Apech

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Posts posted by Apech

  1. Posted

    I'm getting really fed up the idea of equating trust in a responsible government to being willing to slavery. Why are you guys so afraid of governmental involvment? It is the absence of involment that has made the financial crisis we are looking at today. And it is the absence of resonsible government that make people suffer, not the opposite. For some very odd reason, living in one of the countries in the world with the least federal interference, you are so afraid of it. why? What are we in Norway then? Slaves?

     

    If we view neoliberalism, as the adage of the western governmental systems as "the best solution" so far, we humbly experience the results now. Do you really think that extended federal powers are BAD? It is their complete lack of regulating the capital and finance markets that created the situation in the sub-prime area in the first place.

     

    In Scandinavia, which is dangerously social-democratic, the federal bank went in at an early stage of a similar crisis in the liquidity of big banks. If the U.S government had been more active, and regulated the marked instead of this ridiculous lassaiez faire model, then maybe millons of people would not have lost their money and homes.

     

    The only way to protect common interest (not the bank interest) is to let a governmental body of supra-national judicial power be the true sovereign of the global financial market, in the same way the the U.N was supposed (and hopefully will again) to work. This is necessary because the global liberalist ideology is destroying the possibility of the poor countries to actually make a viable place in the global market, and as an old "evil" economist said: Free trade will sooner or later end up in monopoly or cartels, and when that happens, the economy will collapse. I think we're there now, and it's not because some conspiracy.

     

    Without going deep into macroeconomics, a responsible, disinterested federal bank, acting out of interest for the common good is by far the better solution.

    phew. off my chest.

     

    h

     

     

    If that is what we get then your arguments make sense. But actually what we will probably get is a central bank run by the same vested interests which are manipulating the situation to bring it about.

     

    I agree that not all government is bad and I also think that if you are interested in inner work then you have to work within the existing system - whatever that is. But it is also important to be as aware as possible of the mechanisms which are used to control society because this is part of learning about the human condition.

  6. Posted · Edited by apepch7

    I am not so concerned with conspiracy involvement, even though it may be the case. Its not my immediate problem.

     

    What is priority is staying financially safe, when its possible there is going to be runs on banks, government regulation over your savings accounts (look at Iceland today), and erosion of purchasing power as the government prints more money to finance its efforts to prop up the system. What collapses and who gets left holding the bag? This is all too real now, not a fanciful doomsday scenario.

     

     

    Actually I agree with you Paradise - what counts is the effect on us. BUT if by understanding what is happening we get less shaken up by it - well then this might be a good thing. I guess all of us on here are interested in internal working and believe that what counts is our individual level of realization or enlightenment and that there is an opportunity, even in stressful times like these to wake up our awareness to better levels of understanding. It doesn't have to be either or and can be both/and.

     

     

     

    Misfortunes come already, and this is just a beginning.

    Nothing is really free, people have to pay for their foolish greed.

    The funny thing is most people will never realize their own sin, but criticize others fruitlessly. And then they seek for some religious illusion to hocus themselves, they never have the courage to face the reality.

    This is a vicious circle, and it will certain result in doomsday.

     

     

    Li Jiong,

     

    Surely the problem is that we are paying for other people's greed over which we have no control.

  7. Posted

    Has anyone else considered this, that the current financial instability and banking crisis may well be deliberate. It is part of a long term strategy to introduce global institutions like a real world bank. That is a single body which controls money and business world wide. In order to get 'us' to agree to this plan 'they' have to make us sufficiently frightened - so that we will sign up to emergency measures. Already governments in America and Europe are nationalizing or part nationalizing what were private banks. My prediction is that they will soon start saying that national governments are not enough to deal with the crisis and that we need an international body with both reserves and regulatory powers which will ensure 'stability' in global finances.

  16. Posted

    Hi apepch7,

     

    I read about Kemetic Tree of Life:

    http://tribes.tribe.net/kmt/thread/745e106...43-dbf6ee22b2e6

     

    So I tought that in Ancient Egypt there was something related to the Kabbalah.

     

    I found a book that if you look into his contents you can see "Tree of Life" and I think there are Egyptian Gods on the spehers.

     

    Interesting that the Hebrew word for "Sphere" is "Sephira", not that far from each other, interesting...

