, I do sometimes worry that being drunk, high or hungover could obstruct any occult development (or whatever), but then any time this happens I'm usually with the small group of people I've known my entire life with whom I share a lot in common. This extends to a lot of shared religious and philosophical beliefs, although something that's been nagging me for some time is when to finally be entirely honest and 'come out' with my involvement in occultism and the SoA. I guess it would make the mundane and occult aspects of my life integrate better.

Actually, almost all of the conversations I've had in person regarding occultism have happened when I've randomly got talking to complete strangers at gigs after a few pints. I've also thought about participating more in some of the random religious conversations that happen at work to make it more interesting, but mostly haven't yet as I'm unsure how to get properly involved in these.

Basically, I can't really offer any advice as I think I manage things quite poorly at the moment .

[Fomalhaut]

The Flame is there and burns forever for those who are aware of dangers but still logical and careful. The person must be able to grasp the fact that mundane and spiritual life goes hand in hand. Once the spiritual and mundane life is balanced and united, there can no wind can vanish the Flame. It is there to be forever.

[Sebomai]

I've been thinking about this issue for a little while now. My advice and my own practice is simply this: Have at least one daily practice that you do not give up on no matter how unsatisfying it may be at a given time, because that unsatisfying time will end and you will reap greater rewards than you thought possible from your practice after you pass through it. Really, this advice has been around since at least the time of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, the Dark Night of the Soul and all that, and probably goes back much, much further. There is not just one Dark Night of the Soul. There are many. Some are very big and daunting, others are small, "I do not wish to do my practice today because I'm too busy" moments. But they must be overcome. In the past several months, despite being very busy, dealing with illness, anxiety, depression, and stress, I have only missed my daily practice one time, to the best of my knowledge. I am just now emerging from, not just a dry spell, but a very, very dark one. And my practice, even when it was dry and unsatisfying, gave me the strength to pull through that and now the rewards of my practice are being revealed to me again. It has been repeated ad nauseum, if one reads Crowley's works, you will get very tired of being told to persevere in your work, but it is absolutely true. Pick your practice, prayer, meditation, reading, anything, or some combination of things. Make sure it is not too demanding and too time consuming, or else those will turn into excuses later on to shrug off the practice when you do not feel like doing it. But make it spiritually satisfying, meaningful, suited to your personality, and something you know you can push yourself to stick through no matter how many excuses your brain gives you. That is both my personal practice as well as my advice.

And this leads to something fra. Insanus said about being honest with oneself. Firstly, you MUST be honest with yourself to stick to a daily practice. Every single time your brain says, "I do not have time for this," or, "I am not well enough today to do this," there is a secret, "I don't feel like it today," lurking behind it. Those must be defeated as often as possible. As I said, I missed a day in the past several months. Previous to that, I had a period where I neglected over a week of my practice. The point is to be honest, but not beat yourself up over any failures. Beating yourself up actually gives fuel to further failure instead of motivating oneself to do better. So look at your failures, acknowledge them, and make a commitment to try to do better. But do not brutalize yourself in your own mind, or you will start to think thoughts like, "I am a failure at the spiritual life, I should just give up," and that will suck all the energy out of your practice and make it very, very difficult to start again.

Secondly, on the same subject of honesty to oneself, I find joy in it as well. Sometimes it gets overwhelming, as I find myself analyzing my motives for every little thing I do or say or even think. That gets very tiresome sometimes. But I'm glad I have that part of me, because it makes it much easier to realize when I am doing something from the wrong motivations and to correct myself.

Blessings to you all!

[Insanus]

Oh, and the most obvious one:
One surefire way to quickly ignite the Flame within is to be in active contact with one's own subconscious. Integrating & sublimating the aspects of one's Shadow with understanding & love is essentially the practice of SoA (or at least of the Red Aspect) in my opinion.

[obnoxion]

I've assigned myself a religious duty on the new year's eve of 1998/1999. I am commited to do a daily devotional practice. When I joined the SoA, this devotional practice was adopted to the Brotherhood's prayer practices.

There have been some years when my flame was nearly out, and the only practice I did was this little devotional gesture I'm oath-bound to do. Other than that, I did not think about religion or spirituality at all. Then, when after years the flame began to blaze again, I realized that whitout this little daily devotiol rite, there would not be a flame today. So for me it is this small devotional gesture, done daily without a fail, that keeps the flame alive.

This does mean that there is often an element of mortification to my devotional practice. But I guess that's a personal thing. I'm so radically passive that for me any act is a cause of suffering.

[MAF]

The Flame is there and burns forever for those who are aware of dangers but still logical and careful. The person must be able to grasp the fact that mundane and spiritual life goes hand in hand. Once the spiritual and mundane life is balanced and united, there can no wind can vanish the Flame. It is there to be forever.

Well said brother! Balance is a huge part of it all in my humble opinion, it presents some difficulty in trying to find it but as you said once united, it burns forever.

I've been thinking about this issue for a little while now. My advice and my own practice is simply this: Have at least one daily practice that you do not give up on no matter how unsatisfying it may be at a given time, because that unsatisfying time will end and you will reap greater rewards than you thought possible from your practice after you pass through it. Really, this advice has been around since at least the time of St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, the Dark Night of the Soul and all that, and probably goes back much, much further. There is not just one Dark Night of the Soul. There are many. Some are very big and daunting, others are small, "I do not wish to do my practice today because I'm too busy" moments. But they must be overcome. In the past several months, despite being very busy, dealing with illness, anxiety, depression, and stress, I have only missed my daily practice one time, to the best of my knowledge. I am just now emerging from, not just a dry spell, but a very, very dark one. And my practice, even when it was dry and unsatisfying, gave me the strength to pull through that and now the rewards of my practice are being revealed to me again. It has been repeated ad nauseum, if one reads Crowley's works, you will get very tired of being told to persevere in your work, but it is absolutely true. Pick your practice, prayer, meditation, reading, anything, or some combination of things. Make sure it is not too demanding and too time consuming, or else those will turn into excuses later on to shrug off the practice when you do not feel like doing it. But make it spiritually satisfying, meaningful, suited to your personality, and something you know you can push yourself to stick through no matter how many excuses your brain gives you. That is both my personal practice as well as my advice.

And this leads to something fra. Insanus said about being honest with oneself. Firstly, you MUST be honest with yourself to stick to a daily practice. Every single time your brain says, "I do not have time for this," or, "I am not well enough today to do this," there is a secret, "I don't feel like it today," lurking behind it. Those must be defeated as often as possible. As I said, I missed a day in the past several months. Previous to that, I had a period where I neglected over a week of my practice. The point is to be honest, but not beat yourself up over any failures. Beating yourself up actually gives fuel to further failure instead of motivating oneself to do better. So look at your failures, acknowledge them, and make a commitment to try to do better. But do not brutalize yourself in your own mind, or you will start to think thoughts like, "I am a failure at the spiritual life, I should just give up," and that will suck all the energy out of your practice and make it very, very difficult to start again.

Secondly, on the same subject of honesty to oneself, I find joy in it as well. Sometimes it gets overwhelming, as I find myself analyzing my motives for every little thing I do or say or even think. That gets very tiresome sometimes. But I'm glad I have that part of me, because it makes it much easier to realize when I am doing something from the wrong motivations and to correct myself.

Blessings to you all!

Thank you for posting this great advice! It has been on my mind lately as well, it's been challenging to break down those "excuses" the brain gives at times. It is just the beginning in my spiritual journey and I find all of this very encouraging