Theos-Talk Archives (November 1998 Message tt00167)

[Allen]:
>I think it was Jerry who wrote:
>
>"To get a glimpse of why I harp on keeping ethics and morals in
>their proper place, try to keep the GV Model in mind. It describes
>a long series of upward and downward cycles with lots and lots
>of minor excursions in between. As we ride these waves, ethics
>and morals change drastically. Ethical and moral development is
>non-linear, Dallas. I am sorry if you can't accept this, but I believe
>that it is true even without your acceptance."
>

Yeah, that was me.


>Could someone please explain the second to last sentence, as I'm really
>pulled this way and that upon the practical side of ethical and moral
>development. I have recently read Crowley as saying, "We must understand,
>first of all, that the root of Moral Responsibility, on which man stupidly
>prides himself as distinguishing him from the other animals, is
Restriction,
>which is the Word of Sin"
>

I have an article on moral development in the latest Theosophy World
that may help. Its too big a subject to go into here in any but a terse
way that may help, but may confuse even more. Basically, the model
suggests that there is a downward arc into matter and an upward arc
into spirit. Within these two major arc, are countless spirals and cycles.
Whenever we are going upward into spirit (please take "upward"
symbollically) then it is immoral to be selfish and we need to develop
compassion for others. Whenever we are going downward into
matter/manifestation it is immoral to worry about others and moral
to be selfish, and so on. The questions then become, what cyclic
direction am I currently going in? Why did I incarnate at this time?
What is my purpose in this lifetime? What is "right" or "wrong" for a
person depends on how that person answers these questions.
Crowley pretty much has the right of things when he says that the
only real sin in this world is restriction. If we fail to do what we came
here for because we worry about what others think, then we are
restricting ourselves and thus are in sin. Crowley called our inner
purpose (the driving force or kama that pulled us into incarnation)
our True Will. He taught that we each need to determine our True Will
and then set about to do it.  We are here today, in this life, not just
because our past karma made us come here, but also because
of a personal kamaic or impeling need or desire to do something.
With this in mind, anything that we do that takes us away from our
True Will is wrong and sinful. Anything that we do that gets us
closer to fulfilling our True Will is good and right and moral. Its a
different way of looking at ethics and morals, but it stems from the
idea of reincarnation and karma, and may have some truth to it.


Hope this helps.

Jerry S.