We are accustomed these days to bringing our opinions, politics, and points of view into everything we do. Most of us, at least some of the time conflate our spiritual practice with our morality, our values, and our politics, to the point where people say things like; “you can’t be spiritual and a conservative”, or “all liberals are degenerates”. This is hardly surprising considering the moral facet of most religions, but such oversimplifications give a false sense of comfort and security, after all, we are in the right, aren’t we? It’s obviously those guys over there who have it wrong, and are therefore unspiritual, blinded by their egos and ingrained attitudes, whereas we are the ones who have it figured out, we are on the path, everyone else is lost and the don’t even know it, right?
In my experience these attitudes and tendencies to conflate political and social attitudes and other aspects of the mind with spirituality are the fastest way to ruin a perfectly good practice. Many a temple has been torn apart by infighting between opposing viewpoints, and fraternal bonds sundered over who voted for who or ones views on the hot topic of the day.
Of course, one must always be honest and sincere in ones beliefs and opinions, and without looking reality directly in the face no progress can be made. Facts are facts, if you drink sulfuric acid because you don't believe what those nasty scientists tell you about it, and what you put in your body is your choice anyway, you will die just the same. We must deal with reality as it is, not as we would like it to be, as our senses report, not how we feel. Understanding what we think and why, and how we feel about things and why, is all part of the practice we are engaged in as initiates, so identifying with our opinions so that we can no longer see where we end and our opinions begin is, for an initiate, a form of blindness, and one that all of us fall for to some extent.
Despite this, all of us, without exception are seeking in our practice, to make contact with and partake of that pure well of experience, the ‘ground of being’ that springs up in each of us by virtue of the fact that we exist at all. Call it 'union with God', 'the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel', 'Moksha', or whatever. That's where the path tends to, all on the path are heading in that way, battling through their own jungle to do so.
While the A.’.A.’. is not a lodge system, nobody lives in a vacuum, and initiates should be careful about this wellspring of pure being at the heart of our aspiration. Take care not to muddy it or cover it over with the dirt and refuse of our lives, our opinions, and all the other things we mistake for ourselves. It’s an extremely difficult thing to do in practice, but I believe that ones politics and opinions should be left at the temple door and that sacred space be entered with a real sense of fraternity, more than that, reverence, and a recognition and identity with our brothers and sisters, we are all , in our own way, trying to do the same thing.
This does not mean that ones opinions and ideas need never be challenged; practice is not a safe space but a real challenging of ourselves to be our authentic self, the 'face before you were born', not the veil of personality that we take for our self. In terms of teacher/student relations, a teacher may ask a student why they hold an opinion, asking them to question themselves, but he should not place a moral judgement on it, and a wise teacher will leave well enough alone once something has been pointed out as a point to practice on, and not harp on about it. Likewise a student who expects the teacher to always meet their ideal of some enlightened being will be disappointed if they find out that the teachers opinions differ from their own, or that their teacher is another human with his own failures and quirks, and not the mahatma they expect, they may flee in disgust and never again trust another human being to try to help.
The A.’.A.’., not the order founded by Crowley, but the supernal Order, exists beyond the limitations of personality, way above Tiphareth even, and cannot be defined in the limited terms of the ego. Learning to get beyond these limitations, see the pure well buried beneath aeons of dust and grime, a lifetime of opinions and ideals, fears, hopes, and other detritus of the personality, is the whole of practice. If we want to drink of this pure well of experience that is our birth right, we must begin by clearing out the detritus in ourselves. This is why regular meditation is so important. More than that, we must refuse to allow detritus to be thrown casually into the well by others, the temple, sangha, place of practice and group that we practice with should as much as possible be free of these things. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t have opinions, but that we need to be able to leave them at the temple door.
If I write to a brother and sign off as ‘Frater’, this means we
are operating in sacred space, and I don’t expect to be asked about my opinion
on this or that current event. If I don a robe in a group setting, this is an
opportunity to touch the source of reality, not the place for idle gossip and
chatter, or the judging of others who are there, we hope, for the same reasons
we are. Likewise, if a brother or sister expresses an opinion I disagree with, then in temple or sacred context is not the time or place to bring it up, and while we must be swift to correct a misconception or falsity we need to be cautious about how, when, and even if we do so. Sometimes it is wiser to let things be, if it causes no harm, and if a person proves intractable in error, for example where an idea is foundational to a whole worldview, then while the individual concerned will need to break that barrier down themselves (and this is the path of the tower), often outside interference in such fondly held beliefs is met with hostility, silence is preferable in most instances.
Humans are social animals, and even the brethren, other
people on the path, want to talk to each other about current events and will
always have differing views on things. There is not necessarily anything wrong
with this, but we need to be aware that here we are operating no higher than
Hod/Netzach, the Outer College so to speak, and subject to false egos in the place of the real Tiphareth. At this level all is confusion, and
interactions here are prone to misunderstandings. There needs to be a clear
demarcation between this sort of thing and dealing with matters pertaining to
the path. if we cannot rise past these things, up, along the middle pillar, and
beyond such trivialities in our interactions with others then we are not yet touching
the source, that well spring is as yet covered. If we get continually involved in
the mental agitations of our brothers and sisters of lower grades then this is
an opportunity to practice rising on the planes and bypassing these spheres of
the personality, for both our sakes.
It is said that when sat in meditation we all become Buddha. That is to say, when in meditation we all identify with that wellspring of our lives. Thought drops away and with it opinion and ego, thus we are really all the same person in this state of pure being. in light of this, it is important I feel to move beyond the limitations of the personality and try to see each person as a reflection of ourselves, not as an ego with an opinion that we want to argue with, but as a pure being drawing life from, and expressing in their way that infinite and unknown source.
This, I think, is the real meaning of fraternity.