     

    http://www.amazon.com/Metu-Neter-Vol-Kamit..._rdr_bb_product

     

    Altough I think the Jewish Kabbalah is the true Kabbalah, I found other versions of the tree of life interesting.

     

     

    Hi ToL,

     

    Thanks for these links.

     

    All I can say is that the Tree of Life was not used explicitly in Ancient Egypt. Now you take a view on this, that it was somehow a secret teaching and that the Jews learned it from them - but I think this is unlikely (but possible). The other way of looking at it is that the Tree of Life is a kind of universal key which can be applied to the Egyptian Religion as much as any other system. In which case, with care you can see the work that the writer quoted in your links is valid. I haven't read his books so I don't know but the Tree of Life diagram does have some oddities - like calling a Jackal headed deity Sebek when usually this would be Anubis - but there may be a reason for this.

     

    All I can say is that individuals receive inspiration and express it in their own way. It is up to everyone else to make there minds up if the work they present is useful or not. I would say though, that while there is a lot to learned by looking at correspondencies between different systems, there is also a danger of getting very confused. Each system is self consistent - but there is no natural consistency between systems.

     

     

     

    I keep wondering about reincarnation here. Does the Egyptian system believe in reincarnation? I've heard it said that Pythagoras got his belief in reincarnation from studying in Egypt.

     

    I wonder about the same thing in the Chinese system.

     

    On the one hand, if you believe in reincarnation why mess with such huge complexities as you'll have plenty of opportunities in another physical life?

     

    On the other hand, spiritual lineages dry up all the time around here so you'd better make the most of the spiritually inclined eras and milk every aspect of your experience that you can.

     

    In any case, Apepch7, thanks for all your thoughts!! It sounds like you have personally verified many aspects of Egyptian practice, too! Which is also pretty amazing.

     

    Your pal,

    Yoda

     

    The Egyptians definitely believed in rebirth - but had no teaching on reincarnation as such. By rebirth they referred to the continual renewal of the sun and stars (and by extension of souls) through the cycling of the universe. Kings also had something called the Sed festival in which they ritually died and were reborn (this occurred after about 30 years of reign). There was also a title of some gods 'Repeater of births' . It would seem logical that they believed in reincarnation but they never actually said anything like - you come back again.

     

    Pythagoras lived around 500 BC which is pretty late in Egypt's history. Its possible that he learned about reincarnation in Egypt but that it was not necessarily an Egyptian idea because Egypt became a kind of melting pot of ideas in the late period.

  19. Posted

    Hello apepch7,

     

    I'm interested if you can share about the Egyptian version of the Kabbalah, Is it the same as other versions of it?

     

    Thanks

     

     

    Hi,

     

    The Kabbalah is Jewish mysticism and there is no such thing as an Egyptian version of it, although as the Jews were in Egypt for a considerable period of time there is no doubt that they absorbed some ideas. The Pyramid Texts date to about 2365 BC and were old when first written down. So the Egyptian Religion is far older than Judaism. However I imagine that it could be a meaningful exercise to for instance place some of the Egyptian gods on the Tree of Life - but care needs to be taken because this could be very confusing.

  24. Posted · Edited by apepch7

    Here is my take on the akh, the sun rise and time (amongst other things).

     

    Hope you find it interesting. If anything isn't clear then let me know.

     

     

     

     

     

    The Akh

     

    The Ancient Egyptian texts and books were called 'se-akhu' which means akhifiers, or akh-makers. The purpose of the various Chapters, Utterances and Spells was to allow the person to transform into an akh. The word 'akh' comes from a root which means 'to be effective'. That is to have power and ability. So the akh state means that you have the ability to travel through and act in all the realms of this world and the next.

     

    The word is also related to the 'akhet' which is usually translated as 'horizon'. The idea of the horizon was different to ours, it was not an artificial line in distance but was rather a kind of intermediate zone or land between the day and night. It was thought of as a light filled space into which the sun returned at night and from which it emerged in the morning. It was the place in which the sun-god died each night and then at sunrise took on its new form or body so that it could emerge into the day. Its body is the visible sun disk or aten (not to be confused with the Aten god of Akhenaton).

     

    The akh was also identified with certain stars, principally those in the North sky which have the special quality of never rising or setting but rotate around the fixed astronomical North point. This means they have transcended the cycle of birth an death to which all other beings are subject.

