That's Only Something You Can Decide

Existentialist Ethics in application to Mysticism and the Great Work. This writing is inspired by personal gnosis, so please use your discretion and take what resonates and leave what doesn't.

"That's only something you can decide."

Hermes Diaktoros pierces His sharp gaze into mine, meeting my eyes as He answers the question I ask myself everyday:

"Am I living my life 'right'? What even is 'right' for a mystic?"

I know that this is all but a dream - my life will flash before my eyes someday as my physical form transmutes into that of a shade. There is a recycling into The Great One of the Night of Time - an eternal dance exercised through various macrocosmic and microcosmic moving parts all composed in and of Itself. The usurpation of myself into the Return of the Cosmos into itself. I surrender.

The value of my life is not diminished in any way despite the small and seemingly insignificant finite spatio-temporal scheme I find myself "trapped" within. Only, I wouldn't say I am "trapped" in matter - once you arrive at certain destinations of the Mind - where ends meet beginnings only disguised as distinction. Life, death, rebirth. The "you" that you think you are disappears under the flames of epiphany.

This reality is the stage and altar where Will and Imagination meet - this is where I exact action meeting philosophy. Even the motions of the most mundane tasks are infused with Will informed with Higher Knowledge. However, I find myself haunted by this pursuit and endeavor. Everyday, through the fires of self-initiation, I return to carve into the sculpture of myself envisioning what I can see as my potential. This is no light task.

The question begs my mind again:

Am I living my life "right"? What would Hermes think?

Hermes inhales and releases His breath. He expresses the patience of a Teacher and Guide as He directs the miniscule particle of sand that is my Soul through the Hourglass. I am in the throws of constant motion, ephemerality, change, and destruction inherent in the finite reality. Trying to stretch my Being into the Light, my hands grasp clinging onto what is real, eternal, and Good.

With a soft knowing smile lit on His shining face, He begins:

"It is me and you. Me through you. This is your compass. This is me through you."

"It is like this for you and for all of my flock and cult," He gestures His hand to the fields of wandering Souls and devotees belonging to Him exploring the varying planes of existence.

"Humans crave certainty in a world defined by change, impermanence, and mystery. Many of you want answers - which in many ways, I admire." A small grin spreads on His face.

"This curiosity is a good thing - it spurs movement and the endless tinkering of ideas into creation. But to restrict yourself to the idea of only 'one' correct path or way of being set in stone is to miss a part of the picture. What exactly do you perceive I'm hinting at?"

He rests His chin on His hand and raises His eyebrows. He is picking into my brain for my answer.

"We determine ... ourselves? Through movements of the innate freedom we've been given?" I slowly articulate as I string together these implications.

His eyes crinkle mischievously as He points at me and gestures.

"Yes. And?"

Taking a couple seconds, I exhale and pause. I repeat Hermes's advice from earlier:

"That's only something you can decide," I continue as I draw my conceptions outwards.

"Our personal decisions and choices reflect the responsibility we carry as individuals who have innate freedom. How we choose to wield the force of freedom within us is where the power lies. Freedom carries a burden that can cause anxiety and anguish, but also represents the potential for the completion of The Great Work. Freedom carries the possibility of the achievement of authenticity and our highest potential. Our expression of Will, informed of both freedom, responsibility, and the opportunity for authenticity, can carry us to the heights if we so choose."

I breathe in and continue, experimenting with the stream of thought I let out into the Void of Objectivity - Objectivity, as a notion, is in fact: Void.

"There is no 'one' correct answer or path for us to achieve. This is something that the individual determines and answers for themselves. As the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre spoke, freedom is what creates value to ethical choices in that 'it is the very condition of their action, for they first contemplate several options, and, in choosing one of them, realize that its only value lies in the fact that it was chosen.'"(Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism, 27)

This is the weight of freedom. Through our expression of choice, our actions quite literally speak for themselves. When I align my behaviors in accordance with Xenia or Reciprocity, my actions demonstrate that I believe in those values. The moving stream of freedom that we use to carve out who we are is where our power and creativity lies.

I turn to Hermes, beginning:

"There is no 'one' right way to live our lives. With that, there is no 'one' right way to experience you, Hermes."

"If we look deep enough within ourselves, to this Secret Room that we share with you, we arrive at a Well of Knowing through our connection with you forged through the flames of devotion and light of inspiration. This can become our compass, informing our decisions."

"Our answers are delivered not in pre-established determination. But through movements of freedom that we enact into our reality. We learn what resonates in harmonious accord with our Souls, discovering authenticity in the process, which enables us to learn to listen to our intuitive knowing of what aligns us."

"We create our own meaning. Some mystics are meant to be artists and others mathematicians, psychologists, nurses, oracles, waitresses and more. All are valid. Others are Platonists, Hermeticists, folk practitioners, animists, or exercise dual (+) faith. Some choose ceremonial magick and others opt for pure reconstructionist-based praxis in Hellenism. At the end of the day, it makes no difference for these choices represent assertions of our freedom in a universe that is so mysterious that there are no objective answers present for us to abide by. As Simone de Beauvoir explains through her concept of existentialist ambiguity, 'to say that it [meaning] is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed, that it must constantly be won.'"(Beauvoir, 13)

"When we feed our perspectives into this idea of 'one' 'right way' of living, we alienate ourselves from our own unique gnosis - a glimpse of Sight gifted from the Gods."

Works Cited:

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism Is a Humanism. 1946. Translated by Carol Macomber, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2007.

Beauvoir, Simone de. The Ethics of Ambiguity. Citadel Press, 1948.

Picture: Sea Creatures, Pamela Colman Smith. 1907. jpg. image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons