The Great Way of the Mind

[JustLikeYou]

The Chariot



The Path chosen in the Transformation card clearly affects the environment witnessed in the Great Way card. Recall that catalyst is birthed in the illusion by the High Priestess and witnessed as the Empress. The victor, the conscious mind, rides the chariot, but everything he sees along the way is what the unconscious mind has intentionally revealed to him – by his request, of course, as the magical orb in his hand signifies. While the chariot itself is moved forward by the two sphinxes, remember that no advancement can happen until the conscious mind has chosen how it will approach the unconscious mind. Thus, the resting limbs of the sphinxes suggest that there are periods of stagnation where one is in conflict about which path to take.

Let us consider the symbol upon his chest. There is a question Ra asks which deserves a closer look (103.12 ):

[A]lthough the chariot is wheeled, it is not harnessed to that which draws it by a physical or visible harness. What then, O Student, links and harnesses the chariot’s power of movement to the chariot?

The answer is actually given by Ra in 99.7:

“The Significator owns a covenant with the spirit which it shall in some cases manifest through the thought and action of the adept. If there is protection in a promise, then you have chosen the correct sound vibration, for the outstretched wings of spirit, high above manifestation, yet draw the caged mind onward.”

Ra says in no uncertain terms that the outstretched wings of spirit are what draw the caged mind onward, but how does a covenant fit into this? The potentiated will is the magical gesture of the mind (depicted by the orb or the wand), but the magic cannot take effect unless the illusion itself conforms to the will. The close affinity between the unconscious mind and the spirit (as depicted by the Ankh on the High Priestess’ chest) suggest that this is where the covenant has occurred. The spirit has promised to bring the mind exactly what it calls for, and the mind must learn to trust the wings of the spirit on this one.

We now have a story to describe the path of this card: the Significator of the mind, by using the gears of Archetypes 1-4, lifts the veil to discover that the environment moves and shifts according to its own projections. In so lifting the veil, it discovers that periods of rest and progress take the appearance of the mind either hesitating in a choice between the Two Paths or committing to a path and letting go of the other.

Another significant Ra quotation deserves analysis (103.14 ):

“Time/space is close in this concept complex, brought close due to the veiling process and its efficaciousness in producing actors who wish to use the resources of the mind in order to evolve.”

The symbol on his chest, recall, is the meeting of two right angles above a T-square. The T-square implies that value is only found in the process of sacrificing something. The two right angles signify the proximity of space/time to time/space. The proximity of all three to each other therefore signify, as Ra states, that the act of finding value through sacrifice brings your experience in space/time in close proximity to your experience in time/space. Value, of course, is what drives you to do what you do (“because it is worth doing”), so if you value something, it is because it matters to you. Ra comments that it was difficult to produce a feeling that polarizing mattered in 3-D without the veiling process, so the primary purpose of the veil is to bring entities to care about evolving. Somehow, the act of polarizing enough that you are willing to sacrifice one path for the sake of taking another brings space/time close to time/space. While I don’t understand the concepts of space/time and time/space as well as I’d like to, the implication I get is that the one is the realm where the physical illusion exists and the other is the realm where the great metaphysical illusion exists. These realms seem to properly be the realms of body and spirit. Thus, the mind would connect these two realms. So if the mind, in polarizing, places value on evolving, perhaps the proximity of space/time to time/space suggests that in the process of polarizing the mind (which is to be thought of as a tree, as Ra so often reminds us), is achieves a more and more perfect balance between its communication with both body (space/time) and spirit (time/space).

One more quotation (103.11 ):

“The entire mood, shall we say, of the Great Way is indeed dependent upon its notable difference from the Significator. The Significator is the significant self, to a great extent but not entirely influenced by the lowering of the veil.”

Ra points out, as quoted above, that the “mood” of the Great Way is dependent upon its difference from the Significator. In looking at the cards, we can see many, many similarities – so the differences should be easy to count:

1. The structure now has wheels.
2. The structure how has 3 dimensions.
3. The two figures are now sphinxes which seem to pull the chariot.
4. The winged sphere is not above the figure, but at his knees.
5. There is a veil which is raised.
6. The symbol on his chest.

