The Fight: Know Thyself

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Feminine docility is not without its own measure of strength. Our strength is in resisting the pull of materiality. We must slay, repeatedly, our own shadow personas. We are good and pure and truth loving at our core, but environment and learned mistrust make us contort in an effort to get by and in an effort to maintain peace. We put on airs, we put on personalities and masquerade our way through life pretending to enjoy the emptiness. It is an emptiness because no amount of physical gratification can permanently satisfy it. It is a ravenous primal wanting which instinctively strives for self-preservation and material enjoyment. When we're not attentive, that primal desire can lead us down dangerous path after dangerous path. 
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Waiting for the Beloved, surrounded by endless opportunities to indulge, how do we stay true to our calling? We stay on the look out for hunger pains. Lustful desire feels like an irresistible compulsion. It feels like a possession. Some "stronger" force takes over, i.e. "I couldn't help it," "I just had to eat it" or "I got caught up in the passion of it." Our emotional hankerings become run away trains when we aren't vigilant. Thus the great benefit of yoga, prayer, meditation and similar methods of self cultivation. You have to be familiar with the makeup of your being to know which part is vying for expression at any given time. The sefekh ba Ra, chakras and the tree of life for example all illustrate the archetypal personas which we act from in various situations. Knowing them allows one to become a witness. Then, love gradually becomes the controller and action is rooted in Truth.
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In order to maintain devotion to Truth, it is necessary to "know thyself." Know and prioritize your spiritual and carnal inclinations. Through continued effort one is able to act from a core of lovefull peace, unpersuaded by the gross desires for survival, sex and status. Fasting, chanting, praying, and serving others are ways of quelling the ever-hankering shadow persona. Even when your desire burns or when fear and fatigue take hold, your self-knowledge and practice of spiritual disciplines will keep you firmly established in devotion.








Gratitude to my Beloved Sun for strengthening my fight
 with the gift of properly channeled devotion.





11/2014