     

    So to become an akh means that you have extended your functionality to all possible forms of existence and through this you do not need anymore to go through the cycles of dissolution and rebirth that otherwise would be necessary.

     

    To understand what this is all about we have to get some idea about the meaning of the sun cycling and therefore what role the akhet and the akh had in this.

     

    The Egyptians had two concepts of time, or actually two concepts of eternity. One called "neheh" means the eternal cycles of existence which are seen as recapitulations of the 'first time', i.e. the mythic original creation of the world. Because of "neheh" time, each sunrise was viewed as being the original creation.

     

    The other view of time was called "djet" time and is usually translated as everlastingness. This is about the linear time stretching back through history and forward into the future. The Pyramids and other stone structures were an attempt to establish an eternal existence within "djet" time.

     

    At a key stage in the after-life the ba of the deceased left the tomb to view the sunrise. This was significant for two reasons. One is that this showed that the soul had survived the first night and the other is that because the sunrise recapitulated the creation, the vision of the sunrise was actually a vision of reality.

     

    Imagine you are witness to the first moment of creation, the beginning. The pre-beginning is called the 'Nun' and is an infinite watery expanse, which is characterised (in as much as it can have a character) by these four aspects, it is watery (or fluid), it is infinite, there is no visible light and everything is hidden. This Nun contains the seeds of all possible beings and states of being but they are inert and without life. Within this vastness is a power. This power is also infinite and extends everywhere and is complete to itself. This continuum of power is called Atum. This power has the potential to create but because everything in the Nun is hidden there is no direction, no orientation, no up, down, left or right and so the power cannot act. In order to act the Atum condenses some of its body in order to make a 'place to stand' - this is the first place of orientation - and thus the first mound or hill comes into being. Although this hill has substance it is surrounded and permeated by the waters of the Nun, it is like a muddy hill half in existence and half out. But it is enough for Atum to begin to generate a world from his own body.

     

    As Atum does this he reflects on his own being, which is complete and whole and all powerful and as he expresses this unity a bright sun rises over the first hill. This sun disk is the first visible thing and is an expression of the unity of the Atum and all beings. As this happens, something else happens, time comes into existence. Atum is also Khepera whose name means 'evolver' and is the one who unlocks time.

     

    Why does time come into existence? Because now the sun has risen there is a 'before' and an 'after'. Now the sun has risen there is this reflection, "how did this come into being?" And to us as witness we can ask, "where did that come from?" This is our first step into duality and so there are two answers to this question. Immediately and at once, both the moment of the sun rise and the history that lead to 'this' sun rise come into being. And we realise that this sunrise is a recapitulation of all sunrises, a recapitulation of the very first sun rise.

     

    This is the meaning of eternity in a moment.

     

    The Egyptians say that the creator said "I am yesterday and I know tomorrow."

     

    They explain this by saying yesterday is Osiris and tomorrow is Ra. This means that if you stand in the moment of witnessing the sunrise you can look forward or you can look back. If you look back you know that that you are Osiris, which means you are that generative force passed down through generations from the very first life to now. Osiris is also the collection of 'memories' of all previous existence and his body forms the limits of a special region called the Dwat. And being this makes it possible that the sunrise is recognised. And (this is the hard part) that that whole history springs into being instantly like the sun. 'I know tomorrow' means that in that sun is all the energy of being and all the consequences of that energy. This means that once the sun has risen then the 'day' is ordained by that sun.

     

    So you are standing as witness to that sunrise which recapitulates the first act of creation and every sunrise. It is a vision of the unity of being reflecting Atum as Atum-Ra i.e. consciousness unified and self luminous. It unlocks time because it precipitates its own history and its own future.

     

    Because there is time, then there is energy and the consequence of energy. There is a kind of timeline of that energy. This means that the consequences of that sunrise will work themselves out in a finite way and that the time taken to do so will comprise the day. At the end of the day the sun will return where it came from, into the West and into darkness. This West will form an entry into the Dwat (Underworld) where the sun will shed the accumulations of the day. Within this world it will encounter the generative force of Osiris and the two souls, that of the sun and of Osiris will embrace. The two souls will unite. This will give the sun new energy to take on a new form in the Eastern horizon (akhet) and then rise.

