10-02-2011, 11:28 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-07-2016, 12:36 PM by JustLikeYou.)
The Two Paths
I have nothing to add about the symbols of this card that the Law of One does not already cover, except perhaps that the triangles on the ground represent the diverging paths. Ra only hints at this. However, this card figures prominently in my experience. Any time I have the opportunity to insist that I am a certain way or I am not a certain way (“oh that’s just our Joseph, he’ll never change”), I see myself as having the opportunity to force my own vision of myself upon my unconscious mind. The book called The Secret might be useful to consider here: it is rife with opportunities to force one’s own vision of oneself upon the unconscious mind. So if I have a dream to be a wealthy musician, if it matters that much to me, I will accomplish this, unconscious mind be damned. I also have the option to respect whatever it is that the unconscious mind wants to give to me. Suppose it wants me to be a nomad. I may not find this out right away because I have been so busy courting it, showering it with love at each little aspect newly revealed, until one day I realize that most of my life, I haven’t lived in the same city for more than a couple of years at a time. The right hand path says, “hmm, I guess I’m a nomad. Cool.” While the left hand path says “I’m tired of being a nomad. You will give me the experience of a rockstar.”
This Archetype has been a prominent card in my experience lately, and I think it has everything to do with crystallizing an already open heart chakra. I’ve already pointed out that the disciplines of the mind which Ra details in Session 5 are nearly identical in content (though more extensive) to the Hawaiian practice of Ho’oponopono, a now famous technique of radical forgiveness. The Two Paths card depicts the mind presented with a Choice, and the content of this choice is nothing less that a decision to either accept or control. While we may perceive that acceptance or control is directed toward the other (and in many ways, it is), Ra is vigilant to always point out that “the other-self is also the self”. When you choose to love and forgive the other-self, you are choosing to love and forgive the part of yourself which the other-self represents. In fact, when Ra points out that one must forgive both other-self and self in order to stop the “inertia” of karma, one can draw direct correspondence between Ho’oponopono and the Ra Material: forgiveness of the other-self happens when you take full responsibility for the events in your life; forgiveness of the self happens when you accept what you have now taken responsibility for.
Just the opposite of these disciplines can be seen in the left-hand path, the path of the unconscious mind as prostitute. On this path, love and forgiveness are seen as weaknesses to be stifled and eliminated, and self-gratification is seen as fruit to be plucked at will (observe the grapes in her hair).
And yet the thrust of this card is not the Choice (though it is fundamentally structured by the Choice), but the result of making that choice. You might go through life forgiving and accepting some parts of yourself and attempting to subjugate other parts of yourself. From the perspective of the STO path, this is a lack of discipline in being consistent with the decision to accept. From the perspective of the STS path, this is a lack of discipline in being strong enough to reject the weak parts that crave acceptance. Ra refers to this phenomenon in 94.11 as the “many isles of positivity and negativity…in the archipelago of the deeper mind”. The Transformation of the Mind demands that one chooses a consistent approach toward the unconscious mind in order that the isles become consistently either positive or negative (depending on your Choice of polarity). Nevertheless, the mind cannot take its quantum leap forward and transform itself until it is willing to choose a path in relation to the Choice set before it. So, for example, if I find myself waffling between love and control in a relationship with a lover, I will not be able to achieve victory over myself (Great Way of the Mind) until I make a choice to either control or love and I commit myself fully to that choice by letting go of the hand of the other side of the polarity.
I have nothing to add about the symbols of this card that the Law of One does not already cover, except perhaps that the triangles on the ground represent the diverging paths. Ra only hints at this. However, this card figures prominently in my experience. Any time I have the opportunity to insist that I am a certain way or I am not a certain way (“oh that’s just our Joseph, he’ll never change”), I see myself as having the opportunity to force my own vision of myself upon my unconscious mind. The book called The Secret might be useful to consider here: it is rife with opportunities to force one’s own vision of oneself upon the unconscious mind. So if I have a dream to be a wealthy musician, if it matters that much to me, I will accomplish this, unconscious mind be damned. I also have the option to respect whatever it is that the unconscious mind wants to give to me. Suppose it wants me to be a nomad. I may not find this out right away because I have been so busy courting it, showering it with love at each little aspect newly revealed, until one day I realize that most of my life, I haven’t lived in the same city for more than a couple of years at a time. The right hand path says, “hmm, I guess I’m a nomad. Cool.” While the left hand path says “I’m tired of being a nomad. You will give me the experience of a rockstar.”
This Archetype has been a prominent card in my experience lately, and I think it has everything to do with crystallizing an already open heart chakra. I’ve already pointed out that the disciplines of the mind which Ra details in Session 5 are nearly identical in content (though more extensive) to the Hawaiian practice of Ho’oponopono, a now famous technique of radical forgiveness. The Two Paths card depicts the mind presented with a Choice, and the content of this choice is nothing less that a decision to either accept or control. While we may perceive that acceptance or control is directed toward the other (and in many ways, it is), Ra is vigilant to always point out that “the other-self is also the self”. When you choose to love and forgive the other-self, you are choosing to love and forgive the part of yourself which the other-self represents. In fact, when Ra points out that one must forgive both other-self and self in order to stop the “inertia” of karma, one can draw direct correspondence between Ho’oponopono and the Ra Material: forgiveness of the other-self happens when you take full responsibility for the events in your life; forgiveness of the self happens when you accept what you have now taken responsibility for.
Just the opposite of these disciplines can be seen in the left-hand path, the path of the unconscious mind as prostitute. On this path, love and forgiveness are seen as weaknesses to be stifled and eliminated, and self-gratification is seen as fruit to be plucked at will (observe the grapes in her hair).
And yet the thrust of this card is not the Choice (though it is fundamentally structured by the Choice), but the result of making that choice. You might go through life forgiving and accepting some parts of yourself and attempting to subjugate other parts of yourself. From the perspective of the STO path, this is a lack of discipline in being consistent with the decision to accept. From the perspective of the STS path, this is a lack of discipline in being strong enough to reject the weak parts that crave acceptance. Ra refers to this phenomenon in 94.11 as the “many isles of positivity and negativity…in the archipelago of the deeper mind”. The Transformation of the Mind demands that one chooses a consistent approach toward the unconscious mind in order that the isles become consistently either positive or negative (depending on your Choice of polarity). Nevertheless, the mind cannot take its quantum leap forward and transform itself until it is willing to choose a path in relation to the Choice set before it. So, for example, if I find myself waffling between love and control in a relationship with a lover, I will not be able to achieve victory over myself (Great Way of the Mind) until I make a choice to either control or love and I commit myself fully to that choice by letting go of the hand of the other side of the polarity.