Will and Intent - Class #1

7/21/2019 Will and Intent - Class #1

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Will and Intent – The Warrior’s Context

Hello and welcome to our course on Will and Intent. These are two words from a foreign language that belongs to a world very different from the one we normally inhabit. These words are also secrets buried in tarot, tools of awareness that shiftperception and intensify any life they enter.

What we are about to do is challenge the architecture of normalcy itself, the structure of ordinariness built directly into our eyes and ears and all our senses and sensibilities fromthe moment of our birth to this moment. Nothing stands outside of that structure unlessyou are a very rare person indeed.

Even someone who lives an unusual life will be contained in the structures of the threedimensions of space and the one dimension of time. That person will know good fromevil, the physical from the mental and spiritual, pleasure from pain, and all the otherparameters of the ordinary. Everyone will pursue what they value and enjoy and avoid

what they dislike and fear.

Even those deemed crazy by their peers will wear their shoes on their feet and theirgloves on their hands, unless they are trying to make a point of their madness. Of course,these are generalities to which there are occasional exceptions, but in general, they holdup very well. They bind us all in a tyranny so pervasive as to be virtually beneath notice.

But within the encompassing ordinariness itself, a hint of restlessness stirs here and therecontinously. If a whisper of the possibility of freedom occurs, a few will respond to it by

listening, by taking a chance on what would seem to be absurd on the face of it. If youare in this class, you may well be among those few.

All we can do here and now is open a discussion on such matters. We will surely not beable to close it. The time we have is too short and words alone are not sufficient. What we can and will do is begin. You can, if you wish, continue on your own with what wehave begun together.

The Tarot School

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www. TarotSchool.com



Will and Intent – Class #1

The first class in this course is called The Warrior’s Context.

The Warrior’s Context

1) You could say that there are two contexts — two reasons — for living. The first is thecontext of everyday. The second is the context of infinity.

2) Four variations on the context of everyday can readily be found in the traditionalattributions of tarot symbolism with which all experienced students of tarot are familiar.They cover between them the hopes and fears of our everyday lives and the strengths and weaknessess we use to deal with them.

3) The same suits and their symbolism describe four variations on the context of infinity,but not many students of tarot know that. These variations are embodied in four

magnificent paths associated with the suits and their incarnation as types of humangreatness:

• The incarnation of the path of Water and the way of the Cup is the saint, who finds God in the context of holiness.

• The incarnation of the path of Air and the way of the Sword is the sage, who finds enlightenment in the context of detachment.

• The incarnation of the path of Earth and the way of the Pentacle is the

gentleman, who finds perfection in the context of virtue.

• The incarnation of the path of Fire and the way of the Wand is the warrior, who finds freedom in the context of infinity.

4) These contexts contain, implicitly or explicity, almost all that we consider as we liveour lives. Think for a moment. Which pleases you more — infinity and its variations oreveryday?

5) Whichever you chose, or even if you chose both, Will and Intent are two tools of awareness that help in both contexts. They are specifically warrior’s tools.

6) In the context of infinity, discipline and persistence are essential for any progress. Inthe context of everyday, luck and karma are often enough to achieve a goal or desire.

7) An intense and powerful life in either context is a self-evident good for some but notfor others. How do you feel?




8) Will and intent lead to an intense and powerful life. Once understood in warrior’sterms, they can be implemented as aspects of tarot.

The Warrior’s Explanation

The world is not the way it is because that’s the way it is. It is assembled, organized andmaintained. The world that you experience is not the only world there is. It could beassembled, organized and maintained quite differently. Then the world would be quitedifferent. The very laws of nature might be quite different.

We could say this without being wrong. Others have said it, and others yet have deniedit. It can’t be proved or disproved. It can be experienced, but so can its opposite. It’s only a story, but it’s a powerful one with the potential for intense results.

The story is that the world is an energetic construction, capable of a practical infinity of organization into specific forces, forms, laws and appearances.

The energy of the world is aware. It manifests as a myriad of forms that are aware, eachin their own way. Each form arises like a bubble in the dark sea of awareness, and isconnected to the sea over the whole surface of its being. At every point of connection,the energy of the sea is absorbed and assembled differently, and experienced accordingly. We can call each such point of connection an assemblage point. Only one assemblage pointcan be experienced at any one time, and only one world can be assembled through it.

A human being is a form like that, and perceives the world as it is assembled by only onesuch point, which humanity as a whole fixed in position long ago.

The fixing of the assemblage point for all humanity is accomplished by reason, and itsservant, speech. Our familiar world comes into existence as a particular range of energetic possibilities which we interpret and maintain with our constant internal dialog.

Perhaps we could say that together we all sing our familiar world into existence with an

incessant chorus, like the description we’ve heard about the angels who constantly sing God’s praises in heaven.

This chorus, made of the entire ensemble of our peers, sings a perpetual song. It is thesong of the world, what it is and how it is made. We hear the song of the world from themoment we come into it, and we soon learn to experience and participate in the worldthe song describes.




Because the song never ceases, even for an instant, we learn to sing it ourselves. Webecome a part of the chorus that perpetuates it. The world as it appears to us is kept inplace by our own endless repetition.

