I think that is good way to judge some paths. If some teachings, paths seem tempting, just need to look the sate of other people who already walked that paths and see where it got them. It works at least half the time.Amor wrote: ↑Wed Mar 03, 2021 5:34 am >my immediate reality is predatory
I think it was on another thread I asked about who was the food and who was the feeder.
All the biographies I have read of OTO members have seemed to me to have been tragedies. I am not sure such a pattern would encourage too many new members.
What is the motivation to risk being food? Power?
Because there are instances, especially in many "new age" cults, where on the surface nothing seem to be "wrong", people seem to be happy, satisfied with where they are, all just sitting around the camp fire and singing kumbaya, preaching love and peace, and if not just some vague, barely perceptible scent of something off, wouldn't even think there's anything of any concern. At least not until you start poking wrong places, and accidentally step on some tentacle of something far large and far sinister than all initial positive impressions I may have had.
Everything is food for somebody. Pretty much like in our physical reality. Just because humans haven't had any serious larger and scarier predators for the last few millennia, our species collective developed, adopted some "unnatural" moral and philosophical ideals, which seem to be exploited on spiritual plane so much (where larger and scarier predators still plenty), that sometimes I think those some ideals perhaps were introduced, seeded by some other greater intelligence to farm physical reality of the mortal realm.
I admit, even I had innocent and naive view, in some parts, not that long ago. I still remember thinking that yes, maybe other entities, deities are predatory to greater or lesser extent, but certainly not my gods, patrons, certainly they are just benevolent by "design" to their very core. That was until we got closer and our conversations became more "intimate", in ways I did not expect. When during entirely casual some of them mention their last meal, or what would like to devour for the next one, that's when my idealistic fantasies ended and the real reality began to settle in. But it's fine, every living thing needs to eat something to survive, that is the law of this universe.
Motivations can be anything you desire, every desire can be exploited, do you desire love? Power? Wealth? Feel special?
Take these for example:
Such a beautiful creatures, with such power and influence, radiating divine light from every pore of their skin (figuratively), their mere presence often can turn the biggest sceptics and atheists in to most devout believers. Their voice can fill every heart with cosmic love and can send every mind in to state of trance. How could something like that be bad?
And yet for the past few millennia, their kind been the alpha predator in our "immediate reality". Farming the mortal realm like some vegetable patch. And they will probably continue their practices until the next alpha predator arrives in the coming decades or centuries at most.
There is no "salvation" for us, at least no real one, at least no easy one.