Thelema and
the Upanishads: Isa-Upanishad
“Do what thou wilt
shall be the whole of the Law.”
ISA-UPANISHAD
PEACE CHANT OM!
That (the
Invisible-Absolute) is whole;
whole is this (the
visible phenomenal);
from the Invisible
Whole comes forth the visible whole.
Though the visible
whole has come out from that Invisible Whole,
yet the Whole
remains unaltered.
OM! PEACE! PEACE!
PEACE!
The Invisible Absolute who is Nuit as the Queen of Heaven
and finds her first manifestation in Kether wherein Hadit is perfectly united
with her. The Supernal Triad is wholly abstract and sometimes called the
Saturnian Triad, which links the Demiurge to the realm of Forms. Ergo, in the
above the aspirant is affirming his connection to eternity by means of the
noetic faculty. By contemplating perfection and acknowledging the Great Mother
in the above mantra he affirms the aim of the work, which is the dissolution of
self into pure consciousness.
I
ALL this,
whatsoever exists in the universe,
should be covered
by the Lord. Having renounced (the unreal),
enjoy (the Real).
Do not covet the wealth of any man.
The Lord in this Upanishad is Adonai, and symbolic of
Knowledge and Conversation with one’s Holy Guardian Angel. It is via this union
between an adept and his angel that illusion is destroyed, and the True Will is
enlivened in the life of the magician.
II
IF one should
desire to live in this world a hundred years,
one should live
performing Karma (righteous deeds).
Thus thou mayest
live; there is no other way.
By doing this,
Karma (the fruits of thy actions) will not defile thee.
The Great Work of an adept is in perfect harmony with nature
and so, if he follows his True Will, these deeds are perfect and can never
defile his soul. Hence from his vantage point there really is only one course
forward and that is to do his Will undeterred.
III
AFTER leaving
their bodies,
they who have
killed the Self go to the worlds of the Asuras,
covered with
blinding ignorance.
Hadit, who must come to realization
in this life in order to unite with Nuit, is awakened within the Soul and
informs the True Will of a magician via his awakening. Hadit may accurately be
compared to Atman, and the means to achieve this realization is through
initiation. The aim of awakening necessitates purifying the Soul and
perfecting it through the practice of magick. Magick is thus the higher path.
People who do not follow the higher and bind themselves to the lower nature of
their souls, are in a sense defiling their souls and hiding the nature of their
true selves even further, so that in death they must be purified in order to
free this true self, and this is experienced as hell. This is one interpretation, but another is that the Asuras and hell, are the Shadow and the complexes that do not serve the True Will, which need to be destroyed in the fire upon the altar. This purging the Soul of its impurities is often painful and may easily also be compared to hell.
IV
THAT One, though
motionless, is swifter than the mind.
The senses can
never overtake It, for It ever goes before.
Though immovable,
It travels faster than those who run.
By It the
all-pervading air sustains all living beings.
The True Will is the unconscious driving force of Being to
come to complete realization. We are not aware of its nature although the effect it has on the Soul is that of inertia, it, in one respect corrects wrong actions and in another facilitates the actions of one who is
already doing his Will. The True Will corresponds to the awakening of the True
Self and thus in the above verse is attributed to the nature of Atman. It also
follows that union between an adept and his angel leads to reflecting divine
inspiration into the world of matter, the sempiternal nature of this storehouse
is indicated in the above also as that which informs the Great Work and
realization of the True Will.
V
IT moves and It
moves not.
It is far and also
It is near.
It is within and
also It is without all this.
The ineffable nature of the divine is here expressed, as
mentioned in the previous comment, the nature of which is sempiternal. It is
without form and all form, from the realm of ideas to all the worlds manifested
within the Demiurge. Nuit as nothing, from her inspiration as Babalon our
mother and descending into the world of matter as the Shekinah encompasses all of creation. The Logos of
the universe and the Logos of the human soul are all equally divine and perfect when
viewed from this union between Hadit and Nuit. As the lower is always just a
reflection of the higher and vice versa, there is nothing in the universe that
is not entirely divine. Although it is only by misunderstanding, that this
nature of the divine is corrupted and it is this corruption which necessitates the Great Work.
VI
HE who sees all
beings in the Self
and the Self in
all beings,
he never turns
away from It (the Self).
VII
HE who perceives
all beings as the Self,
for him how can
there be delusion or grief,
when he sees this
oneness (everywhere).
Now, therefore, I am known to ye by my name Nuit, and to
him by a secret name which I will give him when at last he knoweth me. Since I
am Infinite Space and the Infinite Stars thereof, do ye also thus. Bind
nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing &
any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt.
Liber AL: Chapter 1, verse 22:
We are taught within Thelema to unite ourselves with all
opposites, even those ideas that we have are repulsed by must be united
with, to such a degree that we learn to love them. This is quite the task, but
it certainly makes sense when viewed through what is taught in the above verse,
the nature of this union is Agape, universal love and does not mean love for god,
but the universe as a whole. Every man, every woman and everything in the
universe is united within this Self, which is called Parabrahman. To forget that, would mean to fall from it, and via certain yogic
practices we may remind ourselves as to the nature of the Work and maintain our
connection with the divine.
VIII
HE(the Self) is
all-encircling, resplendent,
bodiless,
spotless, without sinews,
pure untouched by
sin, all-seeing, all-knowing, transcendent, self-existent;
He has disposed
all things duly for eternal years.