So assuming we change the content of the figure’s hands according to Ra’s suggestion, those are the differences.

1, 2 and 5 all seem to point toward the naïveté of the Significator: perhaps it does not realize that the structure it stands upon is actually a vehicle drawn by its own act of knowing itself because the veil is lowered and the illusion of separation is commenced.

3 is intriguing to me because the Significant self is made into a Creator in its own right by the none other than the veil itself. So the Significator’s ignorance, its naïveté is precisely what makes this Significant self divine in the purest sense. These two polarized figures respond to the Significator’s command with service and praise, an act reserved for the Creator; whereas, the polarized sphinxes in the Great Way respond to the central figures command as a matter of the mechanics of mind. In other words, the polarized figures in the Significator card display direct and self-aware servitude with no particular purpose, but the polarized sphinxes in the Great Way card seem interested in servitude for a cause: they are headed somewhere.

4 suggests to me that the Significator has no idea how powerful it is, despite the service of both polarities. The great flight of the spirit, signified by the sphere with wings, is outside the manifestation in both drawings, but in the Great Way the wings are affixed to the illusion as if the power of moving forward upon this path lies in the hand of the mind which now has vision in a way that the Significator did not.

[Plenum]

I am loving the Chariot at the moment:

79.40 Ra: I am Ra. This is most perceptive. The Archetype Seven is one difficult to enunciate. We may call it the Path, the Way, or the Great Way of the Mind. Its foundation is a reflection and substantial summary of Archetypes One through Six.

One may also see the Way of the Mind as showing the kingdom or fruits of appropriate travel through the mind in that the mind continues to move as majestically through the material it conceives of as a chariot drawn by royal lions or steeds.

and this quote has always made be laugh:

103.12 However, it would be more appropriate to draw the attention to the fact that although the chariot is wheeled, it is not harnessed to that which draws it by a physical or visible harness. What then, O Student, links and harnesses the chariot’s power of movement to the chariot?

Ra is going into zen master mode there

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good answers there Joseph.

[third-density-being]

Hello Dear JustLikeYou and Dear Bring4th_Plenum,
 
I LOVE what You’ve done with this Place Thank You  

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I’m an absolute beginner in this and this is in fact my first “educated travel” through each of the Archetypes – after first, an intuitive journey, when I was unequipped with basic understanding of Great Arcanum (Card No. 16 stuck me most strongly first time – the place in which lighting hits “pulled” me somehow).
Despite that fact, I would like to Share (and ask for Feedback at same time) my suspicion, that your point 4, Dear JustLikeYou:

4. The winged sphere is not above the figure, but at his knees.

- may indicate that Mind, after His/Its own Path, is capable (or more gently – possess strong connection with) of governing/administering some of the “resources” of the Spirit.
It wasn’t most elegant analogy. Maybe this: Mind in His/Its Great Way is Supported by the Spirit to such extend, that it is Offered by Spirit everything He/It requires to continue His/Its Path - “everything” that is tailored for Creaturehood, of course – with all that is in Our reality “possible” and “impossible” preserved.
The proper question would be, if what We currently perceive/understand as “impossible”, is indeed such. RA spoke of things that might appear to many as “Miracles”, but for an Adept they would be “normal”, “natural”, “It is at it should be” – as Ra said.
 
Quite one sided take, wherein it is Mind that arbitrary chooses the Path/Direction and Spirit is of purely “Assistance”/”Service” nature. I think it is due to my own bias toward depending mostly on Mind.
This alone makes me think I may be mistaken.
 
 
I would Love to read your takes on this one.
 
 
All I have Best in me for You

[JustLikeYou]

Thank you for the praise, third-density-being. For the record, the threads you'll find in this forum are my earliest writings on the archetypes---so early I consider them rough and outdated. That doesn't mean you can't find value in them (which is why I've left them as they are), but rather that they are no longer an accurate reflection of my own approach to the archetypes.

