Those who cannot master themselves seek to master the world, but it does go deeper. Those who will not master themselves succeed in mastering the world.
“And lose their soul”? No, not without falling from the path. For those who understand the role of the will in suffering, realize that their will is the same as the will of all powers and events that afflict them, the beast that would prey upon them, and the human who would be preyed upon, they find in their own ambitions and desires a mirror for the dance of the divine powers, and they dance with them. Karma yoga in a sense. Which doesn’t mean they leave their own will alone after this insight. They continually apply their will as an offering to the greater divine. Each great act they undertake is still swept away in the storm of the world’s passions, but they leave an echoing gap in the wake of each passage of change they initiate. No room is so silent as the one you stand in after a storm. Those on the dark path seek to realize consciously what others forget in the grips of Maya or illusion. That we incarnated for our own satisfaction. The ultimate satisfaction being the complete extinction of desire.
So, continually will that your suffering (or whatever) contribute to the Greater Divine? Yes. Realize that the Atman (lower self) and the Brahman (higher self) are one.
As a paraphrase of Kierkegaard’s ‘Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing…’ So, also a paraphrase of Kant’s categorical imperative — except on a cosmic level, not merely human interactions. Another form of purity is to have willed all things to the point of their mutual negation, though on the surface it looks anything but pure. If you fail, fail wilfully. If you succeed, succeed wilfully.
But isn’t extinction of desire that dust in the wind you were referring to? Actually, extinction of desire is the creative act itself.
When you achieve that point, your Atman, or personal self, implodes in a blaze of creative glory like a super nova, and all things take on that offering to their betterment in the unfolding of the next cycle. A more crass way of putting it, and misleading if taken out of context is this, and it’s a simple question. What do the good know but what the evil teach them?
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~