Tag Archives: discipline

They longed for philosophy, for synthesis. The erstwhile happiness of pure withdrawal each into his own discipline was now felt to be inadequate. Here and there a scholar broke through the barriers of his specialty and tried to advance into the terrain of universality. Some dreamed of a new alphabet, a new language of symbols through which they could formulate and exchange their new intellectual experiences.

Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game: (Magister Ludi) A Novel [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]

Hermetic quote Hesse The Glass Bead Game philosophy synthesis happiness pure withdrawl discipline inadequate scholar barriers speciality universality dreamed alphabet language symbols experience

Living with Siva

Living With Siva: Hinduism’s Nandinatha Sutras by Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, a 1991 paperback from Himalayan Academy, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Sivaya Subramuniyaswami Living with Shiva from Himalayan Academy

“Anyone can pursue a spiritual path for a weekend, even a year or two. but for a lifetime of enlightened exploration, a strict lifestyle must be developed which sustains effort and minimizes distractions. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami, an illumined master whose yoga order is on Hawaii’s tropical island of Kauai, offers a detailed and authentic way for followers, based on the tantras or traditional methods which Hindus have observed for thousands of years.

If you are ever uncertain about how rigorous to be with yourself, how to approach holy people or relate to members of the opposite sex, what to do about television, alcohol or your career, Living with Sivais for you. Its terse guidelines provide time-tested practices and disciplines for serious seekers.” — back cover

Theology is God-talk

Hermetic Library fellow Sam Webster has posted a discussion of the discipline of theology over on his Arkadian Anvil blog at “Theology is God-talk“.

“Theology is God-talk. It is a relatively recent discipline. They did not have this in ancient, pre-Christian times. They did philosophy and that served in the same role as what will become theology. When you wanted to discuss what is meant by myth and ritual, or what the world is, or how life should be lived, this was called by Pythagorus first ‘philosophy’, or the love of wisdom. Those called the ‘theo-logoi’ in the ancient world where the poets like Homer and Orpheus, and but at times even Empedocles and Plato, because according to Porphyry, they wrote allegorically and had hidden meaning in their writings, not because they wrote rationally. Philosophy had the exegetical task of trying to tease out the meaning buried in the poem and dialogues. The philosophers therefor developed methods for interpreting the poems and myths created by the theologians and developed all the major categories of what will become theological discourse, as well as the culture to critique them.” [via]

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst.

“After purification come contemplation and enlightenment, which are the special subjects of the second degree. Aforetime the candidate for the Mysteries, after protracted discipline and purification enabling his mind to acquire complete control over his passions and his lower physical nature, was advanced, as he may advance himself to-day, to the study of his more interior faculties, to understand the science of the human soul, and to trace these faculties in their development from their elementary stage until he realizes that they connect with, and terminate in, the Divine itself. The secrets of his mental nature and the principles of intellectual life became at this stage gradually unfolded to his view.” [via]

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst.

“We are told seven or more years was the normal period, though less sufficed in worthy cases. The most severe tests of discipline, of purity, of self-balance were required before a neophyte was permitted to pass forward, and a reminiscence of these tests of fitness is preserved in our own working by the conducting of the candidate to the two wardens, and submitting him to a merely formal trial of efficiency.” [via]

The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst.

“The first degree is also eminently the degree of preparation, of self-discipline and purification. It corresponds with that symbolical cleansing accorded in the sacrament of Baptism, which, in the churches, is, so to speak, the first degree in the religious life; and which is administered, appropriately, at the font, near the entrance of the church, even as the act itself takes place at the entrance of the spiritual career.” [via]

“they knew that, owing to the lack of that authority, bad characters were taking to the Yellow Robe; who, free from all wholesome discipline, committed evil deeds unchecked in the very Temples of the Master”

The Thāthanābaing By Ananda Maitriya. (Allan Bennett)

“they knew that, owing to the lack of that authority, bad characters were taking to the Yellow Robe; who, free from all wholesome discipline, committed evil deeds unchecked in the very Temples of the Master” [via]