The Land of No Desire Part II

I consulted my good friend and teacher, David Shoemaker. He's a great student of Thelema. I asked him about this passage from Liber LXV Chapter III. He sent me a quote from Crowley's own commentary.

"CHAPTER III

This chapter is attributed to Water; it deals with the preliminary reflections of Truth as apprehended by intuition, beyond any intellectual apprehension; and with the nature of the Understanding and the sexual instinct.

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The sea is the Sensorium of the Soul, and the currents his tendencies -- those activities in which he finds pleasure. Until one has passed through the totality of possible experience (as divined by estimation of the actualities available in one's own case) one cannot reach the state in which all Desire is recognized as futile. Only when this is fixed can one perceive the Unicorn -- de Astris -- the single pure Purpose (it is white) whose name is written in the way now to be explained.

The collar represents completeness -- the ``infinity'' or ``eternity'' symbolized by a ring. It is round the neck, i.e., the seat of knowledge (Death -- the Visuddhi cakkra) and made of silver -- the metal of the Virgin Isis-Urania, who informs Pure Aspirations.

The name of this Unicorn (whose horn signifies the creative power) is ``The Green Line winds about the Universe.'' Note the etymology of Viridis, connected with vir and vis; also the idea of gyrat, reminding one of the aphorism ``God is He with the Head of the Hawk, having a spiral force.''

The Green Line, here chosen to connote the Limit of the Universe, suggests the Girdle of Venus. The boundary of Existence is thus not a fixed idea, but an ever-growing Vegetable Principle of Life, of the nature of Love. Summing up the doctrine, one may say that the intelligible expression of the pure creative Idea is the omniform principle of Growth."

It seems Crowley's commentary on the inspired writing is that one must travel the ocean of their own pleasures and fettishes until they are of no more power over them.

Personally - I disagree. I respect Crowley's view, but there are many examples in many different traditions where the participant overcomes pleasure to great degrees through the use of meditation. The Dalai Lama, Paramhansa Yoganada, my friend Lama Marut, and many others.

Crowley's methodology seemed to work for him - despite the naysayers he didn't die of a drug overdose. he was a heroin addict but overcame his addictions prior to his death. But how many people can do that? it's a match to gasoline. There's a much safer approach, that's tried and true for 3 thousand years - the path of Meditation.

Yogananda spent a lot of effort to get to a point of non desire and non attachment through a) Affirmations b) meditation c) yoga.

Either way, Crowley was also in the the same vein that Desire and Attachment MUST be overcome.