     

    For the sun to travel from the East to the West it must pass across the surface of the waters of Nun. This surface is the sky, the goddess Nut. The hill which was formed to allow creation becomes the earth. And so we have a world which has three parts. The sky, the earth and the Dwat.

     

    A person then, in order to exist within this world has three parts. A body, like the earth. A ba which is his sky being, essentially divine like the sun god and his ka which relates to the Dwat. A person also can follow the sun path, through the Dwat and be reborn like the sun is each morning. To do this he re-enacts the embrace of Osiris and Ra each night. This is the union of the ka with the ba. The site of this event is the body, or more correctly the magically reconstructed body which is the mummy, called 'sah'.

     

    The product of this union is the akh, which is self-luminous and indestructible.

     

    So we have ka, ba, body and akh.

     

    Now the body has several terms used about it. One is 'khat' - which means corpse. Another is 'af' which means flesh. And most importantly the dignified dead, who has gone through all the rites is the 'sah' or mummy.

     

    Also we have the name, or 'ren' in Egyptian. Magically a name was significant because to know the true name of something was to have power over it. There is a famous story of how Isis became called Urt-Hekau "Great magician" by tricking the Ra into revealing his secret name. This was because this name was not the accidental label that we usually use, but the actual signature energy vibration of the being. Because of this the name is linked closely to the 'ka'.

     

    The shade or "Shewt" (sometimes called khaibit - but this is wrong) is linked to the ba. It is the form that the being takes on when entering the underworld and looks like a silhouette. It emerges with the ba to greet the rising sun. It is the reflex of the ba, which is a light being. In order for balance to be retained both light and dark have to be present, just as everything in sunlight has a shadow.

     

    I have already explained about the heart as the 'mind' or centre of the being. So this gives us - body, heart, ka, ba, ren, shewt, and akh.

     

    Stepping outside the field of Egyptology as such I would like to make the following comment. These aspects to your being, your ka and your ba can yield great treasures. For instance the ka can allow you to access all the wisdom of the ancestral record if you know how to do this. The ba can reveal uncharted vistas of consciousness and the free interplay of energy. But they both hold dangers. For a person who wants to work with these ideas the key is poise and balance. By that I mean that we have to centre ourselves in our hearts and let the forces that influence us come to a state of balance or peace. Having established this peace it is possible to explore and take our consciousness into the realms that usually lie hidden to us, with the ultimate goal of unifying all the parts of our being into the indestructible light body of the akh.

  25. Posted · Edited by apepch7

    apepch7 thank you for your answers. I have more questions I will try to put in the following.

     

    ...

     

    Here comes my questions: what are the roles of the magick, astrology in the Egyptian mysticism? What were the roles of the pyramids? What is the link between Sirius star, Orion belt stars and the solar religion in ancient Egypt, if any?

     

    Steam,

     

    Thanks for that interesting stuff on Gurdieff.

     

    To answer your questions as best I can:

     

    1) Magic(k) in Egypt was central. It was at heart a magical religion. Magic was called Heka (pron. Hey-ka) and was personified as a god with the same name who was among the 'crew' of the sun's boat. In Egypt magic was seen as both an ability i.e. to know the right words and how to say them and also a kind of energy which could be 'eaten' ... the king in the Pyramid Texts talks about magic being in his belly. Isis (sometimes Hathor) was called 'Urt-hekau' which means Great Magician and was shown as a winged cobra. In the underworld the god of magic was accompanied by two others called Perception and Command. It was all about seeing what to do and how to do it. This is where knowing names comes in, because the use of magic was seen as the ability to utter the right spell. In the Book of the Dead the deceased is hailed as magician when he summons the ferryman to cross the sky to the East. (By the way Heka is thought to be the origin of the goddess Hecate - the witch goddess.)

     

    2) Astrology ... well not really. There was astrology in Egypt but it was a late emergent. The famous temple ceiling from Dendera had a Zodiac but it was essentially a Mesopotamian import. However stars, the sun, the planet and some constellations were important to the Egyptians.

     

    3) The South Sky star and constellation of Sirius and Orion were very important to the Egyptians. Sirius called Sopdu (the sharp/bright one) was seen as Isis, while Orion known as Sahu was seen as Osiris. The Southern direction to the Egyptians was the direction of the source of the Nile and thus the origin of fertility (because of the Nile flood). The presence of the brightest stars of the sky in this direction reinforced this sense of life force and growth.