Alchemy and Hieros Gamos

Any Forums, As you know, humans are composed of two primary opposites: mind, (consciousness, immortal Being, Purusha) & body (matter, mortal Becoming, Prakriti). These opposites trouble us and produce a dynamical, life-long process of spiritual growth. In psychological understanding, this process is directed toward the realization of one's essential person, one's Platonic "higher self.”

The periodic descent back into matter fuels novelty generation and the Individuation process. Your Self is eternal, and this realm is you fishing for more unique experiences that color your true divine identity. The physical plane is a diversion and a test wherein the circumstances are perfectly tuned for challenges that spur growth, novelty, and insight.

Bringing forth the immortal person (often known as Jungian individuation), living a fulfilling life guided by divine providence, and reuniting with your opposite half in a hieros gamos, or holy marriage, is the most noble goal of many of these traditions. It is captured in the alchemists’ description of the Great Work or Magnum Opus of the "Rebis": married in the physical, united once again in spirit.

This process is often characterized by finding a conscious dialogue with your daemon, guardian angel, your other half in spirit, who will guide who towards your destiny, path, dharma. Synchronicities dot the path.

Thus, a primary task of man and woman in this realm of duality is to reign in their serpent - Prakiti, the kundalini force - and become the master of it (and importantly - not suppress it entirely) to achieve balance and harmony between the lightness of Being and density of Becoming in the heart:

“Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

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Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhya
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Bulls
youtu.be/8u1JtRBJzqg
youtube.com/watch?v=l8kY_cfAM6A
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

This is a deep spiritual process that has been described by many religious and esoteric traditions.
These traditions generally include the following elements:
>the primordial angelic hermaphrodite
>the notion of a divine soulmate or twin
>the dual forces of mind and matter (these are usually assigned a gender, but not always)
>the descent of the soul into matter for a purpose and the ascent back to unity, following a successful incarnation
>the eternal nature of consciousness and the soul
>an acknowledgment of the higher realms, i.e. the astral plane

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>“Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.”

Hermeticism, Jungian Psychology, and Myth
Hermes can be thought of as the God voice in bicameralism that reveals itself once the brain hemispheres have been balanced and synchronized. Hermes, the messenger of the gods or “god of travelers/boundaries”, literally means “heap of stones, boundary marker.” The duality from which this reference stems is life and death – the heap of stones at a gravesite that stands at the threshold between the material and spiritual. The word hermaphrodite, which shares the same root, is characterized by having attributes of both sexes – a literal manifestation of a higher level integration of the anima/animus.
Similarly, Shiva (Purusha) and counterpart Parvati/Kali/Shakti (Prakriti) were originally a merged entity known as Ardhanarishvara. When rejoined and reconcile, they reside back in the heart center.
The spiritual journey (i.e. one's awakening) is symbolically represented on Hermes’ staff, the caduceus – the two snakes of the kundalini (representing the male and female -Shakti- energies of earth) wind their way up the spine, activating each chakra, until they ultimately bootstrap the soul and set it free into the heavens (represented by the wings at the top of the staff).

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>humans are composed of two primary opposites
No.
There are many more parts
>ethereal body
>spirit body
etc.

Don't water down shit and then ignore the pranic aspects of being.

Fair point, I'm just highlighting the important primary duality of Purusha and Prakriti.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samkhya

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One sentence in and you're already wrong.
Humans are a trinity, not just a duality.
Body-Mind-Spirit

Spiritual liberation can thus be seen as a four step, sequential, duality-bridging process. The female aspect first liberates the male spiritually (integration of the anima), the male liberates the female materially (the slaying of the dragon), the female liberates the male materially (the holy marriage), the male liberates the female spiritually (the integration of the animus) – this final step is hinted at by Andromeda’s very name, which means “to be mindful of man.” In Jungian terms, the result is a quaternio hieros gamos – a holy marriage between the four aspects of the two individuals.
These phenomenon are also highly related to the myth of Cupid and Psyche: the root of psychedelic is of course "psyche" and in Greek "Psyche'"means breath, life, soul. She was a woman in myth - actually, the twin soul of Cupid himself. Those wings pictured on Psyche and Cupid are astral wings, same as on the caduceus.
Hinduism also tells us about the androgynous creator. It is we creator because at the beginning all consciousness was in one and the same person also called Adam Kadmon in Kaballah for example. This is the primordial "I am" that is also called Eros, Phanes, Protogonos in Greek mythology
Ardhanarishvara represents the synthesis of masculine and feminine energies of the universe (Purusha and Prakriti) and illustrates how Shakti, the female principle of God, is inseparable from (or the same as, according to some interpretations) Shiva, the male principle of God. The union of these principles is exalted as the root and womb of all creation. The relevant image here is the Hindu Shatkona, which you may know as the Star of David or Merkaba: the union of the upward (Shiva, Purusha) and downward (Shakti, Prakriti) triangles. This is Adam and Eve, reunited again, reentering the garden.

