Sharing Diamonds: The Motto of Saturn

 

This is the first post of a new series. In the introduction of IIH, Bardon mentions that in the past, aspiring magicians would often have to go through many books just to find one pearl of magical wisdom every now and then. Sometimes in my own writings, I try to share the pearls I have found during my esoteric readings. However, given that each of William Mistele's writings is an ocean of pearls, I could not possibly share all of them. The purpose of this series, therefore, is not to share the pearls, but rather the diamonds I find among the many pearls in William's writings. The particular diamond I am sharing in this post is contained in William's essay "Visiting the Planetary Spheres," which can be found here. The diamond is the following passage.

If Saturn had a motto it might be: “Be responsible for all your actions. Learn everything you can from life. Use your time on earth wisely so your life has a solid foundation and you reap the fruits that arise from living with integrity. Master your fate and your karma for therein lies freedom.”

Saturn should be of great interest to any aspiring magician. In fact, since Saturn oversees our limitations, our suffering, and our karma, anyone interested in understanding the need for limitations, suffering, and karma should take an interest in Saturn. Life is not all rainbows and sunshine. Life can be very dark sometimes, but when you understand Saturn, you understand the powers behind the darkness and therefore the darkness does not intimidate or overwhelm you. In regards to the specific aspect of life that is one's magical training, we should remember that magical training does not consist in doing whatever we want, but in limiting ourselves to a way of life and daily schedule that is conducive to advancement. Saturn oversees every aspect of magical training. Perhaps this is part of the reason some have called Bardon's training system a Saturn thing. Based on these reasons alone, a passage from William Mistele that summarizes the wisdom of Saturn in a few sentences is certainly something of immense value that should be carefully studied and contemplated. In this post, I will try to take this passage one sentence at a time. For now I will be giving only an extremely brief and terse commentary, since that is all I have time for at the moment, but really each sentence deserves not just its own post, but its own chapter in a book exploring this passage.

Be responsible for all your actions. 

Being responsible for all your actions means not blaming others or outside circumstances. These days, there are some psychologists who think that blame for one's actions can be placed on one's parents, or one's upbringing, or one's external circumstances. These things may certainly influence one's actions in some way, but one ultimately makes one's own decisions regardless of one's parents, upbringing, or external circumstances. To blame one's actions on others is truly a grave "sin" when it comes to magical training, because an irresponsible person is the last person Divine Providence would want to give magical power to. Becoming a responsible person begins with taking responsibility for yourself, and part of taking responsibility for yourself is taking responsibility for your actions. This subject of taking responsibility for yourself is discussed in more detail in William's other essay "Finding Saturn in Yourself," which can be read here.

Being responsible for all your actions also means being responsible for ALL your actions, mental and emotional as well as physical. Some people don't realize that every time they think a thought, they are engaging in a mental action. We have to take responsibility for what we think just as much as we have to take responsibility for the physical things we do. This means we should not allow ourselves to regularly think judgemental, vengeful, or otherwise unwholesome thoughts. Instead, we should regulate our thoughts carefully. For a better understanding of why this is so important, do some research on Daskalos's teachings on elementals.

Learn everything you can from life.

To learn everything you can from life, you must learn from everything in life. The following quote from Charlotte Joko Beck presents this idea very well.

Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor (or employee), every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath. Every moment is the guru.

Many people have a very limited idea of what spiritual practice is. They think it consists solely of sitting in padmasana breathing in unusual ways, visualizing mandalas, or chanting mantras. There is a place for those practices, if you are into that sort of thing. But until one begins to learn from everything life brings us at every moment, one's spiritual progress will be limited, even with all of these additional practices.

