Nothing, and the Nature of Moral Valuation

The following is a response to an entry on ShepJoe's LJ.

...displaced from the Nothing into the Something. It's as irrevocable as thermodynamics: more, it's the means by which Universe postpones total entropy. Existence is a loss of perfection; the re-attainment of that perfection is the concert and chorus of being. We are HERE TO GO!

It was asked WTF I was on about. This explains it. sort of.

Disclaimer: What follows reflects my present understanding; All claims are subject to change, with or without Gnosis.

Oneness is not a unity, it's a dependency, requiring the contrast of less and more to define it's existence. Nothingness is a true unity, with no such dependencies: It's non-existence is entirely self contained. At the moment of a being's injection into the system of the world, we are displaced from the Unity of Nothing, and are defined by what we are not as well as what we are. The mathematical Zero is not the same as Nothing. read some of my fumblings around with these kinds of nothing here. But really, you're probably better off wrestling around with it yourself. It's a really nice kind of brain-hurt.

Let's pin this to the Tree of Life, for convenience:

The three degrees of nothing (Ain, Ain Sof and Ain Sof Aur), in conjunction with the Supernal Triad and their formulae illustrate this.

Ain=000. The perfected nothing, the purest form of not, which is, for those of us who exist, impossible to grasp. It's so nothing as to be even beyond the concept of Nothing. It's the Mighty Nothing That Ain't. I don't know that even the greatest mystics and magickians have fully comprehended Ain while on this plane. Ain transcends even the limitless nothing of the Ain Sof=00, both by containing it, and being completely distinct from it.

Ain Sof: The Nothing that sort-of-exists. It is here that the descent into matter pre-begins. The demi-urge of BEING almost starts to take form in the Ain Sof. It's a transitional nothing, and ALMOST the beginning of the formation of the descent into matter. The nothing that precedes the moment before the Big Bang. Space-Time isn't even a glimmer in its Eye. In the moment of its recognition of its notness, it Ain Sof Aurs (yes, I verbed that. I think it's important. You decide.)

Ain Sof Aur is. Our mathematical Zero. The Dynamic nothing. It is Pure Will, without form, intention without direction. It's the whitespace on the page preceding "In" of Genesis (KJV). Ain Sof Aur is the instant before the Big Bang. It's the Nothing that must BE-come. A process without an object. Purest potential. The Zero of pure anticipation of the ONE. The moment of critical non-mass. Ain Sof Aur explodes into awareness and becomes ONE! TWO! TEN! FINITY! The Limitless Light of non-pointedness becomes the quantum singularity that begins Universe. Welcome the the descent into matter.

So, at last, we have a definable NOTHING. Where the Ain and Ain Sof are necessary and intuitable, the Ain Sof Aur is a definable non-existence. It's the 0=2 formula. 0 equals 2 because it requires itself (non-being) and 1 (being) for it's definition. Perfect dependency, each the absolute REQUIREMENT of the other. Love (0=2). Under Will (Ain Sof Aur). This is reflected in increasing degrees of imperfection all the way down the Tree into Malkuth, each Sephira depending, for it's very existence, on the Sephirot above it, until it all piles up down here in Malkuth, which is ultimately dependent for its existence.

Now, back to ShepJoe's post.

Good things go bad when they are displaced against their will.
Good things get VERY BAD if there are too few or too many of them.
Good things get VERY VERY BAD if they can not relate to each other properly€
(and their degree of association is weakened)
Just by being born we are displaced

In birth, we are displaced, from whatever level of consciousness we came from, into Universe/Malkuth, with all it's apparent trials, travails and joys - all of which have apparent limits, owing, I think, to the kinds of created and manifest beings we are down here (check out David Hume for a view of this matter). This is a defect of perception in the material world. But we are also able to intuit or sense our participation in the Whole of Being, the Great Work.

The perception of Good and Evil is a feature of this limited apprehension of the Great Work, attributing human-created moral values to things and actions based on our limited apprehension and understanding of how they help or hinder us in our attempts to accomplish the Work, or even to simply fulfill our mere desires. The Nitzschean superman, who is "Beyond good and evil" has only seen through this first portion of the veil- that moral valuations are merely human. The Mystic and the Magickian see that as yet another human truth, however much progress it represents, and seek to go further- that is, to seek the Source, the ultimate Unity of Nothing, wherein all things are possible without limit, and in Unity, are limitless light and possibility made Manifest. The full apprehension and mastery of this is ultimately the redintegration of matter itself into the Ain.

To address the mention of Thermodynamics, I used it as a metaphor for the process which fuels the re-uptake of descended matter into it's final Unity. If Malkuth were completely disconnected from the Divine nothing, no-one would be able to intuit it. WORSE! entropy- the stopping of Universe and all process due to total lack of energy- would eventually win out, leaving matter in a permanent, unchanging stasis, that simply continues on in eternity, frozen and unredeemed. However! Through the intuition of the divine, and the potential of beings to act from the True Will, and possibly even fulfill it, we are able to access that primal moment of Ain Sof Aur, and "pull into" the material world the essential and creative force of CHANGE. Change is the energy of life, the fuel that keeps the fire burning, that gas in the tank. Hell, a Magickian is the Universal Gas Station Attendant, come to that. The Active principle that strains against passive acceptance of non-motion.

"We are HERE TO GO" is a paraphrase of Burroughs, which sums the above up with absolute brevity. It is the FIFTH of the Powers of the Sphinx: IRE.

To Know. To Will. To Dare. To Keep Silent. Above all, TO GO.

Unless we Go, there is no process, no creation, no movement. and without movement, there is no association. Association is inherently Relative, in the Einsteinian sense.

In other words, Shit Breaks Down.