This is the union between Hadit and Nuit, wherefrom subject
becomes one with object and the ego is dissolved into the body of the Goddess. Omnipotent,
omnipresent and omniscient beingness reflects this union between Atman and
Brahman, as he attains godhood and experiences the formless and eternal nature
of Being.
IX
THEY enter into
blind darkness who worship Avidya (ignorance and delusion);
they fall, as it
were, into greater darkness who worship Vidya (knowledge).
X
BY Vidya one end
is attained; by Avidya, another.
Thus we have heard
from the wise men who taught this.
XI
HE who knows at
the same time both
Vidya and Avidya,
crosses over death
by Avidya
and attains
immortality through Vidya.
The above indicates that uniting the lower and the higher is
essential for complete realization to occur. Without first establishing a firm
foundation in hell, complete union is unattainable, qbalistically, these are
associated with the Nephesch and the Ruach, and the unconscious and the intellect,
and it is only by harmonizing these parts of the Soul that any higher insights
into the nature of Being may be gained. It is striking too, that Vidya is the
means through which immortality may be attained, and accordingly corresponds to
the Ruach with the same emphasis and meaning that the ancient Greeks placed on the noetic
faculty.
XII
THEY fall into
blind darkness who worship the Unmanifested
and they fall into
greater darkness who worship the manifested.
XIII
BY the worship of
the Unmanifested one end is attained;
by the worship of
the manifested, another.
Thus we have heard
from the wise men who taught us this.
XIV
HE who knows at
the same time both the Unmanifested (the cause of manifestation)
and the
destructible or manifested,
he crosses over
death through knowledge of the destructible
and attains
immortality
through knowledge
of the First Cause (Unmanifested).
The Soul is both corporeal and incorporeal, matter and our
physical bodies, are equally parts of the Demiurge as the invisible world. The
invisible sempiternal world and the temporal material world are both equally
storehouses of influence, that must be united with, in order to raise the Soul
to higher levels of divine experience. Death is the great teacher, and it is by experiencing
temporality that one may fully live and find peace in death and it is via uniting the Soul and
the All-Soul, or raising Hadit to conscious awareness, that the Great Work is achieved.
Strive ever to more! And if thou art truly mine – and doubt
it not, and if thou art ever joyous! – death is the crown of all.
Ah! Ah! Death! Death! Thou shalt long for death. Death is
forbidden, o man, unto thee.
The length of thy longing shall be the strength of its
glory. He that lives long & and desires death much is ever the King among
the Kings.
Liber AL Chapter 2, Verses 72,73, 74:
XV
THE face of Truth
is hidden by a golden disk.
O Pushan
(Effulgent Being)! Uncover (Thy face) that I,
the worshipper of
Truth,
may behold Thee.
XVI
O PUSHAN!
O Sun, sole
traveller of the heavens,
controller of all,
son of Prajapati, withdraw Thy rays
and gather up Thy
burning effulgence.
Now through Thy
Grace I behold Thy blessed and glorious form.
The Purusha
(Effulgent Being)
who dwells within
Thee, I am He.
It is only through sincere devotion that Knowledge and
Conversation may be attained, a state of being, from whence all delusion falls
away and one is guided by the pure light of Truth. It is also noteworthy how
even in the Upanishads the attainment is reliant, not merely on the work, but the
readiness of the aspirant is indicated as this union relies on “Grace”. The Sun
is here remarkably, also expressed, as pertaining to Tiphareth, where one gets a
first glance at the unity and attains Knowledge and Conversation with one’s
Holy Guardian Angel. Purusha is thus related to Asar-un-nefer and the
Ruach, which establishes the connection between Heaven and Earth, from whence Being is unfolded.
XVII
MAY my life-breath
go to the all- pervading and immortal Prana,
and let this body
be burned to ashes.
Om! O mind,
remember thy deeds!
O mind, re-
member, remember thy deeds! Remember!
Immortality is attained in the work we do, not some notion
of the hereafter, the Soul must be made complete in the here and now. If one’s
life is devoted thusly, “death is the crown of all”. Once union is attained the
True Will becomes the Soul’s expression through the particular work one is called to, as
guided by one’s relationship with the divine and the inspiration received. This
is the task of an adept, to give every drop of his life's blood to the cup of Babalon, in
a sense, it is achieved via the struggle for maintaining authenticity and
remaining steadfast. It is only in death that the work is complete, and the
journey is done.
XVIII
O AGNI (Bright
Being)!
Lead us to
blessedness by the good path.
O Lord !
Thou knowest all
our deeds, remove all evil and delusion from us.
To Thee we offer
our prostrations and supplications again and again.
Here ends this
Upanishad.
This Upanishad is dedicated to Agni, who is an aspect of
Atman. Within a Thelemic context, one may think of it as the difference between
the Holy Guardian Angel and Hadit. Hadit being the eternal self as Atman, and
Agni being a reflection of each individual Soul, he is called Lord, such as
Adonai. Hence this verse indicates the yearning of an aspirant to his angel and
is in harmony with the Thelemic formula for attaining Knowledge and
Conversation with thine Holy Guardian Angel.
All quotes are taken from Liber AL vel Legis and The Upanishads, translated by Swami Paramananda.
“Love is the law, love
under will.”