Learning everything you can from life requires an open mind. If you are so narrow-minded that you do not think it is possible to learn from a mosquito, or a red light, or an obnoxious coworker, then you certainly won't learn from any of these things or people. But if you are open-minded enough to think that you can learn from everyone and everything, regardless of whether it is a rude Facebook comment, a spiritual master who has attained theosis, a spam call, the experience of being a victim of lashon hara, a defective product, or a kind gesture from a stranger, then you will learn from all of these things and all of these people. In the emails I send to the Christian Hermetics email list, I often mention that prelest is a major danger for those working through IIH. Someone once asked me if it's possible to learn anything from a spiritual practitioner who is in a deep state of prelest. Christ tells us that we should not follow such people (Matt. 15:14). But that doesn't mean we can't learn from them. When questioned about his decision to hire Lockhart, Dumbledore replied, "There is plenty to be learned even from a bad teacher: what not to do, how not to be." As this quote shows, it is possible to learn from bad teachers without following them, and this is something we should strive to do. That said, from a Zen perspective, perhaps the bad teacher in this case is not the main teacher. The main teacher is the experience of meeting the bad teacher. Similarly, the experience of receiving the spam call is the true teacher, rather than the spam call itself. The same goes for the experience of interacting with an annoying coworker, the experience of being stopped at a red light, and the experience of being targeted by a rude comment on Facebook. If we examine our inner reaction to such experiences, then that is when we really start to learn. This is real spiritual practice. Let's say we meet a Buddhist teacher who thinks he is Maitreya and is going around claiming to be Maitreya, or we meet a Christian teacher who thinks he is Christ and is going around claiming to be Christ, or we meet a very emotionally reactive or conceited person who thinks he has worked through IIH and is going around claiming to be an initiate. Such people are likely in a deep state of prelest, and from them we can certainly learn how not to behave. But we can also examine the inner reaction we have upon meeting such people. Is it a judgemental reaction? What assumptions do we make about these people? Where do these assumptions come from? How do these assumptions lead us to react the way we do? The self-knowledge we acquire from asking such questions provides us with the most important information. 

This sentence is a very multifaceted one. There are many possible interpretations of what it means to learn everything you can from life. The particular Zen-based interpretation I have emphasized here is not the only one, but I think it is a good one for those who want to get started applying the wisdom contained in this sentence. Perhaps the most important question is not what this sentence means to a Zen practitioner, but what this sentence means to Saturn, after all, it is part of the motto of Saturn. To figure out what this sentence might mean to Saturn itself, I recommend reading the Saturn section of the previously-linked essay "Visiting the Planetary Spheres" or the Saturn/Binah chapter of Ten Rules for Spiritual Beginners.

Use your time on earth wisely so your life has a solid foundation and you reap the fruits that arise from living with integrity. 

Saturn rules over time, so of course part of Saturn's wisdom lies in using one's time wisely. Saturn is the bringer of death. When you die, what will you have accomplished? I'm not saying everyone needs to accomplish great things in the sense of building financial empires or becoming big shots in the world. But it would be good to accomplish great things in the sense of reaping many of the good fruits that come from living with integrity. In another of his essays, William calls introspection a "favorite activity of Saturn." Many of us like to believe we live with integrity, but introspection teaches us what sort of person we really are. Of course what sort of person we are isn't nearly as important as what sort of person we are becoming. That depends on how we live our lives. To live with integrity means to live a life that is aligned with our values. One may value humility but regularly think judgemental thoughts of others. One may value compassion but regularly use Facebook's laugh react to mock others. One may value open-mindedness but regularly argue with people who hold ideas different from one's own. I'm not saying such people don't really value humility, compassion, or open-mindedness. What I am saying is that they lack integrity. Of course in saying this I am undoubtedly hypocritical. People who live a life that is perfectly aligned with their values are rare, and I am certainly not one of them.

Master your fate and your karma for therein lies freedom.

This sentence ties into the first two sentences. Fate and karma are our teachers. If we do not learn what they are trying to teach us, then we can never be free of them, and we certainly can't master them. Therefore, we should try to learn our major life lessons. If we learn everything we can from life, then we will certainly learn our major life lessons in the process. As for freedom, the existentialists taught that we are free to the extent that we take responsibility for ourselves. I think Saturn would agree. Part of taking responsibility for oneself is taking responsibility for one's actions.

When it comes to freedom, I think it's a good idea to remember Christ's words - "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). All of our life lessons ultimately point us towards the truth, and when one sees the truth, one will naturally take responsibility for oneself. Those familiar with Daskalos's teachings may know that his version of the Lord's Prayer contains an esoteric second verse given to him by his spiritual teacher Yohannan (John the Evangelist). This second verse asks God to "enlighten our minds to understand you as the truth." Truly, prayer is a powerful tool for those who seek the truth and freedom through the truth.