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This is a realm of duality. I'm coming at this from a Hindu perspective. The duality of which I speak is Shiva-Shakti, Purusha-Prakriti.

Samkhya is a dualistic āstika school of Indian philosophy, regarding reality and the human experience as being constituted by two independent ultimate principles, puruṣa ('consciousness' or spirit); and prakṛti, (cognition, mind and emotions, c.q. nature or matter).

Pro-tip

"God", "The Source", "Dharmakaya", "Brahma", whatever you want to call it, is beyond the dualism of gender.

If you identify God as both male and female and not beyond the two, you are falling under demonic deception.

God doesn't have a dick and a pussy, He's beyond that.

I agree with you; gender and the conjunction of opposites is just a helpful scaffold for understanding. My studies have led me to the conclusion that the primary dualism is Being and Becoming, Shiva/Shakti, Yin/Yang, Purusha/Prakriti.

The (more feminine) right hemisphere is concerned with analogical, associative thinking. The march of time and causality is put on the back-burner. This is the realm of poetry, instantaneous connections and Yin. These process are guided by backward leaps through time.

The (masculine) left hemisphere is concerned with causality. These Yang processes are step-wise, sequential, and temporal, they involve language, logic, and narrative, and emphasize causation. These process are guided by movement forward in time.

Yin is "being in the present/Being" the mode cultivated by mindfulness meditation, and is the observational mode of consciousness. In this mode the fixed point of reference is a single omnipresent moment, with instantaneous change in this moment experienced. Past and future are not experienced, from the perspective of doing it is like the universe being continually destroyed and recreated in the present moment.

Yang is the linguistic and narrative mode of consciousness where not one moment exists but an infinite number comprising the line of time, which is the fixed point of reference, with the moment being variable. It is the mode of Becoming: thinking, remembering, planning, and anticipating that in our modern hyperactive society is much more familiar to us.

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And I'm telling you, your whole school is wrong fundamentally.
There are three base building blocks of a man, and you're putting people in danger with your philosophically interpreted alchemy.
T. Taoist practitioner

TLDR:

the actionable advice in the thread is the following:
>become the best version of yourself; understand your dharma, your purpose
>find your other half in spirit
>she (embodied the physical) will then find a way into your life
>put a ring on

The divine hermaphrodite. CHIM

Plato on the Primordial Soul
Born out of primordial chaos was Phanes, known in other traditions elsewhere as Adam, Mithras, and Cupid/Eros.
In the beginning, humans, like Phanes, were androgynous. So says Aristophanes in his fantastical account of the origins of love in Plato’s Symposium.
Not only did early humans have both sets of sexual organs, Aristophanes reports, but they were outfitted with two faces, four hands, and four legs. These monstrosities were very fast – moving by way of cartwheels – and they were also quite powerful. So powerful, in fact, that the gods were nervous for their dominion.
Wanting to weaken the humans, Zeus, Greek king of Gods, decided to cut each in two, and commanded his son Apollo “to turn its face…towards the wound so that each person would see that he’d been cut and keep better order.” If, however, the humans continued to pose a threat, Zeus promised to cut them again – “and they’ll have to make their way on one leg, hopping!”
The severed humans were a miserable lot, Aristophanes says.
“[Each] one longed for its other half, and so they would throw their arms about each other, weaving themselves together, wanting to grow together.”
Finally, Zeus, moved by pity, decided to turn their sexual organs to the front, so they might achieve some satisfaction in embracing.
Plato argues that because the soul (psyche) desires to return to its origin - the Form Of The Good, the Form of Eternal Beauty etc. - eros (rational desire, desire for the Good) precedes sight and reason as the driver of thought and behavior, and is the foundational, instinctual component of the soul.

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While it is a simplification, many cultures over the millennia have nonetheless attributed gender to these two forces: the Sustaining force is the male principle; while the dynamic Flowing force is female principle. This is seen in the Lingam as the active, feminine Shakti force flowing around the neutral phallus of Shiva, the snakes climbing the rod of the Hermetic caduceus and the Tibetan phurba, as well as the Ancient Egyptian Djed column (representing the Sustaining force of Osiris’ consciousness) paired with the Tyet (representing the Flowing feminine nature of Isis).

