The One Ring; the Limits of Objectivity; One Leash for Many Necks.
"There is no[-]thing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" ~ Hamlet
'Ring Wraiths' by Andrew Baker
To cultivate Objectivity is a vital part of one's maturation. It is the way in which we develop and discern what is true from false. To hold both sides of an argument without committing to either is the essence of true Magick.
However, one must then intuit for one-self what is true. One cannot stay in the realm of objectivity if one is to forge their own path forward, and discern their most auth(or)entic course.
Whilst objectivity is one most crucial tools available to our growth, we must also innerstand its limitations, if we are not to become paralysed by rationality. To remain locked in an ambiguous state is to become mummified, neither living nor dead...
For example, Art cannot be objectively analysed, for it is an emotional, intuitive response evoked within which elicits the Value of the work. To THINK otherwise is to fall under the SPELL of the left brain: the will to power.
The will to power seeks to devalue the individual experience of another as we saw with Pratchett's witches, the "my way or the highway", the "holier than thou", the Master ment(e)-all-ity, is to be cut off from Source (RIGHT brain) which, when attuned to, seeks the nuturement(e) and subjective value and perspectives of all Beings. It is this holistic, internal compass which sees and Inner, Over and Understands the Whole.
This is the fundament-all distinction between the will to power Vs Will to Meaning. One seeks dominion over Life, whilst the latter encourages unique, Sovereign expression and experience of the Tao; of the Life Force.
'Sauron' by Naci Caba
"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them" ~Tolkien
It is vital to innerstand that Sauron ('The Deceiver'), Saruman, nor even their precursor Melkor ('He Who Arises in Might')/ Morgoth ('The Black FoE of the World')/ Lucifer (The Adversary of Man) began with the intention of corrupting, or subverting the Will of Life and the Creative Intelligence underlying all. They did not start by envisioning a world of democide (death by government), murder, or slavery.
"Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter when the Promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath a clear blue Sky? Goodbye, blue sky" ~ Pink Floyd
All these adversarial forces began with the intent of making better the Grand Design/ Infinite Potential they saw un/enfolding. They sought to outdo a Parental Force which, as is natural of children, they grew envious of*.
All these adversarial incarnations sought to force their own vision of a better, more beautiful world (Lucifer was renowned for his Beauty) on Creation. However, in their will to power, in their egocentric delusions, they departed further and further from the Truth at the Centre of All. They DE-CIDEd ('to cut off from') what they THOUGHT should be the Fate of All. They grew apart, at least in their own thinking, from the Cosmic Plan.
They became deluded, for one cannot be divided from Creation.
This is one ability of THE Intelligence granted to all sentient beings: to make either a heaven or a hell, through alignment with Soul, or through a (perceived) separation from it. Once one falls/ divides in their Being, one cannot help but project this disharmony onto others and the world. Once one murders their connection to SELF (The Creative Source), murder - in any of its multitudinous forms - is the ultimate destination of the Fall from Grace; from The Garden.
'Ring Wraith' by Andrew Baker
"I do not deny that my heart has greatly desired this. In place of a dark lord you would have a queen. Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn. Treacherous as the Sea. Stronger than the foundations of the Earth. All shall love me and despair." ~ Galadriel
The Adversary's twisted vision of a united, ordered, con-trolled real-ity gives us a clear perspective on the root of their pathology. How could reality ever be divided, un-ordered or without control? How could the Beauty and the MyStory - not HisStory - of Life ever be anything other than how it "ought" to Be, when it IS a Whole unto itsSelf?
This is the psychosis that the One Ring brought: the allure of creating one leash for many necks by the "right" master; the one with the "right", "correct", all-knowing vision of how things "ought" to be.
And this is the shotgun to the head of Collectivism/ Socialism/ Communism/ Fascism (all one pathology). To worship these ideologies is to negate the creative flow of Life itsSELF.
How can we know, ultimately, what is true for another? How can one's experience of Life be more correct than another's, when ALL is Life? To THINK otherwise - and we've all done it - is to devalue an equal part of the Whole, and in doing so to divide one's Self from God/ Creation/ Tao/ Spirit/ Source/ Whatever.
"The road to hell", Marx wrote, "is paved with good intentions".
Through the Law of Correspondence, one innerstands that this is not Souley a Hell manifested in the external dimension, but also (and perhaps fundament-ALL-y) a Hell of one's own making, internally. A sickness of the Soul, purely of its own iMAGIning; to perceive itsSELF as separate; the World imperfect; Reality as un(w)HOL(l)Y.
Individually, we only hold the Whole Truth in so much that we ARE an expression of that Truth. We may be able to perceive reality more clearly than an-"other" as our under/innerstanding deepens, but there WILL always be a Truth that Overstands the individual players: THE Conductor; THE Prime Mover; THE Soul of Souls.
We are limited in our Knowing for the Soul Purpose of experiencing, SUBJECT(l)ively, the Wonder and MyStory of the Wyrrd enfolding.
God must forget that HeShe is ALL in order to for Consciousness to evolve; with no forgetting, there is no re-member-ing
WIthout challenge there is no growth.
Without duality/ polarity there is no experience.
Without THE Enemy, there can be no HERO.
We KNOW that we are on the Right path when there is no urge to con-troll, limit or devalue the experience of another.
We KNOW that we are in HARMONY with THE SYMPHONY when we look to understand the experience of another, rather than alter it, no matter how righteous the motive we may iMAGIne.
Look first to your own innerstanding of THE Plan and your part in it; all else is Deception; all else is Delusion, albeit an important part of the maturation process.
Cultivate objectivity, but do not become mummified by it.
Seek your own Knowing and cultivate your inner guidance system; your Inner Oracle yearns to be allowed to blossom.
~ A.J. Dunbar
*This is an important psychological and developmental urge - the will to power isn't, essentially, a negative drive. It encourages differentiation, ambition, maturity. But when it becomes arrested, the true state of Man as co-creator - the Will to Meaning - is never reached.