This world is not unreal. It is just one of many. Within ourselves, we assemble energy into a particular set of sensory data from a single point of connection on our energeticbody. Our reason then organizes the evidence of our senses into perceptions, which itthen interprets. Interpretations are arranged into classes, and routine responses of allkinds are developed into the habits that make and fix the appearance of the world we seeand live in.

We learn from birth to see and experience only interpretations of perception. This habit isso strong in us that it substitutes entirely for directly seeing energy as it flows in theuniverse. Even the possibility of such direct seeing is routinely denied, and not seeing

becomes a pervasive and continuous condition.

But human beings have the ability to shift the assemblage point and gain the totality of themselves. Any human being is capable of this. All of us have the ability to see energy directly without interpretation.

Shifting the assemblage point gives access to entire worlds differently made than ours,real worlds in which one can live and die.

If you could stop your internal dialog, you could stop the world as it appears. That is the

first step you would need to take to recreate the world by reinterpreting it, or to enterentirely new worlds by shifting you assemblage point. This sometimes happens naturally but briefly during sleep or illness, or under the influence of psychotropic drugs. It canalso occur intentionally through shamanic and other practices.

To have this as an ability ready to hand when you want it takes extraordinary circumstances, even more extraordinary teachers, and years of hard work to learn. Andthe combination of factors that could give you such a result cannot be produced by wanting and pursuing it, so it is reserved for very few.

But we can learn to stop our internal dialog, reinterpret the evidence of our senses,reduced the amount of routine and habit in our lives to a very small amount, and learnto live more powerfully.

Even this is difficult, and because it is difficult, it requires an extraordinary motivation as well as some unfamiliar tools of awareness. Hearing about this isn’t the same as doing it,but it’s a start.




We said earlier that the energy of the world is aware. In fact, we called it the dark sea of awareness, a name coined by others far away and long ago.

They saw that this original energy increases its awareness of itself by challenging theawareness of the individual forms it creates. Ever-increasing awareness in individual livesmakes for ever-increasing awareness in the universe at large. For each of us, the challengeof being alive is to be increasingly conscious and aware. And challenge produces struggle.

The struggle of the average person is within the finite frame of the world he assemblesand maintains by reason and talk. When this struggle takes all of his attention, he has noincentive to struggle with the infinite.

Every organic being is on its way to dying, a dissolution of personal awareness. A clearand constant consciousness of this makes the terms of living very different and much

larger.

When you know without a doubt that you are not immortal, you will not live as thoughyou are. When you know that every moment may be your last, you will not live in thebelief of a tomorrow. Every moment is lived with the intensity of the only moment youhave and your struggle is with infinity. You live under an imperative to function withininfinity, not within the limited set of standard interpretations and responses that makeup daily life.

This is easy to say, but, in an ordinary life, it is not easy to know. To know this is to

make death your ally instead of your enemy.

It has been observed that the energy that flows in the universe is not only aware butsupremely intelligent. It possesses the intention to become all possible worlds and themeans, or will, to do it.

The direction of the flow of energy is called intent. Seeing and following the current of intent is called intending. To face the challenge of infinity, to struggle with infinity, youneed your death as an ally. Your world must be assembled and interpreted by intent

rather than by reason, and maintained by will rather than talk.

To function in the awareness of infinity is to ultimately gain the totality of yourself. Itcould be said that this is the intent of tarot. Then, your world is literally made of intentand intending, and your life is an act of will. Functioning completely in a world of willand intent has been called “being impeccable.”




Impeccability in a warrior can lead to maintaining individual awareness beyond thedissolution of the organic structure in death, a practical form of immortality. But whether or not that ultimate result is attained, such a life is vastly more intense andpowerful than the average life.

For most of us, such a life can only be an ideal. But to set the terms of our struggle within infinity, to invoke the powers of will and intent, can be done in varying degreesand with good effect. We can recreate the world and reinvent ourselves much for thebetter.

We begin our lives in the context of the everyday and only by a shift of awareness can we enter the context of infinity. A warrior accomplishes this shift, in part, by stopping the world.

Let’s do an exercise now which will begin to quiet the internal dialogue that holds our world in place. It is called Stopping the Song of the World . This will not be a meditationbecause you will need to stay awake and alert and in the moment, but it may take anexercise of will to keep from drifting off or falling asleep.

First get comfortable. Close your eyes, breathe and relax...

With your eyes still closed, listen to the sounds of the world around you, whatever they are. Listen, but do not mentally identify the sounds or comment on them...

As you continue to listen, let each sound become an unidentified energy that flowsaround and through you. Spend some time with the energy of the sounds of the world asthey sing to you in their own original voice...

Return to your normal state of awareness, and when you are ready, open your eyes.

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We are done with our first class in our course on Will and Intent. Between now and

when we get together again, here is a simple exercise you can practice that will shift yourawareness slightly if you can do it, and produce unexpected results.

For at least one full day, and preferably two, perform all your necessary physical activities without looking at the time. Don’t use your computer or other IT device at all. Don’trefer to a calendar, watch TV, listen to the radio, or read a magazine or newspaper of any kind. If you must do any of these things, do them only when truly necessary and only for the briefest possible time.

Will and Intent - Class #1

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