In Buddhism, this dynamic is represented symbolically as the Yab-Yum, the primordial union of wisdom and compassion.

In Kaballah, this is seen as the union of the masculine chokhmah and feminine Binah.

In Gnosticism, this is seen as the union of Sophia (Wisdom) and Christ (Compassion).

Your higher self resides in the realm of Plato's forms, the realm of spirit - you can visualize it with its eternal consort, just like each and every buddha.

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The One/All splits into Purusha and Prakriti so that it can experience itself evolving / becoming. We are projections of archetypal Forms that exist independently in Spirit.

Form exists at the limit where Becoming approaches infinity. Pure Being in archetypal spirit-space. Strive to become more like the perfect Forms, the Logoi, in your everyday life.
This density is a test as well as a diversion - the descent from union with your feminine other half to back into duality.

The process of becoming is an infinite journey - like the concept of an asymptote in mathematics. Prakriti, Matter, Kundalini "fuels" the individuation process

The transcendent Higher Self also has an immanent projection, and we may identify, perhaps, the immanent Higher Self with the ἴδιος δαίμων, the anima, the personal or guardian angel, at least in some versions of that idea. The Higher Self also seems to be a likely candidate for Socrates’ δαιμόνιον.

Jung stresses that the Higher Self is paradoxical — and even contradictory — because it comprehends all the opposites. He calls it the Unus Mundus, but in Neoplatonic terms it is τὸ ἄρρητον ἕν (the Inexpressible One), which unifies mind and matter, unity and plurality, stability and change — indeed being and non-being, Being and Becoming.
The only way to bridge these contradictions, according to Jung, is by a symbolic process, which he calls the transcendent function. Synchronicities are clues hinting at one's transcendent function.

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Ok so what does all this mean in practical terms? The fuck am I supposed to do and how do i do it

Good question, see:
and:
Stay grounded, the journey is lonely and often terrifying:
>exercise, yoga and breath work
>meditation
>intermittent fasting
>active imagination (read Jung's Red Book)
>synchronicity journal,
>dream journal
>pay attention to unconscious thoughts during hypnagogic states
>Read Jung (on alchemy, anima, shadow and his Red Book)
>Joseph Campbell on the hero's journey.
>Swedenborg's Heaven and Hell
>Skimming Lawofone.info has helped me as well
>"Thou Art That." You are a holofractal representation of the whole, the One.
>We are all living mythological arcs.
>A balancing of male/female energies. Slaying the ego can also be seen as the opening of the “third eye” or ajna chakra
>A reconciliation with the shadow is needed. During awakening, one should expect to engage with many negative/evil aspects of yourself and society as a whole. This is known as the "dark night of the soul". This may be construed as a confrontation with the evil within and without
>Synchronicities. They serve as guideposts for your personal "arc" or your "infinity narrative"
>Spiritual Alchemy is a real process. Everyone can turn a leaden soul into spiritual gold by undergoing the hero's journey, reconciling the above aspects within yourself and finding peace within and true love without.
>Living simply with a dedication to a craft alongside a loving family within a strong, local community is key to sustained happiness
>Each religion contains a piece of the spiritual tapestry.
>It's about unlearning as much as it's about learning. Getting comfortable with paradox is important.
>Untangling yourself from negative karmic webs is tough, but worth it
>Read this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Bulls
>Familiarize yourself with the Tao Te Ching & remember the three treasures: frugality, compassion, and humility

CONQUER FEAR, DO IT ALL FOR LOVE.

Your imagination is more powerful than you can imagine and your home is among the stars.

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This is one of many practices, but it's very fast and it will give you balance when you see reality. Trust me
youtu.be/8u1JtRBJzqg

Also, take the Jurgen pill on the astral planes:

youtube.com/watch?v=l8kY_cfAM6A

Every object and soul exists on multiple levels of reality ("astral planes"). This is where you dream. As you experience higher astral planes, the objects, the experiences become more beautiful, more nuanced, increasingly characterized by the infinite, fractal dimensions.

When you die, your internal state of this life becomes your external reality in the next.

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>Ok so what does all this mean in practical terms?

Nothing. Nothing at all. Just words. Stop looking for answers. Instead start asking the right questions.

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Please take into consideration that just doing breath meditation is a very dry way of doing it, and it's not how the Buddha explained the way. It has to be coupled with metta and relaxation of the body and mind (because of the hindrances). Just my two cents, my n'wah