Thelema and the Upanishads: Isa-Upanishad

 

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 affect 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 an aversion towards 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 in Hindu parlance. 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 as much, 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.”