The Law of Responsibility

[Jade]

I actually meant to specifically put in the OP that I was interested in how the Law of Responsibility interacts or is present with the Ra-tarot archetypes, but forgot to after all the cutting and pasting. Thank you Jade.

Ah that's great! I'm sorry Sprout and C_A, but I believe this ties in quite well with the discussion. As far as I understand it, I don't see how one can separate a study of the Law of One with a study of the magical personality. As I noted, I believe we all make an agreement in session 4 to take on the honor/duty of learning how to heal, and thus, must practice what we have learned from the Law of One. There is no pressure, I'm not forcing anyone to do or talk about anything, to the best of my understanding. This is a Law of One forum, this is the "Strictly Law of One Material" subforum, I feel like talking about the archetypes is on topic and not a violation of anyone's free will.

But for the faint of heart, I will add a warning here, that the rest of my post will be talking about the archetypes.

I thought more about peregrine's question to me earlier on my drive to work, and I realized that I have a very simple way of interpreting this philosophy as a whole, and it comes down to the Transformation of the Mind, specifically this quote:

99.8 Questioner: Thank you. Card Number Six I see as the Transformation of the Mind, the male’s crossed arms representing transformation, transformation being possible either toward the left- or the right-hand path, the right-hand path being beckoned or led by the female, the Potentiator. The one on the right having the serpent of wisdom at the brow and being fully clothed, the one on the left having less clothing and indicating that the Matrix or Potentiator would be more concerned and attracted to the physical illusion as the left-hand path is chosen and more concerned and attracted to the mental as the right-hand path is chosen.

The creature above points an arrow at the left-hand path indicating that if this path is chosen the chips, shall we say, will fall where they may, the path being unprotected as far as the random activity of catalyst. And the intellectual abilities of the chooser of that path would be the main guardian rather than a designed or built-in protection by the Logos for the right-hand path. The entity firing the arrow being what seems to be a second density entity would indicate that this catalyst could be produced by a lesser-evolved source, you might say. Would Ra comment on these observations of Card Six, the Transformation of the Mind?

Ra: I am Ra. We shall speak upon several aspects seriatim. Firstly, let us examine the crossed arms of the male who is to be transformed. What, O student, do you make of the crossing? What see you in this tangle? There is a creative point to be found in this element which was not discussed overmuch by the questioner.

Let us now observe the evaluation of the two females. The observation that to the left-hand path moves the roughly physical and to the right-hand path the mental has a shallow correctness. There are deeper observations to be made concerning the relationship of the great sea of the unconscious mind to the conscious mind which may fruitfully be pursued. Remember, O student, that these images are not literal. They haunt rather than explicate.

Many use the trunk and roots of mind as if that portion of mind were a badly used, prostituted entity. Then this entity gains from this great storehouse that which is rough, prostituted, and without great virtue. Those who turn to the deep mind, seeing it in the guise of the maiden, go forth to court it. The courtship has nothing of plunder in its semblance and may be protracted, yet the treasure gained by such careful courtship is great. The right-hand and left-hand transformations of the mind may be seen to differ by the attitude of the conscious mind towards its own resources as well as the resources of other-selves.

We now speak of that genie, or elemental, or mythic figure, culturally determined, which sends the arrow to the left-hand transformation. This arrow is not the arrow which kills but rather that which, in its own way, protects. Those who choose separation, that being the quality most indicative of the left-hand path, are protected from other-selves by a strength and sharpness equivalent to the degree of transformation which the mind has experienced in the negative sense. Those upon the right-hand path have no such protection against other-selves for upon that path the doughty seeker shall find many mirrors for reflection in each other-self it encounters

In our capitalistic, convenience society, somebody is always losing. The way we view the resources of other selves is very much like that of the prostituted entity - there for ourselves, with no thought to the other who is being exploited and used. We have been conditioned to buy things that are cheap and easy to procure, and the cheaper and easier it is to procure, the more likely someone along the way is being exploited for their labor, and somebody at the top is hoarding all of the labor/money that is exchanged. It's ugly and we all know that this is our reality on earth. People slave for years at their jobs to buy a shiny new car or a bigger house, we are cutting down rainforests to grow more luxury food (animals), we are poisoning our oceans and bleaching our coral reefs and estimates say our oceans will be without fish by 2050 - just over 30 years from now.

Of course, we are born being brainwashed and advertised to, we are not born knowing that our iPhone was made in a factory with nets to prevent loss of labor by suicide. It takes awhile for someone to tell us that the minerals in our computers were mined by a slave child. As a child I had Happy Meals with toys, not the awareness that McDonald's exploits a minimum wage workforce, puts enough chemicals/preservatives in their food to literally freeze its status in time, and basically scorches the earth with their demand for cheap food supplies to support a dollar menu brand. I really didn't know how much torture the people who make our clothing go through until I watched the documentary The True Cost, and now I know better than to indulge my very sparing hobby of shopping for cheap clothing. As soon as I learn these things, I am unable to unlearn them. This is what Tolstoy means by being dragged along by truth - once you recognize a truth, you can step up and trot for rightness, or you can let the truth drag you along with it, while you brutalize yourself and others through your unwillingness to stop prostituting resources.

Ra uses the term courting because it has very specific connotations; it is "protracted" - meaning, that it takes time to do the right thing. If you are doing things to save time, or on a whim, or because it is cheap, and the gratification is so simple to achieve, this is prostituting the resources of other selves. This is also prostituting the resources of the self - when we eat at McDonald's, we know it is not healthful or even hardly real food. We know that it gives us a chemical rush, a gratification in the brain. So, in that way we are prostituting our own resources. When you look at it on the grand scale, it seems almost hopeless. But it's a matter of being willing to recognize when you are doing the wrong thing, as Sprout mentioned, even if you aren't willing/able to change your actions right away - recognition that it is wrong allows further catalyst to move you away from the prostitution. To continue to prostitute without remorse moves you further along the other path.

The "tangle" of the crossed arms that Ra refers to is the sacrifice one makes to create a Transformation of the Mind - you have to dedicate yourself, or else you don't achieve the Transformation. 

[100.6]In this image of Transformation of Mind, then, each of the females points the way it would go, but is not able to move, nor are the two female entities striving to do so. They are at rest. The conscious entity holds both and will turn itself one way or the other or, potentially, backwards and forwards, rocking first one way then the other and not achieving the transformation. In order for the Transformation of Mind to occur, one principle governing the use of the deep mind must be abandoned.

Hence the little impy in the corner. If you are courting, you are going to feel bad, as per Ra. If you are prostituting, you are without guilt, without pain, without as sharp of catalyst as one who deliberately courts. It's supposed to hurt, to realize the hurt we have caused and take steps to undo it. To see the pain in others and recognize that we are one.

But before we can be aware that we are prostituting, there has to be catalyst that shows us this, so that we can take action to choose to stop. It sucks really bad but I ultimately always appreciate learning when I am prostituting, because again, this is how I perceive this philosophy. This is why I don't feel it is a problem to share, in a setting such as this, where the discussion is taking place, my thoughts on the subject. If someone starts a vegan discussion, you betcha I'm going to jump right in. Because I feel that it is my honor/duty/responsibility to teach what I have learned, as others remain shrouded in darkness. Maybe that's the ultimate responsibility.