You make an excellent point about the relationship between mind and spirit, one I that hadn't occurred to me before. My current approach to the mind is that its function is to produce and manage what I call a "Story," which is the entire mythic account you apply to your experience as a means of connecting the world to your own sense of purpose and value. The Story limits the body's function insofar as the body cannot extend beyond the boundaries of the Story. Thus, if a human never imagines that Earth revolves around the Sun, he will never perceive the data he records as supporting the hypothesis.

The Story also limits the spirit's function. This is what I call the connection between belief and faith. Most people think that faith is a matter of belief. This is not so. If it were, then faith would be an entirely mental event, because it is the mind that, through conceiving and investing in a Story, comes to believe it. Faith is when we place absolute trust in a mysterious source. The beliefs that accompany faith are merely a Story that is meant to put a name to the mysterious source. If, however, there is no space within our Story for a mysterious source, then there will be no space for faith to grow and eventually flourish.

This is why the deeply religious always experience faith within the context of their religion. They think that the mystical experiences they have that confirm their faith are confirming the Story that accounts for the mysterious source in which they have faith, but it only confirms the benevolence and value of that mysterious source. The Story is simply a mental model that provides fertile ground for the spirit to blossom. Thus, if we do not think miracles are possible, we will not see them because any faith we might have had lands on rocky and treacherous land. A skeptic is doomed to being proven right until he decides to open his mind.

I gather that you doubt that your intuition about this point is accurate because it seems as if it gives priority of Choice to the mind rather than the spirit. Ra, in fact, indirectly supports this view when they say:

105.19
"It is well to recall that the difference betwixt mind/body/spirits and mind/body/spirit complexes is a forgetting within the deeper mind."

83.19
"The mechanism of the veiling between the conscious and unconscious portions of the mind was a declaration that the mind was complex. This, in turn, caused the body and the spirit to become complex."

Clearly, the conscious/unconscious divide in the mind governs the separation between conscious and unconscious in both body and spirit. Translating this to my Story terminology, that means that the great freedom of humankind is to imagine a Story for itself. How, indeed, could we do this without the forgetting? By virtue of forgetting everything, we have the freedom to invent who we shall be. This act of invention lies squarely within the mind. Although body and spirit will have their say in the matter, the mind holds the reigns within our 3d illusion.

[third-density-being]

Thank You for your reply, Dear JustLikeYou,

My current approach to the mind is that its function is to produce and manage what I call a "Story," which is the entire mythic account you apply to your experience as a means of connecting the world to your own sense of purpose and value. The Story limits the body's function insofar as the body cannot extend beyond the boundaries of the Story. Thus, if a human never imagines that Earth revolves around the Sun, he will never perceive the data he records as supporting the hypothesis.

The Story also limits the spirit's function. This is what I call the connection between belief and faith. (...)
(...)

I like analogy of  “a Story”. I’ve noticed this difference at my own transition and I’ve labeled them as “Framework” (Story with Faith involved that holds it’s integrity) and the “Mindset” (belief system that was build within/based on a Framework/Story). Therefore “Mind” is “something” entirely different and He/It most likely is able to transcends Him-Self/It-Self – and consequently boundaries of physical reality (to some extend at least).

That was also my reflection regarding earlier mentioned point No. 4 – symbol of Spirit – The Wings – are now in front of The Chariot and it seems for me that those are means of “movement” for Mind in an environment of “Great Way” – Spirit Inspired Path.
Connecting it with Significator of the Mind Card, for Mind operating within “Great Way Environment”, He/It “climbed”/”reached” beyond the veil/Illusion and now guided by Spirit, with Greater Understanding/Greater Perspective is governing His/It’s Existence within Physical.

I’m truly curious what such Mind would be capable of

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EDIT (30.06.2015):
I have to admit, that I’ve overstated certain statement in above. Mind cannot fully penetrate the Veil, as it would no longer be “Mind” as We know it (Complex, with Part uninformed).

I think more proper would be to write, that Mind in The Great Way Environment operates as “informed” of Greater Reality (as “aware of it” and it is presented to Self/Mind as Certainty/Fact) and through/due to this Knowledge/Awareness Mind is being Open for Spirit Inspiration (and Body requirements as well) - and accept it as "natural" / "As it should be".

I think that there’s no “Great Way of the Mind” unless other Great Environment will be achieved.

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All I have Best in me for You